MMIWGT2S+ & Decolonial Relations
Pima’tisowin e’ mimtotaman
Danser Pour La Vie | We Dance For Life
Indigenous MMIWGT2S+ relations have worked for decades to raise awareness about MMIWGT2S+. This has included widespread public awareness campaigns and commemorative art installations, such as ongoing memorial marches held in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside since 1992, the Walking with our Sisters commemorative art installation to honour the lives of MMIWGT2S+, and Shades of our Sisters exhibits and online memorial.
Even though awareness and recognition of MMIWGT2S+ has grown, the culture that produces such violence has remained relatively unaltered. Another generation of youth struggle to survive the daily material conditions of inequality in Canada while also resisting ongoing systems of oppression. Rather than focus on awareness of how Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ are “at risk,” decolonial efforts emphasize the need to dismantle settler-colonial systems that perpetuate violence.
As Sarah Hunt states:
Transforming our dehumanization must move beyond just poster campaigns and court cases, because their ability to enact change only goes so far. [We] believe it is only through building stronger relationships with one another, across the generations and across differences in education, ability, sexuality and other social locations, that we can break down the stigma and shame resulting from generations of colonial violence. As we reinstate the roles of women and two-spirit people in systems of Indigenous governance and law, ending gendered violence can be understood as integral to self-determination.
Through ceremony and art on the land Pima’tisowin e’ mimtotaman continues to build networks of relational love and support that place MMIWGT2S+ relations at the center and uphold their self-determination through active consensual allyship and reciprocal care.
Violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada: Review of Reports and Recommendations – Pippa Feinstein and Megan Pearce
Keetsahnak / Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters – Edited by Kim Anderson, Maria Campbell and Christi Belcourt
Remembering Vancouver’s Disappeared Women: Settler Colonialism and the Difficulty of Inheritance – Amber Dean
Responding to Human Trafficking: Dispossession, Colonial Violence, and Resistance among Indigenous and Racialized Women – Julie Kaye
Voices of Our Sisters in Spirit: A Report to Families and Communities – Native Women’s Association of Canada
Ongoing Systemic Inequalities and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada – Legal Strategy Coalition on Violence Against Indigenous Women
Summary of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry Recommendations and Implementation – Compiled by the Coalition on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future – Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Reclaiming Power and Place – National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Those Who Take Us Away: Abusive Policing and Failures in Protection of Indigenous Women and Girls in Northern British Columbia, Canada – Human Rights Watch
Report of the Inquiry Concerning Canada of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and Girls – Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
Murders and Disappearances of Aboriginal Women and Girls Report to the Human Rights Committee – Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA)
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in British Colombia, Canada – Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)
Invisible Women: A Call to Action – Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women, Government of Canada
The Wetiko Legal Principles: Cree and Anishinabek Responses to Violence and Victimization – Hadley Friedland
Gmiigwetchwendaami naakii’yiing ki dedbinwe debendaagoziyiing mikanaak mnising.
We are grateful to work in the territory of many nations across Turtle Island.