Islamization of Zia Regime: An Appraisal from Gender Perspective

General Zia Ul Haq’s military regime is known, for many for its blatant violation of human rights, hanging, flogging, and imprisonment of political workers. Even intelligentsia and journalists were executed for political reasons during this regime. However, his regime was particularly known for suppression of women rights in his process of Islamization. After deposing Bhutto by imposing Martial Law General Zia took over the helm of affairs of the country on the 5th of July 1977 and remained in power with full autocracy till 17th August 1988 when his plan was ablaze in the air near Bahawalpur. This study is an attempt to analyze the process of Islamization by General Zia, its causes, suppressive actions act against various segments of society especially women. The study is also an attempt to search for the answers to the question “Was his policy of Islamization a sincere effort to implement the Islamic system or merely politically motivated? The response of women against Islamization regarding gender-related laws is also a significant part of the paper. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to investigate and research the facts about the Islamization process and the struggle of women against it. The memoirs and interviews of participating women activists, scholars, and other leading figures have also been consulted to fill the leftover scholarly gap. Pakistan is predominantly a feudal and tribal nation with patriarchal beliefs and mindsets. In the South Asian region, religion has always played an essential role in the lives of ordinary men and women, although women have been enslaved and dominated in the name of religion far more than males.

Protective factors against tobacco and alcohol use among pregnant women from a tribal nation in the Central United States

Identifying social determinants of tobacco and alcohol use during pregnancy is critical to improving health outcomes for the next generation. This is especially important on a rural Tribal Nation where influences such as isolation, cultural barriers, and historical trauma have made it uniquely challenging to prevent substance use during pregnancy. The purpose of this study is to identify population-specific factors that are protective against smoking and drinking during pregnancy. We used data from 421 pregnancies collected as a part of the Safe Passages study from a rural Tribal Nation in the central United States. Pregnant women were classified as women who did not smoke (n = 84), women who quit during pregnancy (n = 23), women who smoked during pregnancy (n = 314), and women who both smoked and drank alcohol during pregnancy (n = 149). Demographic data revealed that 28.8% of the mothers were currently employed, and 91.8% of mothers reported a household income of less than $3,000 per year. Substance use rates were higher than national averages: 74.6% smoked during pregnancy and 35.4% of the women both smoked and drank alcohol during pregnancy. Five factors were identified as being protective against substance use during pregnancy: 1) living with someone (81% less likely to smoke and 92% less likely to smoke and drink), 2) having at least 12 years of education (128% less likely to smoke, and 126% less likely to smoke and drink), 3) having over 12 years of education (235% less likely to smoke, and 206% less likely to smoke and drink), 4) being employed (158% less likely to smoke, and 111% less likely to smoke and drink), and 5) not being depressed (214% less likely to smoke, and 229% less likely to smoke and drink). These social determinants should be considered for intervention research to decrease rates of substance use during pregnancy.

Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Among Native Americans: The Eagle Adventure Program

Eagle Adventure (EA), developed in collaboration between a Tribal Nation and university partners, is based on the Eagle Books published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The books and EA are based in the tradition of Native American storytelling and cultures but speak to all children. EA reinforces making healthy choices to grow-up healthy and prevent the development of type 2 diabetes. EA uses the socioecological model as a framework for program components and social cognitive theory constructs to address behavior change. Since 2010, over 6,000 students have participated in EA in partnership with numerous tribes throughout Oklahoma.

From Monmouth to Madoc to Māori

This essay examines how Indigenous research methodologies can be usefully applied to medieval texts. It does this by recounting and engaging with personal experience and by interrogating how research is deployed for colonial purpose. The use of medieval English texts by early modern and later colonial proponents and apologists, particularly John Dee, emphasize the inherent colonial purpose of traditional research methodologies. These processes are contrasted with Indigenous research methodologies, particularly those proposed by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, and the author’s own personal experience and that of his tribal nation of how Indigenous memory and inquiry can inform research practices that are relational and not exploitive.

Indigenous Teacher Education Is Nation Building: Reflections of Capacity Building and Capacity Strengthening in Idaho

This article discusses the efforts of the Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Education Program (IKEEP), at the University of Idaho, a predominately white institution (PWI) of higher education, and its struggle to create space in higher education for intentional support of Indigenous self-determination, sovereignty, and Tribal nation building through the preparation of Indigenous teachers. In doing so, we examine the contentious and local work of reimagining education, from the bottom up and top down, to develop leaders to serve the needs of Indigenous youth and communities through the vehicle of mainstream institutions. With data from a multiyear ethnographic documentation, we examine the experiences of IKEEP program administration, teacher mentors, and students through the conceptual lens of Tribal nation building in higher education. Our findings underscore how teacher education programs at PWIs need to engage in a radical shift toward seeing Indigenous teachers as nation builders and to prioritize the infrastructure and programmatic collaboration to support them and their communities as such.

Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities in the United States

Tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) are higher education institutions chartered by one or more tribal nation as an act of tribal sovereignty and self-determination. These institutions grew out of the social and political movements of the 1960s. The first TCU, Navajo Community College (now Dine College), was chartered in 1968. Currently, there are thirty-seven TCUs with seventy-seven campuses across thirteen states, with many campuses located on or near tribal reservations and communities. Overall enrollment across all TCUs is twenty-seven thousand and ranges from one hundred to one thousand within each respective institution. Degree offerings and services are responsive to identified community needs with all TCUs offering two-year degree programs and certificates. Currently, fourteen institutions have expanded several of their degree programs offerings into bachelor’s programs and five TCUs offer a master’s program. Similar to community colleges, TCUs are open admissions institutions. However, TCUs must maintain a majority American Indian/Alaskan Native full-time equivalent student enrollment to remain a member of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, the governing body of TCUs, and continue receiving federal funding. TCUs receive federal funding through the Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act of 1978 (renamed the Tribally Controlled College and University Assistance Act of 1978), and twenty-nine TCUs became land grant institutions through the Equity in Educational Land-Grant Status Act of 1994. TCUs are uniquely distinct higher education institutions whose mission statements and guiding principles embody the cultural knowledge, values, teachings, and histories of their respective tribal nation(s). TCUs’ missions are twofold: (i) to educate tribal members and (ii) to address tribally identified needs and priorities. Leadership and administration manage multiple duties/responsibilities in order to achieve the institution’s mission. Teaching is the priority for TCU faculty, but more faculty are conducting and producing research that is culturally guided and community- and place-based. Faculty have also produced culturally relevant models and frameworks in the spaces of student retention and success and environmental sustainability. Today, TCUs continue to work toward greater impacts within tribal communities and beyond through the development of new culturally-informed degree programs and curriculum, research across disciplines, appropriate collaborations, and American Indian/Alaskan Native student retention and persistence and transfer success at mainstream institutions.

Indigenous Destinies

Gerald Vizenor displays his playful wit and provocative theorizing of Indigenous creativity in Native Provenance (2019), a collection of essays adapted from material that appeared in other forms between 2004 and 2019. He uses familiar concepts (survivance, transmotion, gossip theory) to drive discussions of familiar topics (World War I veterans from White Earth, the White Earth constitution, Indigenous abstract expressionist painters). Devoted readers of Vizenor will appreciate but also wonder about the persistence in his work over many decades of certain topics and critical emphases. A decreased interest in crossbloods as trickster figures represents one of the most significant shifts in emphasis from the middle to the later part of Vizenor’s career. Louis Owens admired Vizenor’s work on crossbloods, and he lived an experience fundamental to his view of the world that he called, similarly, “mixedblood.” Yet, as many of the contributors to Louis Owens: Writing Land and Legacy (2019) demonstrate, Owens consistently recognized distinct Native and non-Native worlds in his scholarship and drew upon tribal nation-specific beliefs and practices in his novels. His characters often struggled to understand their connection to Indigenous histories, communities, and families, all of which Owens valued, even when they remained inaccessible, either to him or his characters.

Reproduction on the Reservation

This pathbreaking book documents the transformation of reproductive practices and politics on Indian reservations from the late nineteenth century to the present, integrating a localized history of childbearing, motherhood, and activism on the Crow Reservation in Montana with an analysis of trends affecting Indigenous women more broadly. As Brianna Theobald illustrates, the federal government and local authorities have long sought to control Indigenous families and women's reproduction, using tactics such as coercive sterilization and removal of Indigenous children into the white foster care system. But Theobald examines women's resistance, showing how they have worked within families, tribal networks, and activist groups to confront these issues. Blending local and intimate family histories with the histories of broader movements such as WARN (Women of All Red Nations), Theobald links the federal government's intrusion into Indigenous women's reproductive and familial decisions to the wider history of eugenics and the reproductive rights movement. She argues convincingly that colonial politics have always been--and remain--reproductive politics. By looking deeply at one tribal nation over more than a century, Theobald offers an especially rich analysis of how Indigenous women experienced pregnancy and motherhood under evolving federal Indian policy. At the heart of this history are the Crow women who displayed creativity and fortitude in struggling for reproductive self-determination.