Feminist Gift Economy & Indigenous World Views: Understanding Institutionalization and the Social Construction of Motherhood

Critical social analysis helps us to understand the ways that institutional practices and policies reproduce power imbalances to serve the interests of the elite. However, very little critical theorizing addresses the life-alienating characteristics of these systems. I will discuss the ways feminist gift economy and Indigenous world views allow for a deeper analysis of the ways institutions disrupt, subvert, and deny life-processes. With reference to my own engagement with education, welfare and court systems as a young, poor, single mother, I explore mother-child relationships as an expression of institutionalization and resistance.