From exile to resurgence: Rethinking justice through Indigenous Feminist storywork and relational ethics

This paper addresses a philosophical dilemma at the intersection of liberal feminist critique and male-centric Indigenist traditions—particularly in the context of Indigenous women. Through the storywork Archibald (2008) of Helen Vai’i Gorogo (Papua New Guinea) and Bhanu Bharti (India/Australia), we examine the ethical limitations of both frameworks. Liberal feminism, as typified by Okin (1989, 1999), highlights injustices such as forced marriage and domestic violence but often does so by invoking abstract universals that risk erasing Indigenous kinship, obligation, and belonging. Conversely, male-centric Indigenism may silence or legitimise gendered harm in the name of cultural sovereignty. In response, this paper develops an alternative approach: a place-sensitive, relational ethics of negotiation and reconciliation (RENR). RENR is grounded in Indigenous feminism, Gandhian non-violence, and relational philosophies (Anderson, 2011; Archibald, 2008; Moreton-Robinson, 2000, 2015; Shiva & Mies, 1993; Simpson, 2017; Sreekumar, 2022). RENR does not demand severance from culture nor blind loyalty to it. Instead, it centres on lived practice, moral negotiation, and care-based resistance. Helen and Bhanu’s narratives are not case studies but philosophical interventions that enact sovereignty, not through legal autonomy, but through love, relational accountability, and cultural transformation. Storywork becomes both a method and a theory of justice—rooted not in abstraction, but in gardens, classrooms, and kinship.