Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls: A Discourse Analysis of Gendered Colonial Violence in Canada

Using the theoretical framework of epistemic injustice articulated by philosopher Miranda Fricker as an analytic tool, we analyze recent victories of Indigenous feminist activism in gathering the stories of Indigenous women, challenging dominant meta-narratives and rewriting the herstory of Canada. We use the epistemic concept of the hermeneutic gap to consider the implications of this resistance in conjunction with the increased visibility of the intersectional positionality of Indigenous women. To illustrate our analysis, we focus on two case studies. Firstly, an individual perspective through the life journey of a feminist Anishinaabe Activist, Bridgett Perrier. Secondly, we conduct a systemic analysis of the recent Report on the National Inquiry into the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). We close with a discussion on how critical it is for social workers—especially non-Indigenous social workers—to relearn and document the meaning of the MMIWG issues. This includes recognizing Indigenous resistance, activism, and the newly formulated hermeneutic understandings that are emerging. Then, the final task is to apply these concepts to their practice and heed the calls to action which the report calls for.

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“Willing Victims”: The Prevalence of Violence And Public Discourse against Indigenous Women and Girls

INvoke ◽

10.29173/invoke48980 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

Author(s):

Cassidy Johnson

Keyword(s):

Public Discourse ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

Indigenous Women ◽

Women And Girls ◽

The Creation ◽

Police Abuse

Drawing on the current research, I argue that the extensive violence against Canada's Indigenous women and girls is enabled by public discourses that rely heavily on racist stereotypes. I use Razack's theoretical framework of "gendered disposibility" and "colonial terror" as a lense for critically viewing violence against Indigenous women and girls. To demonstrate the severity of violence, evidence from the Highway of Tears cases, incidents of police abuse, and the creation of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls are all covered.

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A Critical Discourse Analysis on the Framing of the Feminization of Forced Displacement

10.32920/ryerson.14656470.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Samantha DeBoer

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Feminist Theory ◽

Critical Discourse ◽

Discursive Practice ◽

Major Research ◽

Forced Displacement ◽

Gender Binary ◽

Global Feminism ◽

Women And Girls

The Major Research Paper seeks to examine the discursive practices that frame the issue of the feminization of forced displacement and construct representations of forcibly displaced women. It will examine the discourse that constructs representations of forcibly displaced women, which has implications for their protection and treatment in society. Forcibly displaced women are victimized through the representational discourse in terms of how they are spoken about and their visual depictions (Johnson, 2011). Based on feminist theory, the conceptual framework of the gender binary, gender and cultural essentialism, representations of victims, the discourse of victimization, and global feminism will be applied to a critical discourse analysis of the UHCR Handbook for the Protection of Women and Girls. This paper argues that the linguistic constructs and discursive practice contribute to misrepresentations of forcibly displaced women.

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4 Violence against Canadian Indigenous Women and Girls

Sex Industry Slavery in Present-Day Canada ◽

10.3138/9781487535711-007 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 83-105

Keyword(s):

Indigenous Women ◽

Women And Girls

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Screening Indigenous Bodies

Screen Bodies ◽

10.3167/screen.2019.040101 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. v-x

Author(s):

Brian Bergen-Aurand

Keyword(s):

Law Enforcement ◽

North America ◽

Indigenous Women ◽

Local Authorities ◽

Inland Northwest ◽

Women And Girls ◽

The Many ◽

News Interview

This issue acknowledges the work of Rosalie Fish (Cowlitz), Jordan Marie Daniels (Lakota), and the many others who refuse to ignore the situation that has allowed thousands of Indigenous women and girls to be murdered or go missing across North America without the full intervention of law enforcement and other local authorities. As Rosalie Fish said in an interview regarding her activism on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG),"I felt a little heavy at first just wearing the paint. And I think that was . . . like my ancestors letting me know . . . you need to take this seriously: “What you’re doing, you need to do well.” And I think that’s why I felt really heavy when I first put on my paint and when I tried to run with my paint at first. . . . I would say my personal strength comes from my grandmas, my mom, my great grandma, and I really hope that’s true, that I made them proud." (Inland Northwest Native News interview)

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Who Receives the Gift of Life?

Political Science Undergraduate Review ◽

10.29173/psur84 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 6-11

Author(s):

Meghan Cardy

Keyword(s):

Organ Donation ◽

Settler Colonialism ◽

Indigenous Women ◽

Regulatory Body ◽

Life And Death ◽

National Media ◽

The Gift ◽

Canadian Health ◽

Organ Donations ◽

Women And Girls

An organ donation is a matter of life and death in the most literal sense, meaning the Trillium Gift of Life Organ Donation Network, the regulatory body for organ donations in Ontario, is aptly named. In December of 2017, Delilah Saunders, an Inuk activist for the rights of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, went into acute liver failure and was refused a spot on their waiting list. What was the reason the Trillium network cited in refusing Ms. Saunders? She had failed to meet the requirement of a prior sixth-month period of sobriety, a sixth month period wherein she had also been called to testify on the 2014 murder of her sister Loretta at the National Inquiry on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls. The refusal gained national media attention and sparked furious debate, especially regarding the larger issue of the discriminatory experiences of Indigenous women in the Canadian health system. This paper argues that the policy that led to the decision to refuse Delilah Saunders a liver transplant, when analyzed through the intersecting lenses of gender and settler-colonialism, displays the continued commitment of Canada to the settler-colonial logic of elimination, especially regarding Indigenous women.

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Attention, Representation, and Unsettlement in Katherena Vermette’s The Break, or, Teaching and (Re)Learning the Ethics of Reading

Humanities ◽

10.3390/h8040164 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 164

Author(s):

Cynthia R. Wallace

Keyword(s):

Emmanuel Levinas ◽

Indigenous Women ◽

The Novel ◽

Careful Attention ◽

Face To Face ◽

Ethics Of Reading ◽

Sexualized Violence ◽

Literary Ethics ◽

Classroom Conversations ◽

Women And Girls

Theories of literary ethics often emphasize either content or the structural relationship between text and reader, and they tend to bracket pedagogy. This essay advocates instead for an approach that sees literary representation and readerly attention as interanimating and that considers teaching an important aspect of an ethics of reading. To support these positions, I turn to Katherena Vermette’s 2016 novel The Break, which both represents the urgent injustice of sexualized violence against Indigenous women and girls and also metafictionally comments on the ethics of witnessing. Describing how I read with my students the novel’s insistent thematization of face-to-face encounters and practices of attention as an invitation to read with Emmanuel Levinas and Simone Weil, I explicate the text’s self-aware commentary on both the need for readers to resist self-enlargement in their encounters with others’ stories and also the danger of generalizing readerly responsibility or losing sight of the material realities the text represents. I source these challenges both in the novel and in my students’ multiple particularities as readers facing the textual other. Ultimately, the essay argues for a more careful attention to which works we bring into our theorizing of literary ethics, and which theoretical frames we bring into classroom conversations.

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