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We are pleased to include public links to papers and presentations that are published elsewhere on the web. Additional material will be posted to our Member-only  Resources page.

2018 Conference papers:

#1 Genevieve Vaughan on the Gift Economy:

“We are born into a Gift Economy practiced by those who mother us, enabling us to survive. The economy of exchange, quid pro quo, separates us from each other and makes us adversarial, while gift giving and receiving creates mutuality and trust.”

Beyond Capitalist Patriarchy: the Model of the Maternal Gift Economy

The two parts of this paper were presented on March 17, 2018, at the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology Conference in Las Vegas, and on the following day, March 18, at the associated Modern Matriarchal Studies Day.

The paper presented on March 17 was part of the panel “Motherhood, Resistance, and Matriarchal Politics,” with co-presenters Vicki Noble and Heide Goettner-Abendroth.

 Genevieve also presented an earlier version of this paper on March 12, 2018, to the Cambridge Realist Workshop, Clare College, Cambridge University, in Cambridge, England in a shared Session with Professor Rajani Kanth.

Sherri L. Mitchell was born and raised on the Penobscot Indian Reservation, at Indian Island in Maine. A civil rights attorney, educator and advocate for women and children, Sherri serves as a legal analyst/advisor to Indigenous and Aboriginal groups across the United States and Canada. In 2009, Sherri’s work on nation-state complicity with Indigenous human rights violations won her the Maloney-Dunn International Human Rights and Humanitarian Award.  She has also received the Maine Governor’s Community Service Award (1996, 1997 and 1998) and the Spirit of Maine Award (2015).

Sherri is the Executive Director of the Land Peace Foundation, which provides legal assistance, dispute resolution and training programs to Indigenous populations and groups, in order to protect their human rights, homelands, sacred sites, resources and cultural way of life. The staff page reads,

We are accomplished advocates, negotiators and litigators who are committed to promoting a historically proven culture of sustainability that ensures the protection of the land, the people, environment and a way-of-life that is in harmony with the natural world. Through our work to protect indigenous lands, natural resources, sacred sites and fundamental human rights and freedoms we are ensuring the continuation of all life.

An alumni member of two prestigious American Indian Leadership Programs, Sherri is also a published poet, scholar and philosopher. She is most recently the author of Sacred Instructions; Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change.

María Veronica Iglesias: The Mesoamerican Goddesses: Ancient Archetypes supporting women who experienced violence of gender

This presentation aims to talk about ten Mesoamerican female deities, their symbolism and meaning as well as the way they were venerated in ancient Mexico and exploring a way in which the archetypes they represent support women who have experienced gender and sexual violence. This idea has been used in several workshops and the results have been positive; every woman who has participated in them has been renewed, with a different perception of her life and what could have happened to her.

This proposal also aims to re-evaluate indigenous knowledge and spirituality, specifically the Nahua tradition. This work represents also an alternative for many women who have ancestors of Mexican indigenous blood and who now live in the United States, it is an option to reconnect with their spirituality and ancient healing forms, which is a mechanism of female empowerment that embraces practices and the traditional knowledge of their native cultures. No doubt these ancient deities have many gifts for women today as they represent different facets of women’s lives within the patriarchal system and can help us live in harmony and heal the wounds of the soul and the feminine energy.

María Veronica Iglesias was born in Mexico City, has a Master’s Degree in Mesoamerican Studies. She was initiated in the sacred knowledge of Mesoamerican shamanism and became a bearer of the Sacred Word. A Priestess of Ix´Cheel, the Mayan Goddess of Medicine, Veronica researches Pre-Hispanic medicine, rites of passage and Goddesses from Mesoamerica.