What Indigenous Futurity Can Teach Us about Healing Sexual Violence for Minoritized Students in Higher Education

Abstract

Critical scholars of sexual violence in higher education have highlighted the inequities and gaps that Minoritized students face in their search for support after experiencing violence on campus. As described by critical scholar Harris (2020), “healing often mitigates negative outcomes that stem from experiencing sexual assault” (pp. 249). In this article, I first explain the importance of understanding spatial geographies in the context of sexual violence for Minoritized survivors on university campuses. Second, I explore the concept of spatial futurity broadly, specifically Laura Harjo’s scholarship on Indigenous Futurity, as a guiding framework to transform experiences of violence into tools of action and healing. Finally, I discuss the healing experiences of Minoritized sexual violence survivors from a qualitative study that utilized Indigenous Research Methods and focused on Harjo’s concept of Emergence Geographies to explore research and practical implications for sexual violence response in higher education for Indigenous and other Minoritized students.