Walking in Two Worlds

Before reconciliation became a political buzzword, Indigenous women were already leading through community, culture, and resistance. Yet dominant public discourse continues to frame Indigenous peoples primarily through crisis, relying on deficit-based narratives that obscure Indigenous knowledge, joy, and political leadership. It is the context of Indigenous knowledge rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing and being, while directly confronting the failures of reconciliation across Turtle Island, that Frances Elizabeth Moore grounds her work. This profile examines how Moore navigates patriarchal colonial systems while centring community as an Anishinaabe woman, offering an alternative leadership model amid Canada’s ongoing and deeply incomplete decolonization project.

Moore’s leadership is fundamentally relational. Grounded in Anishinaabe teachings, she has devoted much of her professional life to nonprofit organizations and grassroots movements, deliberately positioning herself outside formal political institutions (Kelly 2). As Moore explains:

Yeah, I play outside the system all the time… I’ve been asked to run for municipal politics… and I don’t want it. That’s largely because respectability politics come into play… politics now is a gotcha thing… it’s less about serving the people and what they need and what they deserve… That’s not me. I think politicians in particular forget that they serve community. And as such, they should be accountable to community. I recognize that my understanding and my dedication to that would be above and beyond somebody else's. And that's largely because it's influenced, obviously, by my initial identity and probably being a woman as well.

Rather than rejecting leadership, Moore redefines it, positioning leadership as service to community rather than authority within colonial political institutions. This refusal is not disengagement; it is a political choice. Moore rejects institutionalized leadership models premised on competition, transactional bargaining, and performative civility. Instead, she prioritizes ethical accountability to community over legitimacy within colonial political systems. Her leadership demonstrates that service, not status, defines political responsibility.

Yet working “outside the system” does not mean escaping it. Nonprofit and community spaces remain deeply shaped by settler colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and extractive labour expectations. Indigenous women leaders, in particular, occupy a uniquely precarious position, as their authority has historically been treated as both illegitimate and threatening.

Tokenism, in Moore's account, is not simply underrepresentation. It is the expectation that one Indigenous woman can simultaneously provide representation, education, legitimacy, and institutional absolution without altering the structures that produced exclusion in the first place.

Moore reflects on this tension directly: “They want you to play a specific character. And if you go outside of that, if you are too strong, too Indigenous, too outspoken,… then you’re not seen as a benefit, but a threat.” Here, leadership itself becomes disruptive. Being “too Indigenous” exposes the limits of institutional tolerance and reveals how Indigenous women’s advocacy challenges comfort, control, and colonial norms. Moore’s experience illustrates that leadership, when grounded in personal authenticity, truth, and community accountability, often requires leaving spaces that are unwilling to grow or adapt.

This dynamic is best understood through the lens of patriarchal colonialism — a governing structure that imposes a double bind on Indigenous women leaders. As Ruth (28) argues, Indigenous women are expected to represent community while simultaneously navigating institutions that police, discipline, and extract their labour. Leadership unfolds in a constant state of turbulence.

Moore captures this lived reality through the metaphor of “walking in two worlds”:

In community… there’s things that don’t have to be explained… On the flip side, in day-to-day outside of my community, I might have a conversation, and it's having to navigate very differently. And the conversation ends up being one where I'm less myself, less authentic, potentially more guarded, where I'm having to do more work to explain, educate, advocate. … Code-switching [where] I'm having to be very formal with my language and … all these extra considerations.”

This constant shifting between spaces reflects the emotional and relational labour that Indigenous women leaders are expected to perform, often without recognition, remuneration, or institutional support. This is not merely interpersonal strain; it is unpaid emotional and intellectual labour demanded by colonial governance. Leadership requires translation, restraint, and self-surveillance, and this is work rendered invisible yet essential to institutional functioning.

Against this backdrop, community in its various forms is not simply Moore’s support system; it is her method of leadership. As she explains, “community… has always helped me stay grounded and connected to culture, tradition, and ways of knowing and being” (Kelly, 8). In this way, community is not simply the context of Moore’s leadership, but the mechanism through which leadership and governance are enacted. Indigenous feminist scholarship consistently identifies community as both the foundation and site of political transformation, particularly for Indigenous women whose leadership is relational, land-based, and collectively accountable (Ruth, 32).

These forms of leadership frequently clash with colonial expectations that privilege individualism, hierarchy, patriarchy, and bureaucratic authority. “When you're working outside of the systems and institutions, and particularly in grassroots community-focused places and spaces, I think we're certainly effective. We hold each other accountable. I think that's something that is certainly missing [from regular politics].” Consequently, Moore insists that Indigenous governance traditions must inform reconciliation efforts if they are to be meaningful rather than symbolic.

The stakes of this leadership are profound. Indigenous women’s advocacy is often a matter of survival, particularly in addressing gender-based violence rooted in colonial logic. Reflecting on the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Two-Spirit Relatives, Moore observes: “The reports and recommendations speaking to both TRC and MMIWG2S+ have been out for several years now… we pat ourselves on the back for a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (or other commemorative days), but we’re not addressing the systemic issues…” (Nagassar). Indigenous women have led national advocacy on MMIWG2S+ precisely because colonial systems produced and continue to sustain the conditions of violence (Defriend and Cook, 2).

Yet Moore is equally clear that Indigenous women cannot be reduced to crisis alone: “These are critical issues… but that’s not all we are” (CBC). When Indigenous communities are framed solely through harm, leadership itself becomes obscured. Indigenous women lead not only through resistance, but through joy, ceremony, excellence, and relational care. Leadership may emerge in formal advocacy, but also in community practices: women raising pipes, entering sweat lodges, and sustaining ceremony as governance (Donnelly, 2). Many communities are now reclaiming these traditions through rematriation and renewed matriarchal governance systems disrupted by colonialism. Such models emphasize inclusivity, cultural embodiment, and relational accountability, values that are fundamentally misaligned with capitalist colonial leadership norms, yet uniquely capable of producing sustainable transformation (Defriend and Cook, 4).

Frances Elizabeth Moore’s leadership exemplifies this resurgence. Her work challenges deficit-based narratives and colonial expectations by asserting Indigenous presence, authority, and joy across social and political landscapes in London, Ontario. Moore’s leadership demonstrates how care, community, and governance are deeply intertwined, offering a model of leadership that challenges individualistic and hierarchical norms. As reconciliation continues to dominate political rhetoric, Indigenous women’s leadership remains indispensable not only for addressing historical and ongoing harms but for imagining new ways of leading grounded in knowledge, community, and life beyond survival.