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Robyn Bourgeois is a mixed-race Cree activist, academic, author, and educator. [1] She currently resides in Haudenosaunee, Anishinabe, and Huron-Wendat territory in Canada. [1]
Bourgeois received her Bachelor's Degree in Sociology in 2002 from Okanagan University College. She then, studied at UBC-Okanangan, where she received her Master's Degree in Sociology in 2004. She received her Doctorate of Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto in 2014. While studying at UBC-Okanaagan, Bourgeois became involved with activism relating to missing and murdered indigenous women and human trafficking. [2]
Bourgeois is an associate professor at the Centre for Women's and Gender studies at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Her scholarly work at the university includes Indigenous feminism, violence against Indigenous women and girls, Canadian colonial history and governance, as well as Indigenous women's political activism and leadership. [1] Her work has been published in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, Canadian Women Studies, and UCLA Law Review. [3]
In 2014, Bourgeois was critical of the RCMP's National Operational Review on missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, arguing that it misses a number of issues including colonialism, racism, and police accountability as causes of the violence epidemic affecting Indigenous women and girls. [4]
In October 2018, Bourgeois testified for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, [5] which was established in September 2016 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The National Inquiry looks into potential causes of violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada. [6] Bourgeois has criticized government inquiries in the past, stating that the initiative allows “the Canadian state to appear that it is doing something without ever having to actually do anything,” [7] but decided to contribute in order to “speak for other trafficked and exploited women." During her talk, she discussed her own experience as a sexual assault survivor [8] and the impact of settler colonialism on people's perception of Indigenous women. Bourgeois cited Disney's Pocahontas and Peter Pan's Tiger Lilly as examples, with each showcasing Indigenous women as sexual object that are prone to settler violence. [5]
In 2019, Robyn Bourgeois was featured in the documentary, Daughters, directed by Riayn Spaero. The film discusses sex trafficking, murder, and sex assault facing Indigenous women in the United States and Canada. [9]
In April 2020, Bourgeois published an online article entitled: Let’s call the Nova Scotia mass shooting what it is: White male terrorism". [10] In it, she alleges that mass murders are not due to mental defects, but the result of perpetrators being "white" and "male".
In October 2020, Dr. Bourgeois was appointed acting vice-provost, Indigenous engagement for Brock University.
The Native Women's Association of Canada is a national Indigenous organization representing the political voice of Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people in Canada, inclusive of First Nations on and off reserve, status and non-status, disenfranchised, Métis, and Inuit. An aggregate of Indigenous women's organizations from across the country, NWAC was founded on the collective goal to enhance, promote, and foster the social, economic, cultural and political well-being of Indigenous women within their respective communities and Canadian societies.
The Women's Memorial March is an annual event which occurs on February 14 in honour of the lives of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) across Canada and the United States. This event is also a protest against class disparity, racism, inequality and violence.
Native American feminism or Native feminism is, at its root, understanding how gender plays an important role in indigenous communities both historically and in modern-day. As well, Native American feminism deconstructs the racial and broader stereotypes of indigenous peoples, gender, sexuality, while also focusing on decolonization and breaking down the patriarchy and pro-capitalist ideology. As a branch of the broader Indigenous feminism, it similarly prioritizes decolonization, indigenous sovereignty, and the empowerment of indigenous women and girls in the context of Native American and First Nations cultural values and priorities, rather than white, mainstream ones. A central and urgent issue for Native feminists is the Missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis.
#AmINext is a social media campaign launched on September 5, 2014, by Inuit Canadian Holly Jarrett, to call attention to the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. It was one of many awareness campaigns initiated by activists since 2000.
Indigenous feminism is an intersectional theory and practice of feminism that focuses on decolonization, Indigenous sovereignty, and human rights for Indigenous women and their families. The focus is to empower Indigenous women in the context of Indigenous cultural values and priorities, rather than mainstream, white, patriarchal ones. In this cultural perspective, it can be compared to womanism in the African-American communities.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), also known as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and more broadly as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) or Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP), are instances of violence against Indigenous women in Canada and the United States, notably those in the First nations in Canada and Native American communities, but also amongst other Indigenous peoples such as in Australia and New Zealand, and the grassroots movement to raise awareness of MMIW through organizing marches; building databases of the missing; holding local community, city council, and tribal council meetings; and conducting domestic violence trainings and other informational sessions for police.
Tina Michelle Fontaine was a First Nations teenage girl who was reported missing and died in August 2014. Her case is considered among the high number of missing and murdered Indigenous women of Canada, and her death renewed calls by activists for the government to conduct a national inquiry into the issue.
Michèle Taïna Audette is a Canadian politician and activist. She served as president of Femmes autochtones du Québec from 1998 to 2004 and again from 2010 to 2012. She was also the president of Native Women's Association of Canada from 2012 to 2014. From 2004 through 2008, she served as Associate Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Relations with Citizens and Immigration of the Quebec government, where she was in charge of the Secretariat for Women.
Marion R. Buller, is a First Nations jurist in British Columbia and current chancellor of the University of Victoria. Buller served as the Chief Commissioner for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls from 2016 to 2019.
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was a Canadian public inquiry from 2016 to 2019 that studied the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis.
Bridget Tolley is a Canada-based Algonquin community worker, activist for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), and the founder of the grassroots activist and support organization, Families of Sisters in Spirit (FSIS).
The Sisters in Spirit initiative was a program led by the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) and funded by Status of Women Canada. Beginning in 2005, the initiative was an effort to research and document the statistics of violence against Indigenous women in Canada. It also sought to heighten awareness and education regarding the treatment of Indigenous women, and ultimately influence policy to address these issues through documenting the lived experience of Indigenous women and highlighting the underlying causes of this violence.
The Coastal GasLink pipeline is a TC Energy natural gas pipeline under construction in British Columbia, Canada. Starting in Dawson Creek, the pipeline's route crosses through the Canadian Rockies and other mountain ranges to Kitimat, where the gas will be exported to Asian customers. Its route passes through several First Nations peoples' traditional lands, including some that are unceded. Controversy around the project has highlighted divisions within the leadership structure of impacted First Nations: elected band councils support the project, but traditional hereditary chiefs of the Wetʼsuwetʼen people oppose the project on ecological grounds and organized blockades to obstruct construction on their traditional land. Wetʼsuwetʼen people opposed to the pipeline argue that they have a relationship with the land that the Coastal GasLink pipeline construction threatens.
Tanya Kappo (Cree) is an Indigenous rights activist. She is one of the four women who co-founded Idle No More and was briefly the manager of community relations for Canada's National Public Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Loretta Saunders was an Inuk woman who lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was a St. Mary's University criminology student writing an honors thesis on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada. Saunders was last seen on February 13, 2014. She was reported missing on February 17, and her body was found on February 26 near Salisbury, New Brunswick.
A red handprint, usually painted across the mouth, is a symbol that is used to indicate solidarity with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and girls in North America, in recognition of the fact that Native American women are up to 10 times more likely to be murdered or sexually assaulted.
Settler colonialism in Canada is the continuation and the results of the colonization of the assets of the Indigenous peoples in Canada. As colonization progressed, the Indigenous peoples were subject to policies of forced assimilation and cultural genocide. The policies signed many of which were designed to both allowed stable houses. Governments in Canada in many cases ignored or chose to deny the aboriginal title of the First Nations. The traditional governance of many of the First Nations was replaced with government-imposed structures. Many of the Indigenous cultural practices were banned. First Nation's people status and rights were less than that of settlers. The impact of colonization on Canada can be seen in its culture, history, politics, laws, and legislatures.
Red Dress Day, or Red Dress Campaign, is an annual event held by the REDress Project in memory of the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls across Canada. This event was originally held on May 5, 2010, and continues annually. The event is sometimes held on other dates throughout the year to coincide with other days of action, such as National Indigenous Peoples Day. Associated names with this event include National Day of Awareness For Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women And Girls. Red Dress Day is one of several campaigns started by activists to call attention to disproportionate rates of violence against Indigenous women.
Jaime Black is a Canadian Métis artist and activist of Anishinaabe and Finnish descent. Her work focuses on First Nations and Indigenous representation and identity. Black is best known for the REDress Project, an art installation that she created as a response to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) crisis in Canada as well as the United States. A 2014 report by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found that more than 1,000 Indigenous women were murdered over the span of 30 years from 1980 to 2012. However, some Indigenous advocacy groups dispute these reports arguing that the number is much greater than the government has acknowledged.
The Canadian genocide of Indigenous peoples is the genocide and systematic destruction of the Indigenous inhabitants of Canada from colonization to the present day. Throughout the history of Canada, the Canadian government has committed what has variously been described as atrocities, crimes, ethnocide, and genocide, against the Indigenous peoples in Canada.