Settler Colonialism in the Canadian Context: Ongoing Violence against Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA People
Photo credit/Mention de source: Tina Mokhtarnejad
Emily Barber
(FR) En s’engageant avec la politique canadienne contemporaine et en analysant le rapport final de l’Enquête nationale sur les femmes et les filles autochtones disparues et assassinées, mon article aborde des sujets sociaux comme le sexisme, la sexualité, le racisme et les effets que ces questions ont sur la violente réalité actuelle du colonialisme de peuplement. Cet article a été écrit dans le cadre du cours « POL377 Comparative Politics I : Truth, Reconciliation, and Settler Colonialism » durant le semestre d’automne 2019. Bien que l’article porte sur la réalité contemporaine des femmes, des filles, et des personnes 2SLGBTQQIA autochtones au Canada, j’y compare d’autres cas de pays qui font toujours face aux impacts du colonialisme de peuplement — comme l’Afrique du Sud — et je m’appuie sur le précédent historique canadien du colonialisme de peuplement. Ce texte critique également l’un des appels à la justice, publiés par le rapport final de l’Enquête nationale sur les femmes et des filles autochtones disparues et assassinées, qui prétend travailler sur la décolonisation, en s’attaquant aux préjudices subis causés par les projets d’extraction et de développement opérant à proximité ou sur les terres autochtones.
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls published its Final Report, which presented its findings on the forms of violence exacted on Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada. The Executive Summary of the Final Report, Reclaiming Power and Place, produces truths about colonialism by analyzing testimonies to draw conclusions about the systemic and underlying causes of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA peoples in Canada, as well as about the institutional practices implemented in response to this violence. Settler colonialism is shown to be gendered and sexualized by how Reclaiming Power and Place outlines the intersection of historical and intergenerational trauma, social and economic marginalization, a desire to maintain the status quo, an institutional lack of will, and ignoring the agency and expertise of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. Thus enabled by the heteropatriarchal structure of colonialism, this gendered and sexual violence has resulted in a “race-based genocide”[i] of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada. Reclaiming Power and Place’s Call to Justice 13.3 professes to tackle decolonization in Canada by including provisions for the safety and security of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people who come into contact with extractive and developmental projects. However, Call to Justice 13.3 hinders decolonization with the assumption that an ‘equitable’ share in these projects is beneficial or even desirable; on the contrary, ‘equity’ assumes a complicity with colonial projects that exploit the land. Call 13.3 seeks to circumvent the problem of gendered and sexual violence associated with extractive and developmental industries without being held accountable for the underlying problem: a consumerist, ultimately colonial mindset whose priority is capitalist enterprise.
Examining systematic and underlying causes of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada reveals that colonialism is inseparable from the settler state, as the systemic causes arise from government regulations that directly lead to violence. Colonial structures including the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop, and the Indian Residential School (IRS) system perpetuate this violence – all of which have a lasting legacy of trauma. The underlying causes of violence arise from breaches of rights that then increase the rates of violence, death, suicide among Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. To verify this, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls cross-referenced testimony with various criteria for human rights violations, which include but are not limited to the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (PPCG); and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).[ii] By using history and human rights criteria, Reclaiming Power and Place identifies the ongoing influence of settler colonialism as responsible for the genocide of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada.
The institutional practices implemented in response to violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada reveals colonialism as an ongoing bias manifested in racism and attitudes that assume a settler superiority, which conveniently forget the destruction wrecked by a consumerist mentality. In this context, consumerism is a consumption of land and its resources, extracted at the cost of Indigenous peoples. Reclaiming Power and Place identifies “institutional racism”[iii] in areas including health care, child welfare, policing, and the justice system. This has created a fear of institutions in many Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, which in turn breeds violence. For instance, there were testimonies maintaining that “fears that contacting the police may lead to involvement with child welfare means that living with violence is a better choice than losing their children.”[iv] Negative reactions from the police, such as bias and racism that often assumes Indigenous people are guilty – especially in cases of intimate partner violence[v]– creates an atmosphere of fear and distrust. Unwilling to rely on police support or protection, violent situations have a tendency of going unaddressed, being suppressed, or dealt with through private means, which can result in further violence in turn. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls hopes to redress institutional racism through Reclaiming Power and Place and the implementation of its Calls to Justice.
Settler colonialism is shown to be a gendered and sexualized through the historical, multigenerational, and intergenerational trauma suffered by Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada. These traumas are defined as “collective emotional, spiritual, and psychological pain people endure as a result of traumatic events stemming from historic and current policies.”[vi] Reclaiming Power and Place maps the origin of Indigenous trauma to the beginning with the 16th century ‘explorers’ who used terra nullius and the Doctrine of Discovery to “dismiss them as savages and claim rights to the land.”[vii] Next came the influence of Christian missionaries, who “challenged Indigenous women’s leadership and Indigenous notions of gender.”[viii] Reclaiming Power and Place then identifies Confederation in 1867 as shifting the power dynamics between First Nations and Europeans vastly in favour of the Europeans.[ix] This historical colonial structure laid the foundation for the multigenerational and intergenerational trauma caused by the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop, and the Indian Residential School (IRS). To contextualize this gendered and sexual trauma, consider the trauma of third-gender people through “active, conscious, violent extermination”[x] as mentioned by Deborah Miranda. Those that did not conform to Western standards of gender and sexuality were particular victims of the colonial project in the United States. Scott Morgensen adds another layer to this notion by analyzing Andrea Smith, who argues sexual violence and imposing European gender relations were the means to colonizing Native peoples, “in a process that included marking Native people “by their sexual perversity” as queer to colonial regimes.”[xi] This ‘othering’ of Native sexuality and gender are integral to the power dynamics created by settler colonialism, by setting Western standards as the norm to which all other groups must compare themselves against.
The social and economic marginalization of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada is another reason to maintain that settler colonialism is gendered and sexualized. Reclaiming Power and Place cites the dispossession of Indigenous people through government and institutional policies that contribute to poor living conditions; Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people have some of the highest national rates of “poverty, homelessness, food insecurity, unemployment, and barriers to education and employment”[xii] in Canada. This is comparable to post-apartheid South Africa in which the economic status of Black women dropped drastically from 2012 to 2015[xiii]despite the nominal success of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Beyond the immediate violence of settler colonialism, the residual impact of colonial structures inherently disadvantages those who were once immediate victims of the colonial project, and those who now continue to suffer from its aftereffects.
In dealing with violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada, a desire to maintain the status quo and an institutional lack of will demonstrates settler colonialism as gendered and sexual. This is due to the deliberate neglect of responsibility within government, institutions, and other parties. Shortcomings of the justice system, for instance, leave some Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people to “feel as though the violence they’re experiencing is due to their own personal failings”[xiv]. There is also an inertia regarding recommendations from Indigenous peoples, a widespread failure to implement policies that could improve the livelihood of Indigenous peoples[xv]. This is comparable to attitudes about indigenous youth in the IRS system, who were “feared to be hyper-sexual, more so than other non-Whites at the time, and Indigenous girls particularly had an “assumed lasciviousness” that warranted increased surveillance and promoted “vicious insults about Native morality” and “invidious treatment” in the schools.”[xvi] Note that ‘fear’ is the driving force in this instance: falsehoods about Indigeneity provided the Canadian settler-state with the paltry excuse to treat Indigenous children – particularly girls – with aggression and violence. In both the IRS and the instances of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, societal perception and apathy perpetuate settler colonialism, allowing overt and covert forms of violence to be enacted.
Ignoring the agency and expertise of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people further perpetuates the notion of settler colonialism as gendered and sexualized. Reclaiming Power and Place cites the internalized patriarchy and misogyny within the Canadian political system as a factor in the lack of attention given to Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, and collected testimonies report that “other people or institutions deny them the space to bring these solutions forward and create meaningful change.”[xvii] This is comparable to the treatment of Black women in South Africa under apartheid, wherein Black women’s traditional roles in agricultural production were taken away from them, which ironically caused white settlers to deem Black women “non-productive”[xviii] and remove them from agricultural land set aside for white use. In both the Canadian and South African contexts, undermining societal roles of those who are not male, white, and/or heterosexual shifts power dynamics in problematic ways, prioritizing the roles deemed permissible by the heteronormative patriarchy put in place by the settler-state.
Call to Justice 13.3 in Reclaiming Power and Place professes to tackle decolonization in Canada by including provisions for the safety and security of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people who come into contact with extractive and developmental projects.
Reclaiming Power and Place defines decolonization as that which “aims to resist and undo the forces of colonialism and to re-establish Indigenous Nationhood.”[xix] This mandate professes to be rooted in Indigenous values, to acknowledge the rightful power and status of Indigenous women and girls, to promote self-determination, and to be focused on Indigenous individuals and communities.[xx] With this framework in mind, Call 13.3 emphasizes the need for “provisions that address the impacts of projects on the safety and security of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people”[xxi]. Extractive and developmental projects, with their propensity to form ‘man camps’ that are often located near Indigenous settlements, are correlated with higher levels of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in these rural, often isolated areas. Living in close proximity to extractive and developmental projects is therefore potentially dangerous, a fact that the National Inquiry seeks to redress by having the projects plan for contingencies that may arise with groups of men temporarily inhabiting a place near Indigenous settlements, putting the responsibility on the workers and overseers for reprehensible actions against nearby Indigenous communities.
However, Call to Justice 13.3 hinders decolonization with the assumption that an ‘equitable’ share in extractive and developmental projects is beneficial or even desirable to Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people: on the contrary, ‘equity’ assumes a complicity with colonial projects that inherently exploit the land. Stipulated in Call 13.3 is that “provisions must also be included to ensure that Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQQIA people equitably benefit from the projects.”[xxii] Given that the ‘benefit’ from the projects is monetary gain at the expense of the land, this sounds suspiciously like a bribe: financial compensation for exploiting the land, land that to Indigenous peoples is integral to their identity and culture. Not only is this contrary to part of Reclaiming Power and Place’s own definition of decolonization as an acknowledgement of Indigenous people’s “special relationship to their resources, which many witnesses described as their relatives”[xxiii], but implicitly prioritizes capitalist notions of ‘equity’. To assume that a share in extractive or developmental profits is acceptable compensation for coming on or near Indigenous land is to disregard the evidence of the testimony collected by the National Inquiry – testimony that maintains the critically important relationship Indigenous peoples have with the land. This ‘equity’ mentality has other troubling implications: if Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people’s complicity in projects are viewed as purchasable by granting an ‘equitable’ share of profits, by extension, developers may view complicity – or at least silence – as being purchasable in regards to violence committed by those same projects. This ‘equitable’ mentality could bring the problem of violence associated with the projects full circle, thereby hindering decolonization.
Call 13.3 seeks to circumvent problems of gendered and sexual violence associated with extractive and developmental industries without being held accountable for the underlying problem: a consumerist and ultimately colonial mindset whose first priority is capitalist enterprise. Here, the issue is that even though the National Inquiry professes to incorporate Indigenous voices through testimony, Reclaiming Power and Place is still speaking from a ‘National’ perspective – a nationhood implicated in settler colonialism. As Deborah Miranda points out, this is an issue: “biases, agendas, cultural pride…and the desire to “own” history mean that one can never simply read and accept even the most basic non-Native detail without multiple investigations into who collected the information, what their motivations were, who preserved the information and their motivations, the use of rhetorical devices.”[xxiv] The Canadian state is unwilling to separate itself from its settler colonial history. Even in its attempts to decolonize, greed and bias towards capitalist modes of industry like extraction and developmental projects prevent it from condemning those projects. The Canadian narrative of acknowledgement and reconciliation is a hollow one when its continues to allow activities that are proven to be conducive to violence to take place. As Audra Simpson argues, “these emotional gestures, registered at an institutionalized, state level are undermined by an extractive and simultaneously murderous state of affairs.”[xxv]Simpson’s use of the word ‘extractive’ in this context is not coincidental: when you have projects dedicated to violating the land for material gain, it follows that that mentality will likely extend to other areas of life as well, namely, violating the safety and security of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. Call to Justice 13.3’s attempt to solve the problem of violence without addressing the underlying mentality of violation for the sake of consumption undermines the validity of the Call itself.
While Reclaiming Power and Place exposes truths about settler colonialism and demonstrates settler colonialism in Canada to be gendered and sexualized, its foundation in the settler-state still limits its discourse. As demonstrated by the aforementioned analysis of Call to Justice 13.3, Canadian attempts at decolonization are ultimately hindered by an unwillingness to completely divest from a settler-state mentality of consumerism.