"(listen to the women)": Rethinking Representations of Violence Against Indigenous Women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

• Author / Creator

  Vigneux, Sylvie L

• This thesis investigates contemporary representations of violence against Indigenous women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. I argue that sensationalist representations of violence serve to distance readers from their own implication in systems of colonial violence and sever individual acts of violence from their broader colonial context. In contrast, I turn in my first chapter to a memoir written by the sister of one of Vancouver’s missing women. I argue that, although this text eschews the sensationalism of mainstream coverage and seeks to humanize the victims of violence, its political potential is circumscribed by its unacknowledged Western cultural investments. In my second chapter, I take up the work of Mohawk/Tuscarora poet Janet Marie Rogers alongside first-hand narratives of women from the DTES. Together, these representations offer a more nuanced understanding of ongoing violence in Canada and a vision for a decolonial future that moves to reconnect Indigenous women to the land.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Vancouver's Downtown Eastside
  • Decolonization
  • Colonial violence
  • Violence against Indigenous women
  • Sensationalism
  • Grievability
  • Politics of refusal
  • Poetry
  • Indigenous resurgence

• Graduation date

  Fall 2015

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3DF6KJ5Z

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.