Their Two-Spirit Journeys


Mickey Doyley, King's University College

This research stems from interest in the impacts of colonialism and religion on gender, sexuality, and the roles individuals fulfill within our society, along with passion for creating textile art. We must understand that the term Two-Spirit exists to help the Eurocentric population of so-called Canada in their attempt to understand a part of Indigenous culture and existence that was unbeknownst to settlers. With this consideration, “Two-spirit identity is about circling back to where we belong, reclaiming, reinventing, and redefining our beginnings, roots, communities, support systems, and collective and individual selves. We ‘come-in’” (Wilson, 2016, p. 198). My original undergraduate research with four Two-Spirit (Laing, 2018) individuals uses Sharing Circles and individual interviews to explore how each person experiences culture, tradition, and Ceremony, including any “coming in” experiences (Wilson, 2016), as well as the impacts of colonization on their everyday lives. The final research product is a handmade piece of embroidery art honouring the stories of and representing the key research findings related to the embodied experiences of Two-Spirit participants. Through the participants’ truths, through their storied words and arts-based representations of their stories, this research explores how language contributes to (re)colonization and decolonization of Two Spirit journeys.

This paper will be presented at the following session: