Indigenous Girlhood: Narratives of Colonial Care in Law and Literature

Megan Scribe

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Social Justice Education University of Toronto

Megan Scribe Doctor of Philosophy Department of Social Justice Education University of Toronto 2020

Abstract

As Canada assumes legal responsibility over an unprecedented number of Indigenous girls entering carceral facilities, educational boarding arrangements, and foster care, it is important to examine how the state is implicated in harming these girls. While these institutions ostensibly exist to provide Indigenous girls with care, they actually place Indigenous girls at greater risk of violence, disappearance, and death. Rather than focus on children or women more broadly, this dissertation considers how Indigenous girls' unique social location and legal minor status subjects these girls to greater state surveillance and management. What’s more, this analysis establishes connections between state violence against Indigenous girls and Canada’s settler colonial regime. This dissertation is organized into two parts. In part one, I examine the production of colonial narratives about violence against Indigenous girls through the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Phoenix Sinclair (2013) and the Inquest into the

Deaths of Seven First Nations Youth (2016). In part two, I shift my attention toward Indigenous feminist literature on Indigenous girlhood. Through a close reading of Tracey Lindberg’s Birdie

(2015) and The Break (2016) by Katherena Vermette, this study considers the theoretical and methodological possibilities of Indigenous feminist storytelling. Through an extensive examination of legal processes and Indigenous feminist literature, this dissertation offers innovative theoretical and methodological tools for addressing settler colonialism and other structures of oppression targeting Indigenous girls, as well as paths forward.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my profound gratitude to the late Phoenix Sinclair, Robyn Harper, and their surviving family members.

I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Eve Tuck, for her remarkable mentorship and supervision. Since our first meeting, Dr. Tuck has taught me much about community, ethics, and generosity.

I am grateful for Dr. Sherene Razack whose early supervision helped shape the original questions informing this research project.

I am thankful for the invaluable insights and contributions of each committee member. I would like to thank my second reader, Dr. Jeffrey Ansloos, for his critical feedback and encouragement. I am thankful for Dr. Karyn Recollet, my third reader, for continually reminding me to explore desire and futurity. I would like to extend a big thank you to my internal/external and external committee members, Dr. Michelle Daigle and Dr. Sarah Deer, for their close reading of my dissertation and thoughtful questions at the defence.

This dissertation has benefitted from the generous financial support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and my community, Norway House Cree Nation.

Thank you to my peers who have become my friends, family, collaborators, colleagues, and community over the last six years. I owe many thanks to my friend, Sarah Pinder, whose meticulous edits strengthened this project. I would also like to thank my first writing instructor and friend, Brenda Blondeau, who has been a part of this journey from the start. I am appreciative of the friends I made during my first year of the program: Stephanie Latty, Fiona Cheuk, Cristina Jaimungal, and Tania Ruiz-Chapman. I am grateful for the friends I met through Dr. Razack’s supervisory group: Raneem Azzam, Suzanne Narain, Shaista Patel, Sam Spady, Sarah Snyder, and Laura Landertinger. As well, I am filled with gratitude for those friends I met in Dr. Tuck’s Co-Mentorship Circle: Sandi Wemigwase, Marie Laing, Rebecca Beaulne- Stuebing, Sefanit Habtom, Jade Nixon, and Fernanda Yanchapaxi. I must acknowledge Julie Blair and Lindsay DuPré for their tireless work supporting myself and other Indigenous students at the Indigenous Education Network. And, of course, I am grateful for Dr. Alex Wilson’s friendship and mentorship.

I am grateful for my partner, May, whose love and care makes this work possible.

Last, but certainly not least, I want to acknowledge my family. This project was inspired by my sister, Danielle Scribe, who I am so grateful to know and love. I am grateful for sister, Robin Scribe, my first friend, sister, and witness. I am grateful for my baby sister, Tristan Mowatt, who teaches me the value of reflection. I am grateful for my brother, Charles Mowatt Jr., who reminds me to play. I am grateful for my mom, Erica Mowatt, who taught me to be an Indigenous feminist. I want to acknowledge Charles Mowatt Sr., my step-father, who has chosen to love and care for me every day for the last seventeen years. I am grateful for my late father, Paul Bertasson, who made Toronto feel like home during my first year of university. I am grateful for my kookom and moosom for showing me a gentle kind of love and education.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ii Acknowledgments iii Table of Contents iv Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Situating Indigenous Girlhood 2 Arriving to this Research Project 7 Methodology: An Indigenous Feminist Approach to Narratives 9 Methods 13 Chapter Overview 18 Chapter 2 Queering Indigenous Feminist Theory 28 #QueerIndigenousEthics 30 Straight Bedfellows: Cis-Heteropatriarchy and Settler Colonialism 32 Two-Spirit: An Identity and Analytic 39 Queer Kinship and Intimate Ties 45 Sovereign Futures? 51 Chapter 3 A Baby is Born, A File is Open 58 The Archive 61 Part 1: The Official Story 64 Disappearing Through Documentation 66 Now You See Her: The Inquiry 73 Part 2: Narrating the “Bad Girl” 77 Pathologizing Indigenous Girlhood 82 Cleanliness and Morality 86 Chapter 4 Away from Home: Legal Narratives on Colonial Schooling 91 If I Set Out To Write This Chapter: Producing a Narrative 94 Colonial Schooling: New Approaches, Old Ideas 97 The Mobility Paradox: Go Here, Don’t Go There 104 Towards the Horizon of Death 112 Colonialism and Codified Narratives 120

Chapter 5 By All Accounts: Narrating Sexual Assault 122 (Re)Mapping Indigenous Girls’ Geographies 124 Colonial Geographies: Coming-of-Age in State Custody 132 The Production of Police Narratives 137 Witnessing: The Stories We Tell Ourselves 145 A Whole Story: Narrating Indigenous Girl’s Desire 150 Chapter 6 Paths to Pimatisiwin: Critical Indigenous Legal Consciousness 154 Towards an Indigenous Legal Consciousness 158 Wahkohtowin: Principles and Practices 158 Cree Poetics 161 Extended Kinship: Dispelling Narratives of Indigenous Dysfunction 167 Sites of Violence 170 Sexual Violence in the Home 171 Colonial Schooling 174 Foster Homes 178 Pimatisiwin: A Model for Justice and Healing 181 Pathologizing Discourses Uphold Colonial Structures 182 Toward Pimatisiwin 185 Chapter 7 Conclusion 189 Findings and Contributions 192 Omissions and Gaps 196 Future Research 198 My Sisters 200 References 202 Appendix – List of Online Sources 218

Chapter 1 Introduction

Throughout the past two decades, there has been an increase in media attention, legal inquests and inquiries, and official studies focused on the unprecedented rates at which

Indigenous girls experience severe to life-threatening forms of violence, disappearance, and death. Although the matter of violence against Indigenous girls has only recently gained international recognition, this is not a new phenomenon. Indigenous girls, families, and communities have long advocated against gender-based violence enacted by white settlers and the Canadian state. This dissertation emerges from and builds upon the foundation established by preceding activists, advocates, and academics committed to addressing violence against

Indigenous girls. Media outlets, academic studies, and official reports will often gesture toward statistics and the rates at which Indigenous girls experience violence to demonstrate urgency or importance. However, rather than simply quantifying the matter, this project heeds Robert

Nichols’ (2014) caution against relying on logics of over-representation to demonstrate significance, as if some threshold of acceptable rates of violence exists. Instead, I attend to the colonial nature of gendered violence by examining the formation of colonial subjects and interconnected structures of oppression that facilitate violence against Indigenous girls within this white settler society. In taking such an approach, this project moves beyond determining individual culpability toward understanding the ways in which Canada’s ongoing attempts to dispossess Indigenous peoples of land and life advances settler colonial objectives. In narrowing the focus to the experiences of Indigenous girls in state custody, this study insists that this violence is integral to the creation and consolidation of Canada as a white settler state.

Situating Indigenous Girlhood

Violence against Indigenous girls occurs in a context where Indigenous peoples are subject to processes of dispossession, assimilation, and genocide structured by ongoing settler colonialism. Notwithstanding the state’s insistence that colonialism is a thing of the past, colonialism continues to structure and sustain Canada as a white settler nation (Coulthard, 2014, p. 105). In Canada, racial hierarchies organize everyday life (Razack 2002, 2008, 2015). The existence of a racial hierarchy can most clearly be seen through the transformation of hundreds of Indigenous nations into a single racial population maintained and managed by the state through law and policy (Byrd, 2017, p. 211; Million, 2013, p. 6; Moreton-Robinson, 2015, p. xiii; Rifkin, 2014, p. 152). Within this racial order, Indigenous peoples are distinguished from white settlers as uncivilized possessors of pre-modern culture incapable of liberal subjecthood, thus confirming white settler superiority (Murdocca, 2009, p. 24; Razack, 2002, p. 1). Once notions of humanness are situated along a racial hierarchy, certain populations are then deemed disposable. In effect, violence can more readily be enacted upon these bodies with impunity

(Razack 2008, 2015). With respect to the Canadian state’s approach to Indigenous populations, it is apparent that management and violence are one and the same. Yet, in spite of the state’s infliction of massive suffering and death upon Indigenous peoples over the last 150 years,

Canada has always successfully maintained its reputation as a friendly, multicultural nation

(Coulthard, 2014; Mawani, 2004; Murdocca, 2009; Razack, 2002). The image of Canada as a peaceful country is in large part attributable to the manner in which rhetoric of national responsibility informs the state’s management of Indigenous populations (Murdocca, 2009).

According to Carmela Murdocca (2009), national responsibility is a framework that allows white settler states to claim absolute sovereignty through the assertion that Indigenous peoples’ social disorders require white settler intervention (p. 24). This discursive tactic obfuscates colonial

violence by pathologizing Indigenous peoples as self-destructive and vulnerable due to their so- called high-risk lifestyles and dysfunctional culture, which in turn legitimizes the existence of the white settler nation. As the self-assigned custodian of Indigenous peoples, the state authorizes an indefinite suspension of rights that is both legally sanctioned and socially condoned.1 By articulating this suspension of rights as a necessary measure for the benefit and protection of

Indigenous peoples, the state can legitimize its claim as absolute sovereign over dispossessed peoples and their stolen land while maintaining a posture of innocence. An examination focused exclusively on Indigenous girlhood can shed even greater light on these processes.

Throughout this study, Indigenous girlhood is understood as a social category that encapsulates a multitude of rich and diverse lives and experiences. It is similar to other conceptualizations of girlhood in that it signals a subject position that is complex and transitory in nature, moving through infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Like other girls, Indigenous girls must continually navigate their evolving identity and negotiate the ever-changing terms of their independence. However, unlike other girls, a distinguishing feature of Indigenous girlhood is the presence of sexualized colonial violence. As existing scholarship shows, sexualized violence structures every aspect of Indigenous girls’ lives and, consequently, seriously degrades their quality of life (de Finney, 2015; Dhillon, 2015, 2017; Dion, 2013; Downe, 2006). Through an in- depth exploration of the nature of violence in the lives of Indigenous girls, this dissertation sheds light on the ways in which Canada is culpable for this harm, and it highlights the relationship between violence against Indigenous girls and Canada’s ongoing settler colonial regime. This study considers the subject positioning that situates Indigenous girls at the intersection of

1 In her critical work on Canada’s management of Muslim populations post-9/11, Razack reveals the processes by which the Canadian state suspends the rights of Muslim populations as part of its “war on terror” (2008). She argues that notions of race and kinship have come to inform Canada’s approach to national security, which in turn have produced rigid notions of national identity and belonging (p. 6).

Canada’s two major strategies of colonial violence: state management of Indigenous children and systematized attacks on Indigenous feminine bodies. As Dian Million (2013) emphasizes, “The political and social destruction of Indigenous societies was in part accomplished by discipline of children’s bodies…[and] in unchecked violence perpetuated on Aboriginal women’s bodies” (p.

34). Indeed, Indigenous girlhood provides a rich site of exploration into three critical stages of development, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, while providing an opportunity to conduct a gendered analysis. Such an inquiry takes into consideration Indigenous girls’ unique social location and legal minor status that render them particularly vulnerable to state violence and regulation. It recognizes that the Canadian state has access to Indigenous girls in ways it cannot once these girls become adults. Although Indigenous girls are often subject to profound devaluation, it is important to remember that because of Canada’s heteronormative presumptions of Indigenous girls’ reproductive capacity, Indigenous girls are considered a threat to current and future settler colonial arrangements. As Indigenous feminist scholars have argued, the logic underlying these targeted attacks is the belief that Indigenous girls bear the future of Indigenous nations (Stote, 2015). For this reason, in-depth explorations of the linkages between Indigenous girlhood and settler colonialism are more urgent than ever.

Broadly speaking, modern childhood is a category populated by “not-yet-citizens” who, according to Deborah Cowen and Amy Siciliano (2011), “can never be full liberal subjects but remain in a perpetual state of protection, and who require training and transformation until they can act as sovereign liberal individuals” (p. 108). In other words, childhood can be characterized by a limited access to rights and privileges guaranteed to Canadian citizens. For Indigenous peoples, however, this characteristic of childhood does not end in adulthood, as they are legally classified as wards of the state. Paradoxically enough, while Indigenous girls are represented as in need of protection due to both their legal minor status and Indigeneity, they are simultaneously

produced in law, politics, and society as not really children. In effect, Indigenous girls are burdened with all of the responsibilities and constraints of childhood while receiving few of the rights or privileges of being a girl child. Protection is always less available to the Indigenous child. Indeed, official responses and media representations tend to conflate Indigenous girls with women in a manner that fails to account for Indigenous girls’ distinct social location and legal minor status. Official reports often depict Indigenous girls as preternaturally mature by placing emphasis on their sexualities, street involvement, substance and/or alcohol consumption, and even their histories of sexual and physical abuse. In similar fashion, media coverage tends to circulate images of Indigenous girls as downtrodden, thus giving the impression that these individuals are world-weary rather than hopeful, vibrant, or full of life. Judges and lawyers commenting on cases involving the sexual assault of Indigenous girls often depict victims as

“mature for their age” and sexually aggressive (Buydens, 2005, p. 2; Nightingale, 1991; Razack,

1998). Describing the rape trial of a 12-year-old Indigenous girl by three white men in their early twenties, Norma Buydens (2005) points out that the presiding judge referred to the defendants as

“boys” at least 28 times, while almost exclusively referring to the complainant as “Ms.” rather than a “child” or “girl” (p. 2). The discursive construction of Indigenous girls as young women can be seen as a colonial tactic intended to shift the burden of responsibility onto the girls, thus obfuscating state violence.

If Indigenous girls are considered adults, there is the expectation that they are responsible for their life circumstances and social location. However, as legal minors, Indigenous girls are always in somebody’s custody, whether that of a parent, guardian, or the state. Regardless of any assessment of presumed maturity, custodians have a legal obligation to provide care. When

Indigenous girls are portrayed as adult women expected to be responsible for their own safety and wellbeing, they are denied the legal rights and privileges guaranteed to most Canadian

children. The abandonment of Indigenous girls in Canadian law and politics, as demonstrated by the state’s failure to provide care, signals the commencement of dehumanization processes that undoubtedly shape girls’ lives. As Canada assumes legal responsibility over an unprecedented number of Indigenous girls entering carceral facilities, educational boarding arrangements, and foster care, it is important to examine how the state is implicated in the harm of these girls and, further, to interrogate existing systems and structures that conceal state culpability. In doing so, the continuum of violence that begins in girlhood will be rendered visible.

It is necessary to briefly explain how the term girl is deployed in this study. It is important to make clear from the outset that this term is used to refer to both cisgender and transgender experiences of Indigenous girlhood.2 Throughout this study, I remain attentive to social locations (e.g. race, gender, and sexuality) and the mutually constitutive nature of these identities. I posit that girlhood is a socially constructed category that is produced through mutually dependent systems of colonialism, race, gender, and class (Batacharya, 2010, p. 36).

Girlhood is an adaptive concept that captures a multiplicity of meanings. Referring to the contextually, nationally, and historically specific nature of this concept, scholars tend to resist monolithic, fixed definitions of girlhood (Bradford & Reimer, 2015, p. 8; Jiwani, Steenbergen, &

Mitchell, 2006, p. x; Moruzi & Smith, 2014, p. 1; Weems, 2014, p. 119). While girlhood is not a biological reality, it is a lived identity with material implications that must be considered. Sheila

Batacharya (2010) argues that young Indigenous girls are typically denied access to western notions of girlhood and, instead are “constructed as [adults] with a deviant sexually linked to discourses of prostitution and criminality” (p. 48; see also Sangster, 2001 & 2002). The

2 The term cisgender refers to individuals with gender identities that correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth. The experiences of Indigenous transgender girls are often erased, under-represented, undocumented, or incorrectly categorized due to systemic transphobia embedded within all aspects of Canadian society.

expulsion of Indigenous girls from the ideologically charged category of modern girlhood has significant social and material implications. Arriving to this Research Project

According to Margaret Kovach (2009), critical self-location is an integral part of research preparation and pursuits. Positioning oneself within Indigenous inquiry, she explains, establishes kinship and community connections, which ultimately signals the knowledge systems informing the researcher’s worldview and approach (p. 110). In this way, self-location acts as a citational practice referencing knowledge producers beyond the academy. Kovach further observes that self-location provides researchers with more opportunities to critically examine their research purpose and design. In doing so, she argues, researchers attune themselves to existing power dynamics (p. 112). Taking what Kovach also refers to as a reflexivity method of research, I find it necessary to both introduce myself and describe how I arrived to this research project.

My interest in examining structural oppression and state violence in the lives of

Indigenous girls developed long before my entry into the academy. As a 2spirit Ininiw iskwew raised within my community of Norway House Cree Nation, as well as numerous towns and cities across Canada, I have experienced and witnessed the many ways colonial violence shapes, threatens, and claims the lives of Indigenous girls in this country. Research has been one of the ways I have been able to address settler colonial violence and oppression in the lives of

Indigenous girls. As a researcher, my work always begins from home and extends outward to establish broader connections with other Indigenous communities within the Canadian context.

For my Master’s research, I wanted to better understanding the circumstances leading to the death of Helen Betty Osborne, a teenaged girl from my community, in 1971. At the time of her death, Osborne was attending Grade 9 in a nearby town while boarding with a local family because Norway House did not yet then have a high school. Through this case study, my work

both traced the historical colonial processes leading to this widespread educational practice and emphasized its contemporary relevance, thus revealing the continuity of colonial violence and connection between myself and those who came before me.

As I reflect on my earlier scholarship, it is clear that my thinking has evolved in significant ways. For instance, back then I took for granted the socially constructed nature of categories like girl and child, which tended to exclude Indigenous peoples. I see now that when I described 19-year-old Osborne as an Indigenous woman rather than a teenaged girl, my analysis took for granted to the social construction and interconnection of race, gender, and age informing

Osborne’s position and circumstances. As an Indigenous feminist scholar producing work not necessarily about, but rather relevant to my communities, I think this type of reflection is necessary for maintaining accountability and growing as a scholar and community member.

While self-location provides many opportunities to critically reflection on research objectives and design, positioning myself in relation to my research has been fraught with challenges as an Indigenous scholar navigating western research ideologies and traditions. As an

Indigenous scholar, I must continually contend with real and imagined expectations around divulging my personal history within my work. Western attitudes toward Indigenous scholars are paradoxical, really. On one hand, prevailing notions of “authenticity” insist that Indigenous researchers divulge personal experiences. I am reminded now of Eve Tuck’s caution against damage-centered research, which invites oppressed peoples to speak exclusively from a place of pain, trauma, and deficit (2013, p. 413). On the other hand, situating oneself within research while navigating the academy presents the risk of being scrutinized by western scholars as a subject to be known rather than knowledge producer. At different times in my life, I have laid myself bare on the page and, at others, have disappeared entirely. It has taken me a long time to realize that I can write as a 2spirit Indigenous woman with various connections to the

communities, events, and topics that I engage without divulging intimate details of my life. I know now it is possible to write from a place of care because I better understand claims to objectivity are grounded in western intellectual traditions intent upon invalidating Indigenous epistemologies and pedagogies (Smith, 1999). In other words, I know who I write for and the traditions guiding this pursuit. Methodology: An Indigenous Feminist Approach to Narratives

This dissertation is as interested in examining narratives of colonial violence as it is in the violence itself. Narratives play a critical role in establishing and maintaining systems of oppression and, as well, inform perceptions of historical and contemporary wrongs and injustices. Stories are also a crucial source of hope, inspiration, connection, healing, and justice.

To examine the production of narratives on colonial care, I draw upon the insights of Indigenous scholars focused on storytelling methodologies, Indigenous feminist literature, and post- structural theorists interested in examining the production and circulation of narratives, as well as the relationship between discursive practices and material conditions, knowledge, and power.

Indigenous feminist theorists, in particular, have long relied on narrative and storytelling methodologies to challenge notions of a singular truth and objectivity while, at the same time, shedding great light on Indigenous women’s lived experiences within colonial contexts. Cheryl

Suzack (2017) further adds that “Indigenous feminism has focused on women’s storytelling as sources of knowledge about women’s identities and their commitments to political struggle” (p.

12). In other words, an Indigenous feminist storytelling methodology can provide much insight into both interlocking structures of power and oppression, as well as opportunities for resistance and liberation.

Indigenous scholars have long theorized the relationship between power, knowledge, and narrative, yet they are rarely credited for their intellectual contributions. Linda Tuhiwai Smith

(1999) confirms, “While acknowledging the critical approaches of poststructuralist theory and cultural studies the arguments which are debated at this level are not new to indigenous peoples”

(p. 29). She elaborates, “The idea of contested stories and multiple discourses about the past, by different communities, is closely linked to the politics of everyday contemporary indigenous life”

(p. 33). While Indigenous methodologies for examining the production of knowledge and narratives are not necessarily reflected in publications, Smith explains, these ideas are embedded within everyday Indigenous life. She writes, “It is very much a part of the fabric of communities that value oral ways of knowing. These contested accounts are stored within genealogies, within the landscape, within weaving and carvings, even within the personal names that many people carried” (p. 33). For exactly this reason, this study insists upon a methodological approach that is not limited to traditional academic sources; instead, seeking insights from the sources informed by Indigenous feminist theory on colonial violence, such as prose and poetry.

While Smith confirms the existence of multiple truths and knowledge systems, she acknowledges that not all truths are weighted equally. The circulation and concentration of power, she observes, is integral to the emergence of dominant narratives that come to be perceived as the truth. Smith explains, “We believe that history is also about justice, that understanding history will enlighten our decisions about the future. Wrong. History is also about power” (Smith, 1999, p. 34). Indeed, there is a widely held belief that if the truth about oppressive conditions could be exposed to the broader public, perpetrators of violence would recognize the errors of their ways and oppression would cease. However, as Smith insists, oppression is not the result of a misunderstanding, mistake, or a lack of education, but the product of imperial and colonial power. For this reason, projects premised on exposing the truth

do not often succeed in ending oppression. Instead, as Tuck (2013) shows, approaches premised on oppressed people divulging their pain, trauma, and oppressions does more to pathologize these groups as damaged and dysfunctional than to secure sociopolitical gains (p. 413). In taking both scholars’ respective points into consideration, it is clear that research projects merely cataloguing colonial violence are not sufficient for securing social change. This project is decidedly less interested in proving the existence of interlocking systems of oppression. Instead, it traces the formation of systems of oppression that bring white settler societies into existence and, inevitably, result in the subjugation of Indigenous peoples. A close examination of colonial power and the production of dominant narratives within legal forums about violence in the lives of Indigenous girls will be integral to gaining insight into structural oppression.

Alongside the contributions of Indigenous scholars and fiction writers, this project is also informed by Foucault’s approach to discourse analysis. While there are many approaches to discourse analyses available, a Foucauldian discourse analysis provides a sturdy methodological framework for examining power, knowledge production, and narrative while remaining attentive to the material. In taking such an approach, it is crucial to be mindful of the many limitations of

Foucault’s scholarship, in particular his failure to address European imperialism and colonialism

(Million, 2013, p. 30; Rifkin, 2014, p. 151; Stoler, 1995). Notwithstanding this important critique, there is much to be gleaned from this methodological approach. Rather than accept historical accounts based on “fabricating a subject that evolves through the course of history,”

Foucault advances a genealogical approach (1976/1994, p. 306). A genealogy, he explains, is “a form of history that can account for the constitution of knowledge, discourses domains of objects, and so on, without having to make reference to a subject that is either transcendental to the field of events or runs in its empty sameness throughout the course of history” (p. 306). In this way, Foucault challenges historical accounts that insist upon linear timelines with neatly

defined beginnings and ends. Instead, Foucault advances an approach that calls attention to ruptures or significant moments rather than attempting to provide an exhaustive account of events.

According to Foucault, truth is not discovered, it is produced through a series of discursive and material conditions and constraints specific to a societal context. He contends,

Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth – that is, the types of

discourse it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances that enable

one to distinguish true and false statements; the means by which each is sanctioned; the

techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those

who are charged with saying what counts as true. (1976/1994, p. 316)

In other words, truth regimes exist within a political economy that cannot be disentangled from power relations. What’s more, these regimes are not merely ideological or discursive utterances, but very much material in nature. As Foucault elaborates, truth, “is produced and transmitted under the control, dominant if not exclusive, of a few great political and economic apparatuses

(university, army, writing, media)” (p. 316). Through a close reading of Foucault, Derek Hook

(2001) argues that an effective discourse analysis must move beyond linguistic interpretation toward material considerations. He elaborates, “what counts as knowledge, and the various systems through which knowledge is qualified/disqualified… [must be] traced back far enough to the material conditions of possibility, to the multiple institutional supports and various social structures and practices underlying the production of truth” (p. 525-526).

Establishing that truths and narratives are made, not discovered, can and should shift the priorities of research. Examining the production of truth and fact through historical narratives,

Michel-Rolph Trouillot suggests that it is far more useful to ask how history works rather than what history is (1995, p. 25). He writes, “For what history is changes with time and place or,

better said, history reveals itself only through the production of specific narratives. What matters most are the processes and conditions of production of such narratives” (p. 25). Within the context of settler colonialism, the dominant historical accounts circulating are undoubtedly in alignment with the settler state’s values, mythologies, and ambitions. For this reason, Trouillot explains, projects must focus on how history works in order to trace colonial power. He insists that, “it is misleading if it suggests that power exists outside the story and can therefore be blocked and excised. Power is constitutive of the story” (p. 28). Trouillot adds, “Tracking power through various ‘moments’ simply helps emphasize the fundamentally processual character of historical production, to insist that what history is matters less than how history works; that power itself works together with history” (p. 28). The interplay between power and the production of historical narratives is complex and fluid. Trouillot emphasizes, “Power does not enter the story once and for all, but at different times and from different angles. It precedes the narrative proper, contributes to its creation and to its interpretation” (p. 28-29). As expressed above, there is a materiality to the production of historical narratives that must be considered.

Trouillot illustrates, “What happened leaves traces, some of which are quite concrete – buildings, dead bodies, censuses, monuments, diaries, political boundaries – that limit the range and significance of any historical narrative” (p. 29). With this in mind, it is important to approach physical imprints as aspects of colonial narrative to be read as lending legitimacy to this settler colonial project. Methods

The dissertation is organized into two major parts with each providing a discourse analysis of the selected documents. Part one provides a discourse analysis of two landmark legal cases, Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Phoenix Sinclair (2013) and the

Inquest into the Deaths of Seven First Nations Youth (2016). The second part turns toward

Indigenous feminist literature with a focus on two influential novels: Birdie (2015) by Tracey

Lindberg and The Break (2016) by Katherina Vermette. As in the first part, I conduct a discursive analysis of each document to shed light on the contemporary experiences of

Indigenous girlhood in Canada. In taking a discursive approach for each section, I proceed with the understanding that reading legal and literary documents requires at least two sets of knowledges, skills, and techniques. While not without its requisites, questions, and challenges, this approach lends the theoretical and methodological tools necessary to set a scene that provides greater insight into settler colonialism and its operations of power. In the remainder of this section, I elaborate on my discursive approach to reading legal and literary documents while reflecting the advantages, limitations, questions, and possibilities of these modes.

Part one provides an in-depth exploration of inquests and inquiries as mechanisms for justice and sites of knowledge production on Indigenous girlhood. This project follows a well tread path formed by Indigenous studies and critical race scholars focused on Indigenous peoples and the Canadian legal system. These analyses have tended to focus on racial and/or gender discrimination embedded within the Canadian legal system; Indigenous legal frameworks and legal pluralism; the politics of recognition; and how social movements are organized around legal processes (Borrows, 2010; Deer, 2015; Hunt, 2014; Jamieson, 1978; Lawrence, 2004;

Monture, 1995, 2007; Murdocca, 2009, 2010; Palmater, 2011, 2015; Razack 1998, 2002, 2015;

Suzack, 2017). Continuing along and adding to this pathway, my project provides a much- needed critical analysis of Indigenous girls’ participation in Canadian legal system, while also considering the narratives these processes engender. Throughout this examination, I ask what possibilities are opened and foreclosed by legal processes; what knowledges and narratives on

Indigenous girlhood and settler violence are produced through inquests and inquiries; and what knowledges cannot be translated or accommodated within legal narratives. These questions

provide a guiding analytic for reading the selected legal documents. Through this reading, a vivid illustration of the sociopolitical landscape that Indigenous girls must traverse becomes discernable. As well, it becomes painfully apparent how legal processes tend to reinscribe colonial narratives onto Indigenous girls’ bodies.

I want to explain my analytical approach by first explaining why I chose to focus on the circumstances surrounding the life and death of Phoenix Sinclair. Anyone following along with the media accounts of Sinclair’s death, disappearance, and the ways we all tried to make sense of this loss knows that this young girl experienced a tremendous amount of violence in her short life. Most media accounts focus on the extreme nature of this young girl’s death and disappearance, such that Sinclair’s personhood becomes flattened by the weight of these salacious summaries. It is easy to lose sight of the girl behind the story. In examining Phoenix

Sinclair’s lifelong entanglement with Manitoba’s child welfare system and subsequent official responses to her death, my approach is informed by Black feminist theorist Saidiya Hartman’s

(1997) comprehensive analysis on terror, pleasure, and subjection in the context of the Atlantic slave trade and its afterlife. Reflecting on representations of violence, she asks, “What does the exposure of the violated body yield” (p. 3). Too often, she elaborates, depictions serve as a spectacle of suffering that do more to reinforce existing racial hierarchies. Considering this question in the context of settler colonialism, I deliberately avoid reproducing the graphic depictions of violence and suffering frequently enumerated in media accounts and scholarship.

Instead, my analysis redirects the focus toward interlocking structures of oppression and existing power imbalances. In this way, I am providing a research model invested in locating the source of violence rather than probing at the wounds of individuals and communities. My investment in generating new ways to conduct this research comes from the understanding that Western approaches continue to harm Indigenous communities.

I am interested in conducting a critical examination of the official and legal documents about Sinclair to highlight everyday forms of violence expressed through bureaucratic procedures and narratives. For the most part, child welfare documents are unavailable to the public and, as a result, there is little opportunity to critically interrogate everyday procedures governing Indigenous girls’ lives. This brings me to the reason why I chose to bring my analytical focus to the circumstances surrounding the death of a girl whose name has appeared in countless newspaper headlines over the span of ten years; for the simple reason that these documents were only made available to the public because the extreme nature of her death demanded a thorough and comprehensive investigation. Although this work does little to address the sensationalists accounts of Sinclair’s life and death, my work resists adding to these accounts.

Instead, I direct my attention toward the digital archive housing child welfare forms, summaries, and reports.

I read legal transcripts, Kematch and Sinclair case files, Manitoba child welfare policy and reports. I did not use a coding software as part of the collection process. I read through hundreds of pages of material to identify consistent themes and patterns. Because I was working with a digital archive, I was able to gather relevant materials simply by saving PDF files. In addition to using primary sources gathered from the digital archive, I also relied on historical materials archived in other child welfare websites, as well as secondary sources from academic research.

For research involving the Inquest into the Deaths of Seven First Nations Youth, I contacted the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario to request copies of the inquest transcripts.

As well, I relied on the inquest report. There are a number of organizations that make contemporary boarding arrangements possible, including the Dennis Cromarty High School and

Northern Nishnawbe Education Council (NNEC). I closely examined internal documents and

handbooks of both organizations to understand this practice. I also reference the collective youth voice represented by the Regional Multicultural Youth Council that has published a number of reports and surveys on this topic. Another space for listening to collective youth voices was through the final report (2014) of The Feathers of Hope forum, a gathering of hundreds of FN youth through the support of Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth

(OPACY) and Right To Play. I also relied on historical material available through the Inquiry into the Death of Helen Betty Osborne.

Through a close reading of two influential novels, part two explores the theoretical and methodological utility of Indigenous feminist literature. This section presents an unconventional methodical approach for examining settler colonial violence, the formation of colonial subject positions, and the various forums in which settler violence is taken up. Since novels follow a different set of narrative conventions than legal documents, this different approach can further illuminate oppressive systems facilitating violence against Indigenous girls. As Cheryl Suzack

(2011) points out, the law is a formidable framework integral to the production of truth and knowledge; however, it inevitably engages with and responds to the society and cultures from which it emerges. She writes, “Law is both constitutive of social meaning in terms of determining cultural content and constrained by social meaning in terms of how its practices are engaged” (p. 451). Here, Suzack emphasizes the dialectical relationship between law and society, which is to say that critical readings of legal narratives alongside and even through literary documents can provide comprehensive understanding of the topic at hand. Elsewhere, Suzack elaborates on the advantages of bringing prose and poetry into conversation with law. She contends, “poetry represents an important genre for attuning social justice actors to experiences of injustice that do not conform to the demands placed on them by adjudicating processes”

(2017, Abstract). In other words, prose and poetry address experiences of violence in a way that

legal narratives cannot. For instance, as Suzack observes, literary arts can highlight power imbalances embedded within Canada’s legal framework that prevent certain groups from fully accessing justice systems and services (p. 6).

While legal narratives rely on linearity and coherence for credibility, literary narrative conventions embrace nuance, ambiguity, and non-linearity: qualities that would otherwise undermine legal narratives. Yet literary conventions often better reflect the complexities and contradictions of people and their daily lives. While legal narratives must exceed the shadow of doubt to be considered an authoritative account, literature derives its power from dwelling in these shadow spaces. Unlike legal narratives, novels tell a story more concerned with exploring magnitude than reporting a sequence of events. The novels under examination in this project move through time and space with ease, often leaving only to return again and again. Each text introduces complex characters that challenge common sense understandings of victimhood and perpetrators of violence. As readers get to know the characters, each novel illuminates an

Indigenous world structured by historical and ongoing settler colonialism. Within this world,

Indigenous girls must navigate multiple and overlapping sites of violence. Chapter Overview

This dissertation contains a total of seven chapters, including the introduction, theoretical framework, four data chapters, and a conclusion. I have organized the data chapters into two parts, distinguishing between legal cases and fictional literature, with the understanding that reading each body of work requires a particular set of theoretical and methodological tools and approaches. In part one, I examine two high-profile legal cases involving Indigenous girls’ experiences with violence while in state custody. The second part offers a critical exploration of two Indigenous feminist novels featuring Indigenous girl protagonists and antagonists.

Given Indigenous girls’ unique social location and legal minor status that situates them at the intersection of gender-based violence and oppressive child welfare policies, an interdisciplinary approach grounded by queered Indigenous feminist is crucial for attending to these nuances. Throughout chapter two, I outline a queered Indigenous feminist theoretical framework informing the dissertation. In drawing upon the insights and contributions of other interdisciplinary Indigenous feminist scholars, such as Dian Million, Sarah Deer, and Jodi Byrd, this thesis brings Indigenous feminist theory into conversation with Indigenous queer theory, post-structuralism, post-colonial theory, and critical race theory.

Chapter three examines the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of

Phoenix Sinclair, a landmark inquiry into the murder of Anishinaabe 5-year-old Phoenix Victoria

Hope Sinclair following her lifelong involvement with Manitoba’s child welfare system. This chapter begins with a genealogical inquiry into key developments of Canada’s child welfare system. In tracing shifting policy and legislation, this chapter outlines the persistent colonial ideologies informing these developments. I argue that despite Canada’s shifting rhetoric from overt paternalism toward “cultural sensitivity” and Indigenous “self-governance,” child welfare remains a colonial institution committed to maintaining racial hierarchies subordinating

Indigenous peoples to white settlers. With a focus on “caring” policies and professionals animating these colonial institutions, this analysis attends to the gender dimensions to explore the multiple intersections placing Indigenous girls within state purview and at greater risk of violence. I challenge common sense views of child welfare services as providing Indigenous children with protection. Instead, I draw out the processes by which Indigenous girls come to be portrayed as helpless children requiring saving or as deviants requiring carceral management on the basis of life stage. As child welfare records reveal, the regard and treatment Sinclair received from child welfare professionals starkly contrasts with that of her teenaged mother, Samantha

Kematch. From the moment Sinclair is born, Kematch is monitored and regarded with suspicion.

Without dismissing Kematch’s violent behaviour (but not necessarily engaging with it either), this chapter interrogates the ideological underpinnings constructing Sinclair as in need of protection are the same as those criminalizing her mother. In both cases, these girls are regarded as in need of state management; however, their different life stages determine their custodial arrangements.

Readers are provided with an analytical overview of Canada’s approach to Indigenous child welfare, the central component of which is the apprehension of Indigenous children en masse. Throughout this chapter, legal and official policy documents are used to draw out this argument, including the Commissioner’s final report, court transcripts, and child welfare records.

The inquiry into Phoenix Sinclair’s death provides one of the most comprehensive and in-depth examinations of Manitoba’s child welfare system. According to Inquiry Commissioner Ted

Hughes, this is one of Manitoba’s most expensive inquiries, totaling somewhere between $10 and $14 million (CTV Winnipeg, 2012, November 14). The inquiry began in March 2011, six years following the death of Phoenix, and ended in July 2013, with a final report released on

January 31, 2014. There is a digital archive housing much of the Sinclair inquiry documents and information, including the inquiry’s mandate, terms of reference, information about the commissioner and commissioner staff, parties and interveners, and transcripts. All of these documents are publicly available on the website and can be downloaded as PDFs. The transcripts include: Standing Hearing; Public Hearing; Publication Ban/Redaction Motions Hearing;

Conflict of Interest; and testimonies by child welfare staff from September 5, 2012 to July 30,

2013. The final report, The Legacy of Phoenix Sinclair: Achieving the Best for All Our Children, is contained within three volumes. For this particular project, these official documents provide an

invaluable source of information while, at the same time, are subject to critical examination and scrutiny.

Chapter four provides an in-depth examination of the circumstances surrounding the death of Robyn Harper, an 18-year-old girl who died while living as a boarding student in

Thunder Bay, ON. Using the final coroner’s report, jury recommendations, court transcripts, and official reports from the Inquest into the Deaths of Seven First Nations Youth, this chapter examines the gendered dimensions of custodial arrangements requiring Indigenous youth of remote reserves to relocate to towns and cities to pursue secondary education. This chapter compliments the previous chapter as it explores the rise of another major approach to state custody of Indigenous children following the decline of Canada’s Indian Residential School system. While Indigenous children are no longer forced to attend residential schools, the impact of resource extraction and limited access to life-saving services and resources on reserves increasingly places pressure on Indigenous youth to relocate to urban spaces to pursue high school as a survival strategy. In other words, while Indigenous children are not necessarily forced to leave home, there is certainly an element of structural coercion that compels Indigenous children to relocate. Indigenous youth must often relocate to overtly racist and hostile communities where it is considered permissible to target Indigenous peoples with verbal, physical, and sexual violence. The overall objective of this chapter is to outline historical and contemporary Canadian laws and policies that produce and sustain boarding school arrangements as a covert eliminatory strategy. This necessarily involves a close examination of existing structural inequalities on reserves that compel Indigenous youth to relocate to hostile towns and cities. As well, I bring under greater scrutiny the role of so-called “caring” professionals, such as teachers, support workers, and boarding home guardians in exposing Indigenous girls to oppressive and violent situations. In doing so, I expand on the colonial logics in place working to

shift the burden of responsibility from the Canadian state onto Indigenous youth themselves. For example, what are the strategies and structures in place that transform narratives about racial violence against Indigenous youth into stories about Indigenous dysfunction and alcoholism? In tracing Harper’s journey from Keewaywin First Nation to Thunder Bay, I argue that gender and sexuality are integral to this eliminatory framework. Upon arrival to settler cities, all Indigenous girls must continually navigate the risks and realizations of sexualized racial violence distinct to

Indigenous feminine subjects.

Throughout the inquest, alcohol and illicit substances were frequently asserted to be the main factor in the death of each Indigenous youth, thus foreclosing in-depth discussions on structural inequalities that led each youth to reside alone in a racially hostile city to attend school.

With respect to Harper, counsel for the coroner and other official bodies placed much emphasis on her excessive consumption of alcohol, rather than the failure of officials to provide her with necessary medical care that was obviously required. In this way, it is evident that officials were more invested in producing a narrative about Indigenous dysfunctionality that ultimately holds youth responsible for the violence that befalls them. The verdict that ultimately deemed Harper’s death to be an accident rather than a homicide vividly illustrates this point. The reluctance to examine Indigenous schooling policies and the officials who uphold them was apparent throughout the inquest. Etienne Esquega, counsel for Northern Nishnawbe Education Council

(NNEC), maintained that alcohol poisoning was the cause of Harper’s death and, furthermore, insisted that the worker who left Harper on the floor of her boarding home rather than taking her to the hospital was not to blame (Porter, 2016 May 26). In a written submission addressing the scope of the inquest, counsel for six of the seven families and Nishnawbe Aski Nation made a strong argument for not including the issue of alcohol and other substance abuse as a focal point of the inquest. They argued that the focus on alcohol and other substances “problematically

reinforces discriminatory views in play. Without denying very real problems with regard to addictions in First Nation youth, there are prevalent stereotypes that impact the way substance abuse is regarded in First Nations people” (2015 February 17, p. 13). Relying on official and legal documents, such as the Written Submission to Expand the Scope of Inquest and the

Coroner’s Ruling on the Motion to Expand the Scope of Inquest, this chapter provides an in- depth examination of the ways in which narratives around Indigenous alcohol consumption are deployed to shift the burden of responsibility from state systems onto individuals.

Part two begins with a character analysis of Phoenix Stranger, Emily Traverse, and

Zegwan, three Indigenous girls featured in Katherena Vermette’s The Break (2016). While these characters are not meant to be all-encompassing representations of Indigenous girlhood; a close reading of each character does provide readers with greater insight into the daily lives of

Indigenous girls living in a Canadian city known for white settlers’ anti-Indigenous racism.

Moreover, through a critical exploration of the experiences of Indigenous girlhood in Canada,

The Break offers a more thorough understanding of the structures and operations of settler colonialism in Canada. As with the previous chapters, chapter five offers a complex analysis of the ‘caring’ professionals involved in upholding settler colonial structures and systems, including doctors and nurses, police and corrections personnel, and social workers. Through a close reading of each girls’ experience navigating hospital, child welfare, and youth carceral spaces, this chapter highlights the ways in which ‘caring’ professionals across colonial institutions conspire with one another to undermine Indigenous girls’ autonomy and aspirations.

Throughout the novel, Vermette utilizes several literary techniques to disrupt dominant narratives about Indigenous girlhoods, as well as settler colonialism. Contrary to official narratives that tend to insist upon one authoritative narrative, Vermette challenges the idea of a singular truth through an exploration of multiple perspectives that are oftentimes incomplete,

contradict each other, or are unapologetically subjective. By centering three Indigenous girls, The

Break emphasizes that a singular experience of Indigenous girlhood does not exist; but, instead, that Indigenous girlhood reflects myriad subject locations, experiences, and inner worlds. This approach represents a critical intervention into dominant portrayals circulated by official, legal, and media narratives that tend to portray Indigenous girls as exclusively victims of their high- risk lifestyles and dysfunctional culture. Although Indigenous girls certainly live with the risks and realizations of colonial violence while, at the same time, navigating intergenerational trauma, this is one incomplete narrative disembodied from the context in which it emerges. What these narratives leave out, which Vermette skillfully recovers, are the voices and perspectives of each girl. As gestured toward above, The Break does much to challenge stereotypical tropes about

Indigenous girls and girlhood. As the story develops, each girl expresses feelings of desire, questions on identity and autonomy, and reflections on how to pursue their dreams. As Vermette shows, these reflections, questions, and aspirations are not necessarily in competition with the stress that comes with navigating everyday and extraordinary forms of colonial violence; rather, these feelings overlap and intermingle like colours in a kaleidoscope.

Chapter six offers a close reading of Birdie (2015), a coming-of-age novel written by

Tracey Lindberg. Birdie accompanies Bernice “Birdie” Meetoos on a treacherous journey from childhood into adulthood across a colonial terrain. For Birdie, this colonial world is populated by multifarious threats, predators, and abusers, including her mother, uncles, racist white townsfolk, teachers, and shopkeepers. Colonial institutions are forcefully raised from the ground bringing shape to this white settler society–institutions that Birdie is often compelled to enter, never leaving unscathed. Moving across time, the novel recounts Birdie’s violent upbringing while narrating her childhood survival strategies and transformative healing journey as an adult. In this chapter, I argue that novels such as Birdie can provide readers with an expansive and in-depth

understanding of Indigenous girls’ experiences of violence within a settler colonial society.

There are two lines of inquiry that I am interested in pursuing throughout this chapter. First, I am interested in Indigenous girls’ perspective of the world around them. Throughout this chapter, I demonstrate a curiosity about girls’ interests, likes, dislikes, and responses to structural violence.

Novels featuring girl protagonists and antagonists, I argue, advance an implicit argument that stands in contrast to official and legal narratives: what girls think and know matters and is worth observing. The second line of inquiry considers the Indigenous worlding within a white settler society that occurs through the narrative. Unlike more simplistic narratives that describe colonial sites of violence as discrete, Birdie presents readers with an imaginary that allows for a greater understanding of colonial violence, its many origin points, and the co-constitutive nature of systemic forms of violence. Like many other Indigenous girls, Bernice must make sense of and manage the violence and oppression she experiences within herself, at home, in schools, and on the streets. As a close reading reveals, settler colonialism permeates nearly every aspect of

Indigenous life, including home and family. Lindberg’s unflinching examination of the ways in which one Indigenous family across three generations has been affected by structural violence and its intergenerational impact, I argue, sheds greater light on Canada’s settler colonial regime.

What is more, the worlds these characters inhabit are not only sites of misery and pain, but full of life, love, confusion, curiosity, and desire, too. The novel’s ability to highlight these complex interactions further supports my argument that Indigenous feminist novels can provide sophisticated theoretical and methodological tools for addressing violence in the lives of

Indigenous girls.

Canada’s approach to child welfare management is a recurring theme throughout Birdie.

Building on the previous chapter, Chapter 6 critically examines Canada’s practice of relocating

Indigenous youth from First Nations communities to nearby towns and cities in order to receive a

high school education. This practice, I argue, reflects an alternative form of custodial arrangement that places Indigenous youth in state custody. Like Harper and many other

Indigenous youth, Birdie too relocates to a nearby town for school. Upon arriving at her aunt’s apartment where she resides while attending school, Birdie reflects, “She remembers her mom hugging her and telling her to be good. To be a good helper to her auntie. To try to fit in…She can feel that hug. The warmth. Resignation” (p. 77). Here, readers are offered a glimpse into the painful, though not excessively drawn out, farewells parents must make before sending their children off to school. This chapter seeks to de-normalize this practice while also offering a more expansive understanding of state custody.

Alongside a comprehensive analysis of Indigenous girls’ experiences navigating colonial custodial sites, this chapter expands upon Wahkohtowin and Mino Pimatisiwin, two Cree kinship and legal traditions as mechanisms for healing, justice and liberation. As elaborated further on,

Wahkohtowin is a Cree legal principle outlining extended kinship and relational principles and protocols between two or more parties. According to Lindberg, Wahkohtowin continues to organize Cree life despite ongoing colonial occupation. Through Birdie, Lindberg illustrates the consequences of Wahkohtowin violations, as well as expanding on the ways in which this legal principle serves as a valuable framework for maintaining good relations and relational repair within families and broader collectives. Coupled with this argument, Lindberg explores pathways to Mino Pimatisiwin, a Cree philosophy that roughly translates as ‘the good life.’ Thinking through Birdie’s pursuit of Mino Pimatisiwin, this chapter emphasizes the significance of material spiritual and ceremonial practices. Whereas Canadian reconciliatory projects tend to emphasize individualistic, psychic approaches to healing, Lindberg’s novel makes clear that healing and justice cannot be achieved without respecting Indigenous girls’ physical autonomy and relationship with their traditional territories. The novel’s ability to highlight these complex

interactions further supports my argument that Indigenous feminist novels can provide sophisticated theoretical and methodological tools for addressing violence in the lives of

Indigenous girls.

Arriving at the final chapter of this dissertation is a lot like reaching a hilltop after a long journey, with still a way to go up ahead. It is a meditative moment that has encouraged me to reflect on the original impetus of this research; the unexpected ways in which bringing existing creative, legal, and scholarly work has generated new questions, axioms, and connections, as well as where this research fits alongside other intellectual and community-based projects. This meditative moment has allowed me to consider the constraints and limitations of this project as deliberate decisions rather than shortcomings. I see the limitations of this project as possible future pathways to explore as an Indigenous feminist researcher and community member.

Specifically, I am interested in examining the ways in which Indigenous speculative fiction in conversation with coming-of-age narratives explores Indigenous youths’ pursuit for liberation, desire, worlding, and futurity. Moreover, I am looking forward to critically engaging with the stories Indigenous girls and youth have to tell through their creative, scholarly, and advocacy work. As the remainder of this dissertation shows, stories are powerful catalysts for change; what this change looks like, however, depends entirely upon the storyteller.

Chapter 2 Queering Indigenous Feminist Theory

We are the unhoused, left scavenging…To be queer and native and alive is to repeatedly bear witness to worlds being destroyed, over and over again…The world we want is waiting in the breakages between now and the next. —Billy-Ray Belcourt, 2016

Although Indigenous queer theory might be considered a relatively new field, its existence as an organizing principle long predates its entry into the academy. Nonetheless, over the last several decades, Indigenous queer theory has established itself within the academy as an unabashedly interdisciplinary field committed to social change. As a theoretical framework,

Indigenous queer theory provides an extensive array of conceptual tools for critical inquiries on the ways in which gender and sexualities inform Indigenous socio-political and legal structures; approaches to self-determination; and imperial and colonial systems of power and oppression.

Indigenous queer theorists have made a number of critical interventions and contributions within and beyond the academy. Within the academy, this field prioritizes that which women and gender studies, critical ethnic studies, and even, at times, Indigenous studies fails to meaningfully address: a sustained engagement with the intersections of Indigeneity, cis-heteropatriarchy, and settler colonialism. Forerunners like Chrystos (Not Vanishing, 1988; Dream On, 1991; In Her I

Am, 1993), Paula Gunn Allen (The Sacred Hoop, 1986), and Martin Cannon (The Regulation of

First Nations Sexuality, 1998) as well as more recent artists and scholars like Alex Wilson

(N’tacimowin inna nah’, 2008; Skirting the Issue, 2018), Jodi Byrd (Loving Unbecoming, 2017),

Qwo-Li Driskill (Sovereign Erotics, 2011; Queer Indigenous Studies, 2011), Billy-Ray Belcourt

(This Wound is a World, 2017), Arielle Twist (Disintegrate/Dissociate, 2019), and jaye simpson

(It Was Never Going To Be Okay, 2020) have been integral to the development and expansion of

Indigenous queer theory. Given this field’s ongoing commitment to Indigenous liberation through intellectual pursuits and broader social movements, it is unsurprising that Indigenous

queer theory has played a key role in precedent-setting legal cases, direct-action movements, and knowledge recovery and production in response to colonial violence. Within the context of this project, Indigenous queer theory offers both a theoretical and methodological framework for articulating the ways in which cis-heteropatriarchy intersects with settler colonialism to regulate

Indigenous girlhood and ultimately give rise to white settler societies.

Indigenous queer theory is a nascent field with many of its most significant contributions existing beyond the confines of the academy. Indigenous queer thought originates from grassroots organizing, within and outside conventional understandings of Indigenous kin and community (Driskill, 2010). The concepts and approaches of this field are increasingly recognized by Indigenous intellectuals as essential to comprehensive analyses of Indigeneity and settler colonialism. Most notably, Indigenous feminist theorists have begun addressing biological essentialism and cis-heteronormativity within their scholarship through the application of

Indigenous queer theory (Belcourt & Nixon, 2018; Driskill, 2010; Finley, 2011; Justice, Rifkin &

Schneider, 2010; Yee, 2011). This is the difference between what Lindsay Nixon describes as

Indigenous feminism and queer Indigenous feminism. Queer Indigenous feminism, Nixon explains, requires living one’s politics. It is refusing respectability politics, which most often excludes queer and trans peoples in Indigenous spaces. It is a critical examination of institutions criminalizing queer and trans people, such as carceral facilities (2018). With this distinction in mind, I believe it is important for Indigenous feminist theorists to continue deepening their engagement with Indigenous queer theory in every intellectual pursuit to better understand the influence of cis-heteropatriarchy in the production of white settler societies.

My project focused on Indigenous girlhood provides one example of what it means to queer Indigenous feminist theory. I am certainly not alone in this endeavor. There is a small but growing number of Indigenous feminist scholars working at the intersections of Indigenous

girlhood, cis-heteropatriarchy, and settler colonialism. My work contributes to, as well as questions, complicates, and expands on this existing scholarship. Most notably, many scholars examining the experiences of Indigenous girls hold essentialized understandings of sex and gender as biological realities. Like Indigenous queer theorists, I maintain the view that gender identity is a socially constructed category informed by mutually dependent systems of cis- heteropatriarchy, colonialism, capitalism, and ability. By attending to the socially constructed nature of Indigenous girlhood, my work more readily establishes the intimate links between the state’s investment in shaping Indigenous girlhood alongside, but distinct from, white girlhood and the creation of Canada’s national identity. #QueerIndigenousEthics

As indicated earlier, Indigenous queer theory emerges from an entanglement of priorities, principles, and concepts rooted in the distinct socio-political frameworks of hundreds of

Indigenous nations with the shared experience of living under colonial occupation. Prior to the arrival of European settlers, Indigenous queer theory, informed by local epistemological and pedagogical systems, organized social life within many Indigenous societies. In this way, it is a living framework structured by an embodied ethic and concepts animated by action and material conditions. This dynamic framework has evolved over time to respond to Indigenous peoples’ shifting circumstances, at times actively shaping social life, while at other times strategically lying dormant to fend off colonial attacks, or being repressed by internalized oppression. Since entering the academy, this interdisciplinary field has maintained this community-oriented commitment through examinations of Indigenous gender and sexual identities and roles; the impact of cis-heteropatriarchy and settler colonialism; queer kinship and intimate ties; and queered Indigenous desire, futurity, and worlding.

In a conversation with Billy-Ray Belcourt on #QueerIndigenousEthics, Lindsay Nixon warns against intellectual projects that fail to address the material conditions of two-spirit and

LGBTQ-identifying Indigenous peoples excluded from art and intellectual institutions (2018).

Belcourt and Nixon’s use of the hashtag throughout their discussion on queer Indigenous ethics is a nod toward online communities established by queer Indigenous youth in response to institutional exclusionary practices. Nixon writes, “younger generations are thinking about and enacting queer ethics in art, outside of settler-colonial institutions like universities and art museums” (para. 4). Unsurprisingly, the academy’s limited response to institutional gatekeeping and resource hoarding has been ineffective in responding to the calls of queer Indigenous youth.

Relating insights from Erin Konsmo, Nixon observes that the increased visibility of institution- based two-spirit theory and art has “not translated into real-world solutions for the daily violences that queer and trans Indigenous peoples contend with” (para. 10). Such real-world solutions include access to safe and affordable housing, nutritious food, and mental healthcare.

That said, Belcourt considers the material advantages associated with the formation of

Indigenous queer theory as an interdisciplinary field. Working in a formalized field, Belcourt notes, means Indigenous queer theorists have greater access to institutional resources, support, and space. Nevertheless, Belcourt, drawing on Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, maintains that it is important “to continue to proliferate the study of people like us in this underground sense…where abolition–abolition of a society that could have entangled forms of structural oppression–is the dominant impetus behind the study” (para. 16). Here, Belcourt points to even greater material conditions–that the existence of colonial institutions is premised upon the erasure and elimination of Indigenous, Black, and other racialized populations.

For Nixon, Indigenous queer theory is as much an embodied ethic as it is an analytical framework. Nixon’s embodied queer ethics are informed by expansive conceptualizations of

relationality, kin, care, and community that exceed cis-heteronormative definitions. Nixon expands, “My queer Indigenous kin raised me. In many instances, we didn’t have queer and trans mentors, or the support of our cisgender and straight Elders. We had to teach one another what it meant to occupy gender-diverse and sexually diverse roles within our community” (para. 3).

Family is not defined solely by family of origin or biology; instead, kin is understood as a complex network of care formed through a range of connections outside notions of blood.

Further to this, Belcourt describes “the uninstitutional condition of queer Indigenous ethics” as a relationality formed through the systematic exclusion and erasure of Indigenous two-spirit and

LGBTQ identity (para. 5). Certainly, as Belcourt and Nixon make clear, organizing Indigenous queer theory around an embodied ethic of queer kinship with an emphasis on the material better attunes us to the field’s overarching socio-political objectives of Indigenous, Black, and racialized peoples’ liberation. Straight Bedfellows: Cis-Heteropatriarchy and Settler Colonialism

For many Indigenous queer theorists living under colonial occupation, addressing the intersections of Indigeneity, cis-heteropatriarchy, and settler colonialism is central to Indigenous queer theory. Given the greater visibility of two-spirit and LGBTQ-identifying Indigenous peoples within ceremonial and community spaces, it might seem as though this line of inquiry is no longer necessary; however, these same community members continue to confront everyday risks and realizations of direct and systemic violence, and are denied access to ceremonial teachings and spaces when they fail to observe essentialist notions of binary gender roles.

Beyond individual experiences, examining the intersections of power and oppression remains necessary to address the insidious ways in which Indigenous nations have become structured by cis-heteropatriarchal and settler colonial ideologies.

Indigenous studies and Indigenous feminist theory have done much to shed light on the formation of white settler societies through critical examinations of the interconnections between

Indigeneity, gender, capitalism, and settler colonialism. Yet, despite these important contributions, many Indigenous queer theorists have raised concern with unaddressed assumptions and biases privileging heterosexual ideologies and structures within Indigenous studies and Indigenous feminist theory. For example, through close engagement with recent work on Indigenous masculinities and resurgence theory, Belcourt (2016) found that the researcher/subject of Indigenous studies is overwhelmingly imagined as a Red Power-like warrior poised for battle (para. 7). A consequence of such narrow projections, Belcourt warns, is the further entrenching of cis-heteropatriarchal norms to the detriment of two-spirit and LGBTQ- identifying Indigenous peoples. Put more poignantly, Belcourt cautions against “epistemologies that build worlds that can’t hold all of us” (para. 16). According to Alex Wilson (2018), cis- heteropatriarchal ideologies are further reified within Indigenous feminist activism and thought espousing essentialized views on gender identity and roles (p. 162). While these examples are not intended to dismiss the significance of Indigenous studies and feminist theory, they do highlight areas where Indigenous queer theory can offer support.

Indigenous queer theory’s sustained engagement with the intersection of cis- heteropatriarchy, settler colonialism, and Indigeneity has not only addressed the abovementioned limitations, this analytic approach has provided a more expansive understanding of systems of power and oppression. More specifically, Indigenous queer theory provides a grammar that better describes colonial violence. For example, cis-heteropatriarchy is an invaluable concept describing a societal structure organized by a gender hierarchy along with enforced heterosexuality through the systemic suppression of gender fluidity, two-spirit and transgender identity, 2LGBTQ sexual and romantic orientations, and queer desires. By adding the prefix

“cis” to this concept, I am placing even greater emphasis on transphobia, which tends to be treated as an afterthought. Eve Tuck & Karyn Recollet further explain that heteropatriarchy, “is concerned with the over-significance of ‘biological’ gender in distributing power and ability”

(2016, p. 17). In contrast, they argue, “gender is actually culturally constructed and enforced through norms and policies” (p. 17). Chris Finley (2011) describes heteropatriarchy as a logic of colonialism deployed as a strategy for managing populations. To address these insidious societal shifts, Finley urges scholars to seriously address the white settler state’s regulation of sexuality as a colonial logic (p. 33). Through the installment of western approaches to gender and sexuality in Indigenous communities, cis-heteropatriarchy has become almost entirely naturalized within social relations and structures.

For some Indigenous and Black feminists and queer theorists, Foucault’s biopower has been essential for understanding how state regulation over Indigenous peoples’ gender and sexuality advances colonial objectives. For Million, Foucault’s biopower provides a crucial analytic for interrogating colonial management techniques. In taking this approach, it becomes possible to discern how “figures, images, knowledges become the proofs for the social science mob assessments of our assimilation and our ongoing degradation and deterioration within democracy” (2013, p. 29). That said, Million warns that biopower is an insufficient tool for theorizing “the forces that are beyond the words and discourses of any moment, the affect that is actually our lived sensory being-ness” (p. 30). Like Million, Achille Mbembe recognizes the limits of biopower without abandoning it altogether. Instead, Mbembe offers a necropolitical analysis to better account for contemporary forms of subjugation, which aim for, “maximum destruction of persons and the creation of death-worlds…in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of living dead” (2003, p. 29). Bringing whiteness studies into conversation with biopower, Aileen Moreton-Robinson identifies

whiteness as a universal standard against which all human life is measured and managed (2015, p. 130). She posits that biopower expressed through this racial logic operationalizes the legal fiction terra nullius, which simultaneously legitimates white possession as it contests Indigenous sovereignty (p. 131). Such analyses are necessary, Moreton-Robinson argues, for understanding how the disavowal of Indigenous sovereignty shapes white settler subjectivity and statehood (p.

131).3 Along these lines, Tiffany Lethabo King critiques “Foucauldian-like microprocesses of settlement that erase bodies (most often White bodies) as subjects have been more effective in covering the bloody trail of White/human self-actualization” (2019, p. 71). She argues that such refusals have in effect erased Black and Indigenous survival and ways of knowing. With this in mind, it is clear that engagement with Foucauldian theory must be supplemented by queer Black and Indigenous feminist theory.

In her reformulation of Foucault’s biopower, Million expands this conceptual framework to consider both the discursive and affective impact of biopolitical governance within a colonial context.4 Taking what Foucault has referred to as the sovereign right “to make live and to let die” in modern society (1976/1997, p. 241), Million identifies the ways in which colonial structures transform individuals into bodies and populations to highlight the generative quality of biopower. According to Million, “Colonialism meant that Canada came to legally control and socially modify all aspects of Indigenous life and that law was both racialized and gendered and heterosexual” (2013, p. 41). Within the Canadian context, the Indian Act has been integral for

3 Denise da Silva has similarly turned to Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical work to theorize the emergence of scientia racialis in the early 19th century, a knowledge domain responsible for the production of racial difference. She argues that in order to fully account for how the racial operates “as a strategy of power in modernity, one should go beyond the enumeration and classification of various forms of race subjugation” and, instead, “address the very conditions of production” (2010, p. 427).

4 By now, it has been widely established that Foucault’s work is, as Robert Young (2016) humorously puts it, “scrupulously eurocentric”. I am particularly appreciative of Achilles Mbembe (2003) and Ann L. Stoler’s (1995) critique and development of Foucault’s biopower.

maintaining this level of control over Indigenous life. Since its inception, Canada has imbued within the Indian Act, “a power that is concerned with ‘life itself,’ a person’s sex and phenotypes

(the shade of skin, hair texture, cranial measurements, etc.), and relations” (p. 41). Furthermore, this Act sought to reorganize Indigenous ontologies and kinship relations to resemble white social formations. With the introduction of a patriarchal hierarchy, formal leadership positions are extended exclusively to Indigenous men, thus undermining matriarchal governance structures and political influence. As well, this Act penalized Indigenous women and their children for marrying and reproducing with non-status Indians for over one hundred years (p. 41). Here,

Million underscores the centrality of cis-heteropatriarchy to white settler biopolitical governance.

Applying Foucault’s theory to the colonial context, Finley argues that regulation of a population’s sexuality through institutions monitoring, measuring, and manipulating the life and death of populations is integral to the formation of the modern racial state (p. 31). State regulation of Indigenous sexuality was informed by the belief that Indigenous peoples must be entirely eliminated for white settler society to flourish. For this reason, Finley insists, regulation over Indigenous peoples’ sexuality is intimately linked to the systematization of shame. The arrival of white settlers, many scholars have argued, came with cis-heteropatriarchal ideologies supporting the views hypersexualizing Indigenous peoples as licentious, immoral, and perverted

(Morgensen, 2011; Highway, 2013; Wilson, 2018). As time has shown, defining a population as shameful has not only undermined Indigenous social relations and governance structures, it has marked an entire class of people as disposable. Finley illustrates, “this shame around sex started in the boarding schools, and sexual shame has been passed down for generations” (p. 32). Within the Canadian context, the Indian residential school system imposed a hierarchized gender binary that classified Indigenous children as either boy or girl. The entire curriculum was dedicated to indoctrinating Indigenous children with the belief that they were shameful beings whose

redemption lay in the absolute adoption of western values. Within these institutions, Indigenous children learned how to be boys and girls who would ultimately become men and women. Other institutions similarly attempt to control Indigenous sexuality, through sterilization and abortion practices within hospitals, the use of the gender binary to organize populations within carceral facilities, and restrictive marriage and laws. As all these examples illustrate, state regulation over gender identities and sexualities has always been instrumental to the flourishment of white settler societies through the elimination of Indigenous populations.

Analyses attending to the dynamic interplay between cis-heteropatriarchy, settler colonialism, and Indigeneity through the imposition of rigid gender binaries, compulsory heterosexuality, and monogamy provide much insight on historic and contemporary strategies, systems, and structures advancing Canada’s settler colonial regime. This line of inquiry has enabled scholars to articulate with greater precision the ways in which the settler state strategically aligned itself with Christian ideologies and institutions for the purposes of disempowering Indigenous peoples (Highway, 2013; Wilson, 2008, 2018). In particular,

Christian ideologies admonishing gender and sexual diversity reified through settler law and policy were integral to Canada’s overarching eliminatory scheme. According to Wilson, early colonists viewed Indigenous peoples’ varying approaches to gender and sexuality as a menace to white settler nationhood. She illustrates, “They saw the acceptance of gender and sexual diversity that prevailed our lands as sinful and threatening” (2018, p. 169). Without attending to cis-heteropatriarchy, Indigenous feminist scholars have identified and discussed at length the impacts of discourse depicting cis women and girls as sexually immoral, as well as interrogated western approaches to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody. Notwithstanding these important insights, this field has not addressed the impact and implications of Christian ideology wielded by white settler states upon two-spirit and LGBTQ-identifying Indigenous peoples until

more recently. As Justice reveals, gender variance and sexualities were targeted by white settlers as early as 1513, when Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, a Spanish conquistador and explorer ordered his soldiers to kill approximately 40 “smoth & effeminately decked” men (2010, p. 9). Only through close attention to the ways white settlers deploy Christian rhetoric to control Indigenous peoples’ gender and sexualities is it possible to fully unpack colonial processes.

Through an examination of US Supreme Court cases, Jodi Byrd considers the influence of racial liberalism in sustaining white settler states through a queered lens. She begins by first defining racial liberalism as a state mechanism of tolerance intended to incorporate and manage racial, gender, sexual, and Indigenous difference within the existing settler nation-state framework (2017, p. 208). Byrd further emphasizes this mode of non-transformative governance that provides limited inclusion effectively maintains and consolidates settler authority while undermining Indigenous sovereignty (p. 208). Through processes of racialization, Byrd explains,

“indigeneity collapses into race and is then supposedly remediated through a racial liberalism that offers incorporation into the imperial nation as the fulfillment of humanity’s struggle against oppression” (p. 211). By attending to the intersection of gender and sexuality with race, transnationalism, and colonialism, Byrd suggests that an Indigenous queer analytic can more readily respond to racial liberalism while also contemplating transformative possibilities. Byrd persuasively argues, “Coupling queer to desire and sexuality to erotic sovereignty, scholars have begun to chart a queer Indigenous theory of resistance that manifests with and against fetishizations of exceptional Indigenous difference” (p. 213). In other words, Indigenous queer theory is more than ensuring the 2 is included in the LGBTQ alphabet. Indigenous queer theory emphasizes the inextricable link between gender and sexuality and Indigenous governance structures, legal frameworks, and social systems. As such, adequately responding to

heteronormativity, homophobia, and transphobia requires critical examinations of the limits of inclusion efforts by liberal white settler states. Two-Spirit: An Identity and Analytic

As many Indigenous queer theorists have already noted, early writing on Indigenous peoples’ genders and sexualities leading up to and at the arrival of European settlers emerges from anthropological and ethnographic scholarship informed by an unreliable western bias

(Gunn Allen, 1986; Laing, 2018). As anthropologists recorded everything they could about

Indigenous tribes, Christian missionaries worked with government officials to violently eradicate

Indigenous gender and sexual diversity. Despite systematized attacks targeting gender and sexually diverse Indigenous peoples, ideologies, and structures, Indigenous peoples across nations maintained the collective memory and practices through oral traditions and clandestine practices. Contemporary understandings espoused by community members and Indigenous queer theorists reflect the sum of these historical developments. As we continue to recover knowledges and practices, re-interpret existing knowledge, and cultural production continues, contemporary approaches to gender and sexual identity and roles also evolve. While the value of “identarian scholarship” has been questioned (Rifkin, 2010, p. 20), this study maintains the view that foregrounding two-spirit and LGBTQ-identifying Indigenous peoples not as subjects, but as knowledge producers, theorizing cis-heteropatriarchy and settler colonialism through lived experiences is integral to both practicing a #QueerIndigenousEthic and engaging with two-spirit as a guiding analytic.

Contrary to popular belief, Indigenous cultural production did not cease with the arrival of European imperialists in what is now known as Canada and the US. Under colonial rule,

Indigenous languages continue to exist, evolve, and expand, reflecting both nation-specific conventions and pan-Indigenous colonial realities. Where language does not exist to describe

contemporary queer Indigenous realities, terminology is developed by communities to give voice to these experiences. Two-spirit is one such concept. While there are many nation-specific terms that have existed since time immemorial, the emergence of two-spirit can be dated back to the third International Gathering of American Indian and First Nations Gays and Lesbians in 1990 when it was coined by Cree educator Myra Laramee (Two-Spirited People of Manitoba, 2016 in

Laing, 2018). Prior to this concept, anthropologists referred to LGBTQ-identifying Indigenous peoples as “berdache,” a highly derogatory term imposed without consent (Driskill, 2010; Laing,

2018). As well, two-spirit emerged at a time when Indigenous peoples across nations, land-bases, and even colonial borders were politically organizing and required a common banner (Laing,

2018, p. 23). Still, this term was not uniformly adopted by Indigenous peoples, with many preferring to identify under the LGBTQ umbrella and/or with nation-specific concepts and systems of thought. For those who do identify as two-spirit, there is a diversity of meaning.

While there is no singular definition for this term, it widely understood that this self-descriptor denotes the intersection of Indigeneity, gender, and sexuality (Driskill, Justice, Miranda, &

Tatonetti, 2011; Laing, 2018).

There are as many definitions of two-spirit as there are two-spirit people (if not more).

Individuals who assume this identity cultivate a personalized understanding that reflects their unique gender and/or sexual expression as an Indigenous person living under colonial occupation

(Laing, 2018, p. 3). For many, two-spirit denotes an individual’s gender identity. In these instances, two-spirit individuals are distinguished from cisgender individuals and do not fall neatly with the western gender binary. According to Marie Laing, “Many trans, two-spirit and queer Indigenous community members note that two-spirit is a term that creates a sense of belonging for them” (p. 24). This concept is also understood as indicating an individual’s sexual

preferences as distinct from heterosexual norms (Wesley, 2015, p. 48). I appreciate Wilson’s holistic interpretation of two-spirit:

A self-descriptor used by many Cree and other Aboriginal lesbian, gay, bi, and trans

people. When we say that we are two-spirit, we are acknowledging that we are spiritually

meaningful people. Two-spirit identity may encompass all aspects of who we are, including

our culture, sexuality, gender, spirituality, community, and relationship to the land. (p. 193)

To me, this interpretation encapsulates the entire personhood of a two-spirit person as they exist in relation to their family, communities, and nation, all while navigating the realities of settler colonialism. As well, it places emphasis on the inherently socio-political dimensions of this concept, which not only affirms Indigenous peoples right to self-determine, but also poses a direct challenge to the existence of white settler societies.

In addition to serving as a self-descriptor, two-spirit functions as a theoretical concept through which intellectual, spiritual, and socio-political projects are carried out. The very emergence of this concept is tied to grassroots organizing responding to the ways in which cis- heteropatriarchy intersects with settler colonialism and other oppressive structures to give rise to white settler societies. As Qwo-Li Driskill explains, two-spirit challenges “white-dominated

GLBTQ community’s labels and taxonomies” and, furthermore, interrogates the ways homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny advance colonial projects (2010, p. 73). Beyond colonial critiques, two-spirit places emphasis on the reclamation of nation-specific gender systems and diverse approaches to sexualities. Driskill elaborates, “Indigenous gender and sexual identities are intimately connected to land, community, and history” (p. 73). In this way, two- spirit distinguishes itself from dominant LGBTQ concepts, which prioritize the individual.

In discussing a few of the more compelling two-spirit critiques taking place within the academy, artistic, and activist movements, Driskill (2010) applies Cherokee doubleweaving

techniques to foreground these critiques while placing them into conversation with Indigenous studies and queer theory. The doubleweave is a basketry technique that involves weaving a complete basket within an outer basket with a common rim to produce one basket (p. 74). As a rhetorical strategy, the doubleweave technique offers a way for conceptualizing the complex convergences of distinct axioms, theories, methodologies, communities, and disciplines. Central to the weaving of Indigenous studies and queer theory is the recognition of two-spirit and

LGBTQ-identifying peoples as valued members of Indigenous communities. According to

Driskill, this recognition requires addressing internalized cis-heteropatriarchy imposed by the colonial state. S/he insists that two-spirit critiques directed towards Indigenous communities and disciplinary fields are integral to decolonial projects (p. 81). The doubleweave further accounts for the ways in which two-spirit critiques are informed by disciplines taking up heteropatriarchy and colonialism, such as Indigenous feminist theory (p. 84). This technique holds these scholarly endeavors alongside two-spirit grassroots organizing. Indeed, two-spirit knowledge production emerged through political organizing by activists and artists historically excluded from the academy. Whereas other “queer and feminist theories in the academy have a history of

‘theorizing’ themselves away from grassroots communities,” many Indigenous queer theorists insist that research must foremost remain accountable and accessible to Indigenous communities

(p. 81-82). This means engaging with both nation-specific and intertribal concerns (p. 83). In essence, Driskill’s application of the doubleweave technique serves as a powerful reminder that two-spirit not only acts as an analytical guide relevant across disciplines, it is most effective when grounded by territorial specificity and community.

One of the most frequent assertions explaining the turn away from two-spirit as a self- descriptor is that prior to colonial contact Indigenous peoples had their own concepts and systems of thought around gender and sexuality. These assertions are often coupled with

references to the Navajo, Lakota, and Anishinaabek peoples’ well-documented history of gender and sexual diversity and acceptance. Beyond these examples, Daniel Heath Justice asks, what are we to make of nations with scant or nonexistent memory or record of gender and sexual diversity or, even still, evidence suggesting less than supportive views? He asks, “why wouldn’t Native peoples be as diverse in our traditions of sexuality and gender as we are culturally, linguistically and politically” (2010, p. 215). Rather than take comfort in universal claims, Justice urges scholars to embrace historical specificity over universality. Justice disputes claims that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence (p. 215). Instead, he proposes a reading informed by

Jennifer Terry’s “deviant historiography,” which places less emphasis on recovering the “true history” than examining “‘the conditions which make possible, and those which constrain, the emergence and vitality of ‘lesbians’ and ‘gay men’ who populate our present’” (Terry in Justice, p. 215). Doing so, Justice contends, provides Indigenous peoples with an “alter-Native” (his pun, not mine) approach for engaging with historic social ideologies and practices. This reading:

is one that values adaptation, not stasis or assimilation; inclusivity of the strengths of our

differences, not rejectionist claims to false purity; a generous engagement of expansive

kinship values, rather than a simple-minded adoption of the miserly ‘family values’ of

division; and unflinching honesty in its attention to both historical and contemporary tribal

realities, not a naïve adherence to ahistorical visions of some pure, unchanging,

uncomplicated past or present. (p. 214)

In this way, Indigenous peoples are not restricted to a fixed past, but invited to adapt relevant traditions and ideologies from the past to present-day contexts in ways that support the individual and collective health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples.

There is no word in Swampy Cree naming a two-spirit or LGBTQ-identifying person.

Taken at face value, it is possible for some to suggest gender variation and sexual diversity did

not exist amongst the Swampy Cree; however, by applying Justice’s alter-Native reading of

Indigenous histories and traditions, there is much evidence supporting the view that Swampy

Cree worldview and values evinced through linguistic systems can certainly support gender variance and sexual diversity within our communities. Indeed, meaningful engagement with

Indigenous languages has provided scholars and community members frameworks for considering worlds beyond gender binaries staggered along a hierarchy. Despite Canada’s systemic efforts to eradicate Indigenous languages through institutions like residential schools, many languages continue to exist, whether in conversation or reclamation resources. Embedded within Indigenous languages are queered worldviews. Take, for instance, Cree grammatical structure. Like the English language, Cree genders are organized along a binary; however, unlike

English, the binary is animate/inanimate rather than male/female. While contemporary translations describing individual pronouns tend to reflect English conventions, such as she or he, a more accurate translation would more likely be they. For Indigenous queer theorists, articulating these distinctions are crucial for both interrogating settler ideologies and queering

Indigenous epistemologies. Wilson (2008) emphasizes, “Rather than dividing the world into female and male, or making linguistic distinctions based on sexual characteristics or anatomy, we distinguish between what is animate and what is inanimate” (p. 193). What I find particularly compelling about Wilson’s analysis is that Cree grammar not only provides an alternative approach to gender beyond male/female hierarchical classification, but dismisses grammatical conventions separating humans from other living entities. Wilson confirms, “Our language and culture are rooted in this fundamental truth: that every living creature and everything that acts in and on this world is spiritually meaningful” (p. 193). An important point to take away is that erotic sovereignty is not merely interested in the individual experience of gender and sexuality, but also kinship and the interconnection of all living beings.

In queering Indigenous feminist theory, this project interprets Indigenous queer theory and Indigenous feminism through an alter-Native lens as it applies Driskill’s doubleweave technique. While two-spirit is often dismissed as contemporary pan-Indigenous term that is neither rooted in pre-contact history nor any nation-specific traditions, I argue that two-spirit is a relevant and necessary self-identifier and analytic. Like the term Indigenous, two-spirit responds to the collective reconfigurations and groupings resulting from settler colonialism. In this case, two-spirit emerges in response to cis-heteropatriarchal expressions of settler colonialism broadly targeting Indigenous peoples, but most directly those who refuse normative gender identities and/or heterosexuality. Examining two-spirit through an alter-Native lens provides insight into the necessary conditions for Indigenous survival under settler colonialism today. The term’s origin is rooted in Indigenous refusal to be classified by colonial scholars and state officials

(Laing, 2018, p. 3). Since 1990, two-spirit has allowed diverse Indigenous peoples to come together under an umbrella of shared experiences while, at the same time, strategizing against individual and systemic oppression. While two-spirit critique foremost responds to the interests and concerns of two-spirit and LGBTQ-identifying individuals, Indigenous queer theory provides scholars and activists the theoretical, methodological, and ethical tools for examining the relationship between cis-heteropatriarchy to settler colonialism. In this project on Indigenous girlhood, Driskill’s doubleweave enables me to queer Indigenous feminist theory. In doing so, I can examine violence against Indigenous girls without relying on essentialized notions of gender or sexuality. Through this approach, I can more readily identify and critically examine the social processes giving rise to girlhood. What’s more, in doubleweaving two related, yet distinct, fields, this project offers an alter-Native approach necessary for the development of both fields. Queer Kinship and Intimate Ties

While Belcourt does not dispute the significance of theorizing colonial violence, he maintains that “this is not a thick enough intellectual project to enable something like feminist and queer freedom for Indigenous peoples” (para. 11). Instead, Belcourt calls for another kind of art and theory, one where we “discern practices of care and joy where they are expected to be absent, to have been quashed by state power” (para. 20). Belcourt is not suggesting we naively avert our attention away from colonial violence; in fact, just the opposite. He asks researchers to look for signs of life along this terrain, no matter how faint. Belcourt sees Indigenous futurism as an ongoing social project co-produced by Indigenous peoples. While the artistic-theoretical visioning remains important, Belcourt emphasizes the importance of survival and relationality to this project. To be oriented towards Indigenous futurity is not necessarily turning forward or back in time. Rather, Indigenous futurity is orienting ourselves toward each other.

Wilson describes this orientation as coming-in, “an act of returning, fully present in our selves, to resume our place as a valued part of our families, cultures, communities, and lands, in connection with all our relations” (2018, p. 171). Whereas western concepts like coming out emphasize the individual as apart from the community, coming-in locates individuals within a complex network of humans, non-humans, and the land to emphasize interdependence and relationality. In doing so, this concept broadens the scope of analysis to consider the ways in which colonial laws and policies disproportionately impact two-spirit and LGBTQ-identifying

Indigenous peoples outside the rubric of gender and sexuality. Wilson points to the Native Youth

Sexual Health Network, an organization created for and by Indigenous youth, to highlight the application of coming-in through community-based initiatives focused on reproductive health, de-criminalizing the sex trade, addressing stigma around alcohol and substance use, and abolition of all carceral institutions (p. 171). As this example clarifies, two-spirit and LGBTI-identifying community members’ safety and wellness does not hinge solely on individual rights around

gender expression and sexuality, but also on matters concerning treaty rights, resource extraction and development, and the prison industrial complex. As Wilson powerfully concludes,

“Indigenous sovereignty over our lands is inseparable from sovereignty over our bodies, sexualities, and gender self-expression” (p. 171).

Along a similar vein, Paula Gunn Allen interrogates anthropology’s archive to discuss the ways lesbianism shaped Indigenous life among particular tribes in the United States. This research is, in part, a response to the apparent silence among anthropologists and ethnographers on occurrences of lesbianism, which Allen suggests is the result of heteropatriarchal bias (1986, p. 245). Allen’s larger mission, however, is articulating that lesbianism among Indigenous peoples is not merely an aberration, but, in some contexts, integral to the social fabric. In other words, Allen is searching for a different way of conceptualizing gender and sexual diversity altogether. Tribal life, Allen elaborates, “differs enormously from that of the contemporary western world. This difference requires new understanding of a number of concepts. The concept of family, the concept of community, the concept of women, the concept of bonding and belonging” (p. 247, emphasis added). For instance, Allen’s discussion on family formation. In contrast to western nuclear models, she explains, family in some communities is organized by extended kinship networks established through blood, marriage, adoption, spiritual connections, and care practices. Within this framework, Allen suspects that lesbianism would have been commonplace, particularly in communities where women spent the majority of time together, including in ceremony, work, and home life. Still, Allen questions “whether these practices would be identified as Lesbian…for while sex between women probably occurred regularly, women also regularly married and raised children” (p. 256). In other words, past and contemporary western researchers might not recognize these intimate relationships as queer because they were so well-integrated into more conventional practices. Nevertheless, Allen

maintains that women’s diverse sexual practices have much to offer all Indigenous peoples, including restoring balanced power relations.

The realities of coming-in as a transgender woman do not fit within a neat narrative about familial and community acceptance. Arielle Twist’s ‘What It’s Like to Be a Native Trans

Woman on Thanksgiving’ is a transgender woman’s coming-of-age poem theorizing the perils of transitioning within a transmisogynistic, heteropatriarchal, and settler colonial context. Unlike essentialist coming-of-age narratives focused on cisgender girls, Twist challenges genre conventions exclusively depicting coming-of-age as a cisgender person’s transition from childhood into adolescence. Instead, Twist describes the ways in which transmisogyny, heteropatriarchy, and settler colonialism undermine transgender women’s coming-of-age well into adulthood. Told over the course of four thanksgiving gatherings, Twist details myriad systemic barriers, challenges, and dangers unique to Indigenous transgender women; everything from conventional beauty standards to dating men to workplace harassment to violent family interactions is laid out. From her first visit as an openly transgender woman, Twist undergoes a series of profound physical and psychic transformations and, yet, each visit home repeatedly serves up deliberate mis-gendering and deadnaming. For transgender women existing at the intersection of settler colonialism, transmisogyny, and heteropatriarchy, transitioning is not a one-time event or linear process, but rather it is an ontological organizing framework. That said,

Twist makes clear the significance of desire in transgender women’s transition narratives.

The journey into Indigenous transgender womanhood along this transmisogynistic colonial terrain is fraught with danger. Every aspect of Indigenous life is reorganized by settler colonial occupation. As Twist puts it, “Funny how colonization touches all things” (2017, para.

1). This includes her family’s annual thanksgiving dinner, a white settler ritual originating from events intended to eliminate her entire family. Along these lines, the unnamed narrator’s journey

from the city to the reserve follows colonial routes intended to segregate Indigenous peoples. She describes the looming dread of coming out to her extended family as transgender and the more immediate discomfort of her wig, both signalling the spatiality of transmisogynistic colonialism.

Even still, Twist emphasizes the ways in which Indigenous transgender women resist annihilation. We are told, “I am beautiful even though I am not well-versed in rituals of cosmetics and a palatable femme aesthetic” (para. 1). Furthermore, the narrator receives love and care from her siblings where her extended family cannot provide, “my siblings could see my beauty, they both saw it as soon as the words ‘I think I am trans’ shook out of my throat” (para.

2). Although transmisogynistic colonialism poses a daily threat to Indigenous transgender women, Twist points out that this project remains incomplete and unsuccessful in the face of

Indigenous transgender women’s survival and desire.

Reflecting on her extended family’s persistent transphobia, the narrator wonders, “aren’t

Indigenous people supposed to love queer people? Isn’t Two-Spirit magic the most holy magic”

(para. 4). Here, Twist invites readers to consciously reflect on the insidious ways in which settler colonialism has disrupted, reorganized, and even fragmented Indigenous rituals and relationalities. In doing so, Twist contests settler narratives portraying Indigenous peoples as dysfunctional and backwards. The narrator’s decision to no longer return home conveys her deepening analysis of intersecting transmisogyny, heteropatriarchy, and settler colonialism. She states, “This year, I learn ‘Catholicism’ and ‘colonization’ are synonyms, both meaning the murder of my people. I learn we are wounded and that relearning these things takes time…That someday everyone will love these complexities that live in me” (para. 8). The narrator’s decision to distance herself from her extended family does not necessarily come from a place of resentment, her ongoing transition into Indigenous transgender womanhood has ultimately

allowed her to prioritize her safety, wellbeing, and desire even while extending compassion toward her extended family.

In their study on intimate relations and the home as sites of relational decolonial praxis, resistance, and queering, Sarah Hunt and Cindy Holmes (2015) examine the ways in which settler colonial ideologies and structures have undermined Indigenous intimate relations and social formations as expressed through individuals, family units, communities, and nations. They further argue that a decolonial queer analysis informed by nation-specific Indigenous epistemologies and worldviews must inform any examination on historical and existing imperial and settler colonial socio-political formations. They emphasize, “This politic seeks to queer

White settler colonialism and the colonial gender and sexual categories it relies on – to render it abnormal, to name it and make it visible in order to challenge it” (p. 156). Such an approach, they argue, shifts analyses from liberal logics of individualism and inclusion toward an intersectional, anti-oppressive framework required for Indigenous liberation. Taken-for-granted concepts like family and home are troubled within this approach. Hunt and Holmes elucidate,

“‘the family home’ may not [be] a place of comfort and refuge, but may be a site of oppression, violence, and surveillance; for example, the heterosexual or cisgender family home for

LGBTQ2S people, or non-Indigenous foster homes for Indigenous children” (p. 159). Indeed, as scholars like Sarah Carter (2008) and Million (2013) have noted, Canada’s imposition of nuclear household models has seriously undermined Indigenous peoples’ extended kinship formations.

Further to this, a decolonial queer analysis enables Hunt and Holmes to readily identify key tenets of Canada’s eliminatory processes. They note:

Colonial policies imposed sociolegal categories that were defined and managed in ways

that were intended to lead to fewer and fewer Native people over time. Inherent in this

project of erasure was the imposition of a binary system of gender which simultaneously

imposed Indigenous rights and status along heterosexual lines and suppressed Indigenous

systems of gender that went far beyond the gender binary. (p. 159, emphasis added)

This being the case, Hunt and Holmes provide a powerful argument for queering any examination of Canada’s settler colonial project. Indeed, as a queered Indigenous feminist analysis places both gender and sexuality under scrutiny, this analytical frame can better articulate a fuller spectrum of colonial regulation and control over Indigenous girlhood. Sovereign Futures?

Sovereignty has long been the object of critical inquiry for Indigenous theorists and political activists. For many, this concept is regarded as synonymous with autonomy and liberation and, therefore, it is believed that Indigenous liberation from colonial occupation culminates with the unhindered exercise of Indigenous sovereignty. Other Indigenous theorists, however, have argued that sovereignty’s colonial underpinnings must not be ignored when envisioning Indigenous futurities and, instead, urge theorists, artists, and community members alike to envision something more expansive than sovereignty and statehood.5 This final section interrogates the utility of sovereignty as a methodology and emancipatory referent.

According to Tracey Lindberg, “There are language, cultural and spiritual barriers in place which make translating sovereignty into an Indigenous context difficult at best and inaccurate at worst” (2007, p. 64). Lindberg begins by first outlining Cree people’s historical interpretation of nationhood (an interpretation that largely still holds today); which is understood

5 Noura Erakat’s (2019) work on the struggle for Palestinian liberation from Israeli occupation presents similar concerns and questions as those discussed in this section. Thinking through the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s strategic turn to international law, she asks, “how can a state-centric legal order that sanctifies the sovereignty of settler states rectify and stem ongoing dispossession and native erasure” (p. 235). Further on, she expands, “It seems, at least in part, that the struggle for Palestinian sovereignty has similarly been a quest for inclusion in, and recognition from, a world order that left Palestinians behind” (p. 239). Erakat then turns to Fanon to consider something more expansive than what sovereignty and statehood seem capable of offering. She writes, “In the middle of the last century, Frantz Fanon entreated his fellow subjugated peoples to imagine a better horizon for humanity than Europe was offering in the form of nation-states” (p. 239).

as the expression of a set of obligations to the land and everything it holds as bestowed by the

Creator. Lindberg further describes Cree nationhood and relationship with the land as “more than sovereignty,” an “inalienable delegated responsibility or authority” (p. 65). What’s more, Cree conceptualizations of nationhood can also be considered an Original gift “which endows us but similarly obligates us” (p. 65). Lindberg then shifts her focus to consider how sovereignty shapes western nationhood. Whereas Cree nationhood emphasizes reciprocity, nationhood organized under the rubric of sovereignty has historically and presently privileged control and subjugation

(p. 66). Moreover, Lindberg points out the narrow definitional parameters of sovereignty, which foreclose expanded approaches to nationhood. In drawing out the wildly divergent epistemological and socio-historical contexts from which western and Cree definitions of nationhood emerge, Lindberg readily explains why sovereignty might not be the most effective or useful model for Indigenous nationhood and emancipation from colonial occupation.

For Lindberg, Indigenous emancipation from colonial occupation is not achieved by successfully conforming to western concepts of liberation and statehood. Liberation requires the following:

Dismantling the colonial apparatus which perpetuates colonization of Indigenous people

and deconstructing colonizing thought necessitates an informed examination of Indigenous

relationships with our land and the basis for the same. Shifting a colonizing mindset

demands that we peel off layers of colonial thought, colonizing legislation, colonial

policies and histories. It requires that we acknowledge and recognize Indigenous ways of

knowing, Indigenous laws and the source of Indigenous understandings. (p. 69)

In other words, Indigenous emancipation necessarily entails repairing and returning to

Indigenous ideologies, systems, and structures. Lindberg turns to Doris Ronnenberg, the former

President of the Native Council of Canada, who states, “Creator gave us the mandate and

responsibility to live on this continent. To do that successfully, we must obviously have the capacity to make decisions necessary to exercise that mandate” (p. 65). However, since western interpretations of sovereignty are most often restricted to the nation-state framework, even by international legal bodies, this concept simply does not support Indigenous socio-legal frameworks and protocols. Shifting the colonial mindset, by Lindberg’s logic, requires critical examining and possibly abandoning sovereignty as a viable pathway to liberation.

Linking sovereignty more explicitly to Indigenous studies and related fields, such as

Indigenous queer theory, Belcourt and Nixon take up a critical dialogue on the utility of sovereignty especially in the lives of two-spirit and LGBTQ-identifying Indigenous peoples.

Belcourt argues, “the concept of sovereignty, which is a charismatic concept in Indigenous studies, cannot be the ideational house for those of us who are queer and/or trans Indigenous and two-spirit” (2018, para. 5). While conceding that sovereignty is “a charismatic concept, which…galvanizes inquiry en masse,” he expresses concern regarding the ways in which it

“swallows up a host of meta-concepts that do not stand the test of intellectual time” (para. 5). Put differently, the prioritization of sovereignty as an analytical framework often comes at the expense of other viable approaches that might better serve Indigenous peoples. Within this conversation, Nixon considers how Indigenous resurgence theorists’ respective applications of sovereignty as a methodology has failed Indigenous women and two-spirit folks. Resurgence theory, Nixon argues, “is a political philosophy that often argues that Indigenous peoples must rise above colonialism by asserting flattened conceptions of sovereignty and nationhood…by centering solely activism that mirrors colonial-capitalist warring and legal scholarship” (para. 8).

Nixon cautions against this methodological approach as its tendency to privilege the individual profoundly fails Indigenous community members most directly targeted by colonial violence, including two-spirit and LGBTQ-identifying Indigenous peoples.

Beyond critiquing the limits of sovereignty as a methodology or political aspiration,

Belcourt and Nixon envision alternate approaches towards Indigenous liberation, which always includes and requires two-spirit and LGBTQ-identifying community members. In fact, it is these very community members leading the charge in this area. As Belcourt contends, “those who are

Indigenous and differently gendered and/or sexualized will seek and/or perform alternative sites of political action and community-building” (para. 6). He then gestures towards relational practices that effectively destabilize western notions of nationhood. These practices, he elaborates, “agitate the body or nation as inviolable containers for political life. Anything can become a site of severance, even the concepts to which we are most devoted” (para. 5). Belcourt then expands his focus from the intellectual labour of community members towards Indigenous queer theory as a field. Here, Belcourt observes that while Indigenous queer theory is exceptionally well-equipped to interrogate the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, “this is not a thick enough intellectual project to enable something like feminist or queer freedom for

Indigenous peoples” (para. 11). Instead, he suggests repair and future-building is simply, “the hard and less glamorous work of survival and care for one another” (para. 20).

Taking a slightly different approach, Byrd considers the methodological utility sovereignty does offers Indigenous theorists while, at the same time, contemplating this concept’s colonial underpinnings. She does so by outlining the socio-historical context in which sovereignty emerges, as well as mapping out its splintering trajectories, which includes

Indigenous theorists’ interpretation and application of this concept. According to Byrd,

“sovereignty is deeply imbricated in histories of colonialism, genocide, exclusion, and slavery”

(p. 131). She locates this concept’s origins within the medieval monarchical systems before tracing its rise to ascendency during the height of global imperialism, which it maintains in today’s era, where global power is primarily expressed through multinational corporations.

Throughout all of this, “sovereignty has cohered peoples, solidified territories, and mobilized armies for defense, conquest, and/or profit” (p. 131). Interpreting Joanne Barker, Byrd expands,

“sovereignty is also historically contingent, and it ‘must be situated within the historical and cultural relationships in which it is articulated.’ Sovereignty ‘carries the horrible stench of colonialism. It is incomplete, inaccurate, and troubled. But it has also been rearticulated to mean altogether different things by indigenous peoples’” (p. 132). In other words, Byrd argues, “As methodology and as genealogy, sovereignty, like indigeneity before it, remains both the constitutive site of subject formation…and the grounds through which differentiation makes itself legible” (p. 132).

One of the ways sovereignty has been interpreted as a methodology within Indigenous queer studies is this idea of sovereign erotics. I first came to learn about sovereign erotics through the work of Qwo-Li Driskill, who wrote, “When I speak of a Sovereign Erotic, I’m speaking of an erotic wholeness healed and/or healing from the historical trauma that First

Nations people continue to survive, rooted within the histories, traditions, and resistance struggles of our nations” (2004, p. 51). For Driskill, sovereign erotics is a methodology that enables hir to highlight already existing linkages between the body and nation; as well as describing the ways in which violence inflicted upon Indigenous bodies is inextricable to colonial projects. More specifically, Driskill is interested in examining the ways in which sexual violence inflicted upon two-spirit and LGBTQ-identifying Indigenous peoples has been weaponized as a colonial tool of domination. As Driskill understands it, the impacts of sexual violence extend well beyond those who experience it. S/he argues, “I do not see the erotic as a realm of personal consequences only. Our relationships with the erotic impact our larger communities, just as our communities impact our senses of the erotic. A Sovereign Erotic relates our bodies to our nations, traditions, and histories” (p. 52). In establishing the connections

between body and nation, Driskill underscores the importance of healing one’s relationship with their psychic and physical self to Indigenous nation-building and anti-colonial resistance. In other words, sovereign erotics provides an analytic framework for examining the interconnections between body and nation, particularly within the context of colonial occupation.

As well as providing an analytic lens to examine colonial violence, sovereign erotics offer a conceptual frame for imagining alternatives to heteronormative approaches to sexuality constrained by the western gender binary system. As Driskill observes, “A colonized sexuality is one in which we have internalized the sexual values of dominant culture. The invaders continue to enforce the idea that sexuality and non-dichotomous genders are a sin, recreating sexuality as illicit…and removed from any positive spiritual context” (p. 54). Here, Driskill points to the enduring violence of federal boarding schools, where children were indoctrinated with the belief that they were inherently shameful beings who must conform to narrow expressions of gender and sexuality for a chance to gain redemption. Driskill also describes the ways in which shame can be internalized following experiences of sexual violence. In order to challenge systematized efforts to colonize Indigenous peoples’ sexualities, Driskill argues, “we must unmask the specters of conquistadors, priests, and politicians that have invaded our spirit and psyches, insist they vacate, and begin tending the open wounds colonization leaves in our flesh” (p. 53). Doing so, Driskill reasons, allows individuals to appropriately assign responsibility to perpetrators and systems of violence, which is both personally healing and situates sexual violence within the broader context of ongoing colonial occupation.

In thinking through each scholar’s take on sovereignty, what is clear to me is a need to prioritize Indigenous ways of knowing, especially those ideologies, practices, and systems grounded in specific nations and territories. For some scholars, like Lindberg, this means returning to the language and pre-contact philosophies which continue today. Other scholars, like

Belcourt and Nixon, emphasize the need to interrogate the ways in which traditional methodologies and praxis have unwittingly adopted oppressive colonial ideologies to the detriment of women and queer people. And finally, what I take away from Byrd and Driskill is the recognition that cultural production has never ceased amongst Indigenous peoples and has always reflected the temporal and socio-historical contexts in which culture is produced. Not without its limitations and drawbacks, sovereignty is a concept that has been appropriated by

Indigenous peoples and, therefore, holds much potential. Each scholar examined here offers a critical perspective on sovereignty’s place in Indigenous emancipation projects and will resurface at various points throughout this dissertation.

Chapter 3 A Baby is Born, A File is Open

For many, the discovery of Phoenix Victoria Hope Sinclair’s death came months after it occurred on June 11, 2005. Those who knew and loved Sinclair, however, felt her absence even when her fate remained unknown. It was because of the persistence of Sinclair’s loved ones that the young girl’s remains were eventually recovered eight months following her death.

Immediately, Indigenous communities from across Manitoba gathered around the bereaved to collectively mourn and demand justice. Given Sinclair’s lifelong involvement with Manitoba’s child welfare system, family and community advocates demanded to know how the system could allow this young girl to disappear unnoticed under its watchful gaze. It was also pointed out that among all the provincially-run child welfare systems in Canada, Manitoba’s child welfare system is perhaps one of the most notorious, and is frequently cited for the overwhelming number of

Indigenous children and youth in its care and for the violence these children and youth experience there. Given these circumstances, it was understood that Sinclair’s disappearance and death were not isolated incidents, but reflective of systemic problems affecting all Indigenous children in Manitoba. As part of this call for justice by Manitoba’s child welfare system, demands for an inquiry were made. When the Inquiry finally commenced in 2013, the child welfare system did in fact face tremendous scrutiny as it concerned Indigenous children and their families; however, the Inquiry’s engagement with the question of ongoing settler colonialism and links to the number of Indigenous children in care were never firmly established. After a lengthy

Inquiry proceeding, the coroner concluded that the child welfare system needed a massive overhaul, but failed to question the colonial conditions leading to so many Indigenous children in care. Without questioning the validity of this colonial institution, these legal processes do little more than offer cosmetic changes that ultimately reinforce white settler nationhood.

While newspaper headlines have tended to focus on the most gruesome, horrifying circumstances surrounding Phoenix Sinclair’s life, death, and disappearance, my interest lies in the everyday practices that facilitated the extraordinary violence enacted upon this young girl. By grounding this analysis in a critical exploration of one girl’s involvement with a Canadian child welfare system and the role of so-called “caring” professionals, this chapter establishes critical links between bureaucracy, colonial care, and violence in the lives of Indigenous girls. Through a critical examination of the child welfare documents made available through the Inquiry into the

Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Phoenix Sinclair, this chapter traces the production of colonial narratives on Indigenous girlhood while, also, expanding on the ways in which these narratives are deployed to advance white settler objectives. I suggest that through official records and procedure, two similar yet distinct narratives emerge about Phoenix Sinclair and her mother,

Samantha Kematch, which reflect broader state tactics and management techniques applied to

Indigenous girls through Canada’s child welfare systems and the law.

Through close engagement with both sets of records, this chapter considers the significance of the digital archive housing child welfare and legal documents. In reading the

Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Phoenix Sinclair as a digital archive, this chapter insists upon careful engagement with this digital archive as a critical site of knowledge. At the same time, this archive must also be handled with caution because it is curated in a way that naturalizes settler colonialism. Through this analysis, I take into consideration the important links the inquiry established between Canada’s history of colonialism and how the contemporary child welfare system negatively affects Indigenous children, while, simultaneously, critically engaging with the ways colonial narratives about

Indigenous girlhood were re-inscribed throughout these legal proceedings. In both the extensive child welfare records documenting Sinclair’s life and the legal materials produced following her

death, it is clear that a particular kind of story is being told about Sinclair and her family, as well as Indigenous peoples more broadly.

Part one examines the discursive production of Phoenix Sinclair as vulnerable and in need of protection from her teenaged parents through official documentation. Through a close reading of the hundreds of child welfare and legal documents produced throughout Sinclair’s lifetime, this part establishes crucial links between the portrayal of vulnerability and ongoing child welfare presence within the Kematch-Sinclair household. Despite claims that Sinclair required protection, the young girl was conspicuously absent from many child welfare documents. Throughout the inquiry proceedings, many child welfare professionals were unable to independently recall Sinclair without reviewing their notes. This discursive disappearing, I suggest, indicates that the ongoing presence of child welfare officials has less to do with providing care than maintaining colonial order. The narrative emerging from Phoenix Sinclair’s file describes a vulnerable girl who fell victim to her dangerous mother. This story closely resembles the national narrative rendering Indigenous peoples as helpless and, therefore, requiring ongoing state intervention and management. This section also attends to the selective appearing of Sinclair throughout the inquiry proceedings and final report. Again, these legal proceedings offer yet another rendition of a girl imperiled; however, the legal narrative takes an unexpected turn when Commissioner Hughes implicates Manitoba’s child welfare system for the death of Phoenix Sinclair. Even with this unexpected plot twist, the inquiry concludes much the same way as other official narratives. Despite admonishing existing child welfare practices,

Commissioner Hughes never questions the legitimacy of Manitoba’s child welfare system, but instead emphasizes the need for structural reform. In this case, the child welfare system is portrayed as a flawed, yet necessary institution.

In part two, I shift my focus towards the state’s surveillance and management of teenaged girls through an analysis of 18-year-old Samantha Kematch’s longstanding involvement with

Manitoba Child and Family Services. In tracing Kematch’s transition from permanent ward to teenaged mother, this section outlines different techniques applied to adolescent girls as compared with their younger counterparts, as well as elaborating on the underlying logics informing these practices. Given the settler state’s preoccupation with restricting Indigenous reproduction, coupled with presumptions about Indigenous girls’ reproductive capacity, it is unsurprising that Indigenous girls are reclassified from vulnerable to dangerous at the onset of puberty. Once Kematch transitioned out of care and into teenaged motherhood, the official documents produced tell the story of a deeply troubled young woman. Kematch, according to child welfare officials, is frequently described as displaying “flat affect” and an apparent lack of maturity. Along with these pathologizing assessments, Kematch’s drug use and possible involvement in the sex trade are cited to suggest deviance and criminality. And, of course, these same documents frequently question Kematch’s ability to parent, given her apparent dysfunctionality and deviance. By critically engaging with the official documents assessing

Kematch’s ability to parent, this section interrogates prevailing narratives portraying Indigenous girls as troubled “bad girls” who pose a danger to themselves and society. I argue that discursive representations of Indigenous bad girls within official documents are state tactics deployed to shift the focus from oppressive structures towards individuals. Similar to the overarching narrative linking vulnerability to state management, I suggest the construction of deviance is simply a technique that has been adapted to manage a particular subset of Indigenous girls. The Archive

I want to pause here to consider Kalí Tal’s (1996) crucial insights on national narratives through her work on trauma literatures. National narratives, she explains, are collectively

authored; however, while no one owns these narratives, individuals have the capacity to buy into and borrow from them. Tal further adds that national narratives are propagated in textbooks, official histories, popular media, public schools, and so on. Revisions are made when new elements are introduced to public discourse, thus outmoding old ideas (p. 115). Tal shares that the purpose of national narratives is to shape public perception of the nation. Razack situates this discussion within the Canadian context. She reveals, “A quintessential feature of white settler mythologies is, therefore, the disavowal of conquest, genocide, slavery, and the exploitation of the labour of peoples of colour…through the fantasy that North America was peacefully settled”

(2002a, p. 2). Coulthard argues that a conceptual revisionism is required when white settler nations seek to demarcate an authoritarian past from the so-called democratic present. He states,

“state-sanctioned approaches to reconciliation must ideologically manufacture such a transition by allocating the abuses of settler colonization to the dustbins of history” (p. 108).

To return to Tal’s point about the production of national narratives, it is useful to consider the role of archives in housing and disseminating national narratives. Lisa Lowe emphasizes that the archive is not a stable ideological structure. She regards the archive’s, “architecture of differently functioning offices and departments as rooms of the imperial state; they house the historically specific technologies of colonial governance for knowing and administering colonized populations” (2015, p. 4). Turning to the archive, Lowe offers, allows for greater insight into colonial governance. In her estimation, “the colonial archive portrays colonial governance as a strategic, permeable, and improvisational process…these [archives] actively document and produce the risks, problems, and uncertainties that were the conditions of imperial rule” (p. 4). In other words, attending to colonial archives allows for critical inquiries into colonial strategies and approaches to governance. Here, Lowe offers a unique approach to reading the archive that allows for greater intimacy across settler colonial, enslavement, and

indentured histories. She expands, “I devise other ways of reading so that we might understand the processes through which the forgetting of violent encounter is naturalized, both by the archive, and in the subsequent narrative histories” (p. 2-3). One of the ways colonial histories are naturalized, she explains, is through colonial classification systems which impose rigid boundaries between interconnected imperial pursuits. To counter this, Lowe argues, “one must read across the separate repositories organized by office, task, and function, and by period and area, precisely implicating one set of preoccupations in and with another” (p. 5). In other words,

Lowe urges scholars to take a lateral approach to reading across archives in order to get a fuller picture of imperial projects. In this way, scholars are not necessarily tasked with finding new sources, but reading old sources in a new way.

As indicated from the outset of this chapter, I draw upon state records to reproduce the official story of Phoenix Sinclair. In relying on state documents as both a source material and object of critique, Hartman (1997) issues important reminders in this process. She states, “one recognizes that writing the history of the dominated requires not only the interrogation of the dominant narratives and the exposure of their contingent and partisan character but also the reclamation of archival material for contrary purposes” (p. 10). In working with documents entangled with the politics of domination, Hartman does not attempt to “liberate these documents from the context in which they were collected” (p. 11). Instead, she suggests that scholars interested in producing counter histories by critically engaging dominant narratives read the archives ‘against the grain.’ Reading against the grain, she elaborates, can look like foraging and disfiguration (p. 12). By foraging, Hartman suggests, ‘raiding for fragments’ relevant to projects.

And once these fragments have been collected, “deforming the testimony through selective quotation and the amplification of issues” (p. 12). Taking heed of Hartman’s instruction, my

archival reading practice similarly endeavors to reclaim archival material without attempting to disentangle these records from the landscape of domination from which they emerge.

It cannot be emphasized enough that the official story of Phoenix Sinclair is not her story.

To look for truths about Sinclair or her family in this digital archive would be to reproduce the colonial narratives already circulating. Christina Sharpe’s work on the transatlantic slave archive offers essential guidance here. She reminds those working in these archives of the “myriad silences and ruptures in time, space, history, ethics, research, and method” (2016, p. 12). She notes the absences in these archives for those scholars attempting to recover agents (p. 12). As well, Sharpe warns, “for Black academics to produce legible work in the academy often means adhering to research methods that are drafted into the service of a larger destructive force” (p.

13). For this reason, Sharpe urges Black studies scholars to become undisciplined. Taking seriously Sharpe’s caution, I turn to Martin Cannon’s (1998) work with early missionary texts on

Indigenous gender diversity and sexualities. Cannon argues that these early texts say less about

Indigenous peoples than about the discriminatory worldviews held by the authors. He writes,

“Informed by notions of supremacy, ideologies of racial inferiority and of ‘civilized’

(hetero)sexual behaviour…Of pertinent interest in the aforementioned passages is also the way they reveal the interrelated nature of all systems of oppression” (p. 4). In other words, these archival documents reveal very little about Indigenous pre-contact gender and sexuality; however, close engagement with these texts can provide crucial insight into the ideologies forming the basis of subsequent colonial laws, policies, and spatial configurations. Part 1: The Official Story

Phoenix was born healthy and had a life of possibilities and potential ahead of her. But to

fulfill that potential, the signs were clear that she and her parents would need support, as

many families do to varying degrees. Phoenix and her family came to the attention of the

child welfare system from the moment of her birth. This is where this narrative begins.

—Commissioner Ted Hughes, 2013

The official story of Phoenix Victoria Hope Sinclair is comprised of thousands of notes, referral slips, intake forms, applications, exhibit documents, reports, and transcripts authored by hundreds of child and family service workers, healthcare professionals, educators, employment and social assistance workers, and legal professionals and told in hospitals, child and family service agencies, and courtrooms. This story began hours after Sinclair’s birth on April 23, 2000, when a nurse authored a referral slip that read, “Please assess…Pt had no prenatal care with this pregnancy. Pt on welfare; lives common-law [with] baby’s father” (p. 117). Hours later, the onsite social worker met with Kematch to follow up on the concerns raised in the referral.

According to her handwritten notes,

Samantha advised that this pregnancy was unplanned. Samantha and her boyfriend Steve

have been together for 1 year. Samantha had 0 prenatal care ‘b/c she doesn’t like Drs.’

Samantha advised that she and Steve are unprepared for baby i.e., no crib, clothes, formula,

etc…Samantha is unsure if they are emotionally ready. When questioned what her plans

were for the baby – ‘I don’t know.’ (p. 118)

Following this brief visit, a protection file was opened with Winnipeg Child and Family Services

(CFS) under Kematch’s name by the After Hours Unit (AHU) of Winnipeg CFS. In the subsequent AHU report, we learn of the uncomplicated delivery of Sinclair, her stable health, and that her birth was not a planned occurrence (p. 119). Despite Sinclair’s safe arrival and apparent good health, every single document produced in the days following her birth expressed concerned for her safety and wellbeing under the care of her teenaged parents.

Throughout the official story, emphasis is placed on Phoenix’s dependency on her parents, 18-year-old Samantha Dawn Kematch and 19-year-old Nelson Draper Steve Sinclair.

From the outset, we are told that in order for Phoenix to realize her full potential, her family would need support. As expanded further on, the particular focus on Phoenix’s parents actually reveals much about how vulnerability is deployed to justify state surveillance and management over Indigenous families. From the start, child welfare officials raised a number of concerns that would warrant state intervention. One such concern being that Kematch had concealed her pregnancy until she delivered Phoenix at the Health Sciences Centre Women’s Hospital in

Winnipeg, Manitoba. A concomitant concern being that Kematch had failed to perform the necessary pre-natal care for Phoenix’s development. As well, initial notes and intake forms question the teen parent’s preparedness for Phoenix’s arrival. As outlined in Kematch’s file,

“[Redacted] questioned her preparation for this baby and found out that the couple had not purchased any clothes, diapers, crib, etc” (p. 118). In a transfer summary dated April 28, 2000, one intake worker recorded Kematch’s apparent immaturity. Her notes reveal, “Samantha seemed only vaguely interested in the process, and when we were walking downstairs, she seemed more interested in chatting and giggling with a friend” (p. 120). Altogether, these records tell the story of a vulnerable girl entirely dependent upon unprepared, immature, teenaged parents who are unable to provide for her physical and emotional wellbeing. Disappearing Through Documentation

Indigenous novelists and literary critics have long interrogated prevalence of the dying

Indian trope within American and Canadian literature. This figure, writers and critics observe, serves an essential ideological function crucial for the expansion of white settler societies.

Indeed, discursively disappearing Indigenous peoples has accelerated white settler seizure of

Indigenous territories. As Thomas King (2003) illustrates, “while Europeans in the New World

were poised on the brink of a new adventure, the Indian was poised on the brink of extinction”

(p. 32-33). The discursive disappearing within American literature, King explains, emphasized the unavoidable demise of Indians coupled with the inevitability of white settler expansion (p.

33). The emphasis on inevitability, I argue, understates the impact of colonial law and policy displacing Indigenous populations, which consequently relieves white settlers of any and all responsibility. With these crucial insights in mind, I propose extending these literary contributions to an analysis of the discursive disappearing within state documents. Despite the fact that each case file supposedly existed with Sinclair’s wellbeing in mind, it is easy to lose sight of the girl in each document. A closer examination reveals a paradox, in which Sinclair is rendered hypervisible on one hand and, on the other, disappeared through the excessive focus on her parents and living conditions. A focus on discursive disappearing, I suggest, allows for greater insight into how Sinclair went missing for several months following her death.

To examine the discursive disappearing of Phoenix through documentation, attending to the format of children’s logs and other assessment forms is of crucial importance. In reading these materials, I conduct a spatial analysis informed by the insights of Black and Indigenous feminist theorists who critically interrogate colonial cartography while also prioritizing counter- visual interpretations (Goeman, 2013; McKittrick, 2006; King, 2019). Similar to colonial maps, forms offer a visual representation of white settler priorities and practices. Some forms, like the children’s log, maintain a rigid format through the use of closed-ended questions, checkboxes, and narrow response lines. If read like a map, the terrain of these forms features points of interest and other relevant visual representations. Similar to maps, there are implicit expectations about how forms are intended to be read. When interpreting maps, readers are guided by quadrants, x- and y-axis, legends, and scale. With forms, reading conventions dictate that readers will take a top-down, left to right approach. More so than maps, forms require readers to observe its

sequential order of information in order to maintain coherence. The collaborative production of forms is another distinguishing feature of these documents. In the first place, the original template for each form is established on an institutional level and systematically disseminated.

At the same time, state officials are tasked with completing these documents, thus rendering them collaborators in the production of colonial forms. As a spatial analysis of both the Intake

Summary documenting the apprehension of Phoenix and the Children’s Logs while under CFS care reveals, the discursive disappearing of this young girl through colonial care is further legitimated by official procedures and recordkeeping techniques.

The 14-page Intake Opening/Transfer Summary is comprised of seven sections, including: demographics, reason for referral, history, data/intervention, assessment/risk, child profile, plan, and an addendum (Forrest, 2003). This document explains CFS worker’s rationale for apprehending Phoenix, sketches a timeline of events leading up to the apprehension, and offers an abridged short- and long-term history of CFS involvement with the Kematch-Sinclair household. Through a series of open-ended response categories, readers learn of renewed CFS involvement following Phoenix’s visit to the emergency room in February 2003 to have a

“foreign body” removed from her nose (Forrest, 2003, p. 4). At this time, Steve Sinclair had been acting as Phoenix’s primary caregiver for nearly two years following his separation from

Kematch. When reviewing the timeline section, it shows that CFS workers began conducting regular field visits to the Sinclair house hold from February 28 to June 27, 2003. During the first visit, we are told that Sinclair was reluctant to engage with the CFS worker; instead, indicating that he had an established informal network of care consisting of family and friends. Subsequent field visits, CFS workers report “No one there,” “No answer at door,” and “unsuccessful in establishing contact with Steven and Phoenix.” On June 21, CFS received an anonymous tip that

Sinclair had hosted a drinking party without providing Phoenix adequate supervision, thus setting

into motion a Protection Assessment resulting in the apprehension of Phoenix two days later

(Forrest, 2003, p. 4). Once taken into CFS custody, Phoenix was held at the Place Louis Riel

Hotel for nearly a week where she received care by a rotating crew of child support workers until eventually being transferred to a foster home.

In proposing we read this form as a map, it is reasonable to then ask what exactly is being mapped. Here, I turn to Katherine McKittrick (2006), who conceptualizes geography as something that “materially and discursively extends to cover three-dimensional spaces and places, the physical landscape and infrastructure, geographic imaginations, the practice of mapping, exploring, and seeing, and social relations in and across space” (p. xiii). Adopting this view makes visible the discursive and material infrastructure outlined by the Intake

Opening/Transfer Summary form. This includes: the physical terrain featuring CFS agencies, households, hotels, and foster homes; complex networks of Indigenous children and families, child welfare officials, paramedics and other medical professionals, police officers, and legal professionals; and the symbolic and physical routes connecting individuals and sites. Underlying this socio-physical infrastructure, McKittrick stresses, are systems of domination organized by racism and the transatlantic slave trade and its afterlife. Following her lead, I examine this form through an anti-colonial lens to draw out prevailing power dynamics and practices of domination.

One practice of domination evident in the Intake Opening/Transfer Summary form can be seen through CFS workers’ exclusive right to complete this document. While the form is occasionally peppered with excepts of conversation and testimony by family members, CFS workers ultimately determine what and how information is included. Open-ended response categories provide many opportunities for these workers to express bias. Following one field visit, one worker’s reflection displays subtle, yet pointed, criticism. We are told, “He presented at

the door in a rather foul, but sober manner” (Forrest, 2003, p. 4, emphasis added). Descriptive words like “foul,” reflect the discretion afforded to CFS workers through open-ended responses.

This CFS worker’s white settler worldview is further made apparent in how they understand wellness, safety, and care. While the worker notes that Sinclair has an established informal network of support through friends and family, the worker insists upon CFS intervention. This insistence of CFS involvement clearly indicates a lack of consideration of the violent role of child welfare systems in Canada. Sinclair’s reluctance to cooperate with the CFS worker is described as stubbornness and evidence of irresponsibility. Again, there is no reflection on

Sinclair’s lived experience informing his reluctance to involve CFS in familial matters.

Examining authorship of each form sheds light on the technical procedures applied to discursively disappear Phoenix Sinclair. By refusing Sinclair and her caregivers the opportunity to collaborate on the production of these documents, their collective values, knowledges, skills, and approaches are conspicuously absent from the official record. While it may be argued that

Phoenix would have been too young to provide meaningful testimony, there are certainly creative approaches adults might take to assess a young girl’s perspective. One of the most obvious approaches being to actually meet with Phoenix. As the Intake Opening/Transfer

Summary form shows, the Assessment and Statement of Risk section was authored without one

CFS worker establishing contact with the young girl. Without actually meeting with Phoenix, the decision to apprehend the young girl rests exclusively on the reports of anonymous informants, her preexisting history of CFS involvement, and perceptions of neglect following her visit to the emergency room. The Intake Opening/Transfer Summary form does shed a glimmer of insight when it is reported on June 23, 2003 that “the child was transported to a placement at the PLR –

Room #914 without incident. She was clean, happy, and speaking in an age appropriate manner, and calling most females ‘mom’” (Forrest, 2003, p. 5). Yet, this brief glimpse into Phoenix’s

disposition cannot be disentangled from the author’s prejudice. It is worth questioning how the worker would know Phoenix was happy. How was that impression formed? Did they ask her or interpret her affect?

Of all areas of the report, one would have expected fuller discussion on Phoenix’s perspective and disposition in the Child Profile section. Instead, readers are left with an itemized demographic-like breakdown of Phoenix’s physical information, as well as a paragraph description of her involvement with CFS. Kathleen Kirby describes cartography as a science emerging from the renaissance that was standardized in the Enlightenment (1998, p. 45). She argues that cartography emerged as a technology that not only mapped out place, but individual subjects. More specifically, cartography reinforced the liberal view that individual subjects, or the Cartesian subject as Kirby puts it, could be expressed as self-contained, stable, autonomous figures with clearly defined boundaries (p. 45). That said, these Cartesian subjects, Kirby reveals, were often defined “by cataloguing the others (woman, native, criminal, insane)” (p. 47). In taking Kirby’s views seriously, it makes sense that the Child Profile section reduces Phoenix to basic statistical data. The purpose of this section is not to learn more about how Phoenix feels, her preferences, or relationships. The purpose of this section is to catalogue the other. The other in this case being the “child that requires saving” or the child that justifies ongoing state intrusion within Indigenous households. In presenting Phoenix’s biographical information in overly technical formatting and language, the form confers for itself an authority that is difficult to dispute. In this way, discursive disappearing occurs on multiple planes, both through form and content.

The Children’s Log, unlike the Intake Opening/Transfer Summary form, is organized by closed-ended questions focused on Phoenix’s daily routine. The form is prescriptive in its structure, assuming that Phoenix’s routine will mirror the schedule outlined in the document. At

the top of the page, there are four questions seeking basic personal information such as the child’s name, the support care worker’s name, date, and shift hours. Following that, there is a schedule, which includes: Wake Up, Breakfast, Lunch, Nap, Supper, Bath, Snack, and Bedtime.

Beside each category is space to record the time Phoenix received each type of care or performed each task. In this particular Children’s Log, Phoenix woke up at 8:45 a.m., ate breakfast at 9:30 a.m., had lunch at 12:00 p.m., and had dinner at 5:30 p.m. The next comment column to the right of the time schedule indicates that Phoenix woke up “very grumpy” (Olimb, Children’s Log,

2003, p. 1). In many ways, this Children’s Log serves as a template for mainstream views of adequate child care. For example, there is the expectation that children should eat four types of meals a day (Breakfast, Lunch, Supper, and Snack) in a particular order and at particular times.

Undergirding this expectation is the assumption that western diets promote wellness. What this template does not account for is systemic poverty, which prevents many Indigenous families from eating regular, healthy meals. This lack of recognition unfairly faults Indigenous families for their inability to secure healthy food for their children. What is more, this meal schedule naturalizes western approaches to diets without recognition of non-western approaches to food.

Implicitly suggested within this Children’s Log is the belief that western approaches to organizing children’s daily life are superior to all others.

Examining this form through an Indigenous feminist lens makes it possible to defamiliarize CFS’ everyday practice of removing Indigenous children from their homes and, instead, place them into hotel suites with shift workers under the premise of child welfare. As the

Intake Opening/Transfer Summary form reveals, Phoenix was abruptly removed from her father’s care two days after CFS received an anonymous tip that she was present at a house party without supervision. Without condoning or commenting on the reasons for this emergency apprehension, I want to pause and reflect on the suitability of Phoenix’s CFS placement at the

Place Louis Riel hotel. During her stay at the hotel, Phoenix received care from at least three child care workers on 12-hour shifts in a facility fairly accessible to the public. The structure of the Children’s Logs emphasizes routine and consistency; however, expressions of care are not built into the form. The second half of the form provides workers with an open-ended response section to summarize their impressions of Phoenix’s day, comments on Phoenix’s behaviour, and concerns of the workers. I find it troubling that many of the responses evaluate whether Phoenix was “well-behaved” (Olimb, Children’s Log, 2003, p. 1). Doing so, I contend, shifts the burden of responsibility from this institutional practice onto the child. If Phoenix were to “misbehave,” this behaviour is framed as the product of some troubling pathology, not the tremendously stressful experience of being abruptly removed from her family and home. Furthermore, workers’ assessments of Phoenix are not a reflection of her experience, but an interpretation of the workers’ experiences of Phoenix. In this way, such evaluations effectively discursively disappear Phoenix in plain sight. Now You See Her: The Inquiry

At the beginning of the Inquiry, Commission Counsel asked, “How was it that Phoenix could become so invisible to a community that included social service agencies, schools, hospitals, family, and friends, as to literary disappear” (p. 111). As outlined above, CFS discursively disappeared Phoenix through extensive recordkeeping informed by white settler ideologies and approaches. In the remainder of this section, I consider how the Inquiry seeks to

‘recover’ Phoenix through an investigation into how Manitoba’s child welfare system failed the young girl, as well enquiring into structural changes to CFS following the death and disappearance of Phoenix. For the most part, I focus on Phase Two of the Inquiry, in which

Commissioner Hughes considers how to positively move forward so that no child has to suffer as

Phoenix did. Here, I take up Commissioner Hughes discussion on why there are so many

Indigenous children in Manitoba’s child welfare system. Commissioner Hughes’ understanding of Canadian colonialism, I suggest, provides insight into how he makes decisions about what’s best for the future. As part of this discussion, I engage with the question ‘has what went wrong been fixed?’ As Commissioner Hughes notes, the numbers of Indigenous children entering CFS care since Phoenix’s death has steadily increased over the last eight years. While the approach has changed, Manitoba’s child welfare system continues to be guided by the same white settler logic, but at a faster clip. With that said, I argue that the emphasis placed on reform only serves to refine and strengthen Manitoba’s child welfare system. While Commissioner Hughes readily critiques CFS, it is important to note that he never questions the legitimacy of this institution.

The solution to state disappearing is not increased visibility. The project of increased visibility cannot bring about healing, justice, or liberation. Greater visibility falls under the faulty logic that with more awareness and greater education, children can be rescued from Phoenix’s tragic fate. If the Inquiry is serious about getting to the root cause of Phoenix’s life, death, and disappearance, greater light must be shed on the official actors and state mechanisms responsible for disappearing the young girl. I believe all efforts short of questioning the validity of colonial institutions like CFS are nothing more than cosmetic changes that do more to protect white settler nationhood than its colonial subjects. Yet, from the outset, Commissioner Hughes makes clear that the role of the Inquiry is to repair existing institutions and restore public confidence.

Citing Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) Justice Peter Cory, Commissioner Hughes states:

Inquiries can and do fulfill an important function in Canadian society. In times of public

questioning, stress and concern they provide the means for Canadians to be apprised of the

conditions pertaining to a worrisome community problem and to be a part of the

recommendations that are aimed at resolving the problem. Both the status and high respect

for the commissioner and the open and public nature of the hearing help to restore public

confidence in not only the institution or situation investigated but also in the process of the

government as a whole. (p. 60, emphasis added)

Through this definition, Commissioner Hughes emphasizes the restorative quality of inquiries, arguing that inquiries can repair damaged or flawed social institutions within a society. But how does one grapple with so-called flawed and fractured institutions within a white settler society?

How do we reckon with the fact that these institutions were/are forcibly imposed on Indigenous peoples within their own respective systems and structures? Further to this, it must be asked whether colonial institutions are fractured or if they are functioning as they were originally designed. In posing these questions, I mean to expose the limits of state-led responses to colonial violence by highlighting the ways in which state responses maintain an investment in white settler nationhood.

Early in the report, Commissioner Hughes states, “The fact that Phoenix was Aboriginal is not irrelevant to this inquiry” (p. 28). At first blush, this statement might appear unexpectedly progressive; however, considering that more than 80% of children in Manitoba’s child welfare system are Indigenous, this statement is less radical than unavoidable. That said, to raise the matter of Indigeneity, Razack points out, “is always to skirt dangerously near the edges of racism and colonialism” (2015, p. 71). In such instances, inquiries are confronted with the difficult task of addressing the root cause of an issue without simultaneously undermining the legitimacy of the society from which this legal process emerges. In other words, to confront the matter of colonialism is to question the validity of white settler nationhood. To avoid such implications, the Commissioner deploys several strategies for underemphasizing, if not altogether avoiding, the question of colonialism. One such strategy being to temporally locate colonialism in the past.

Another strategy is to reframe contemporary colonialism as “intergenerational trauma.” And, of course, by over-emphasizing the question of Indigeneity, the Commissioner can give the

impression of meaningfully engaging with Phoenix’s circumstances without implicating the state.

Commissioner Hughes readily acknowledges that, “Aboriginal children are taken from their homes in far greater numbers” (p. 28). The reason for this, he asserts, is not because they are Indigenous “but because they are living in far worse circumstances than other children. They are poor because their parents are poor. They live in substandard housing; their parents are struggling with addictions; and they don’t have the family and other supports they need” (p. 28).

Interestingly, while Commissioner Hughes can readily identify contemporary challenges confronting Indigenous children and their families, he is less willing to locate the cause of these challenges in the present moment. Instead, he claims, “The reasons for these conditions that afflict so many Aboriginal families…are rooted in the legacy of colonialization and residential schools, the conditions on reserves, cultural dislocation and loss of identity” (p. 28, emphasis added). Commissioner Hughes’ reluctance to name ongoing colonialism is one shared by many state officials. When the harms of colonialism can no longer be denied, a common strategy state official deploy is framing present-day harms as outcomes of historical colonialism. Temporally reframing colonialism allows the focus of change to shift from existing colonial structures to individuals.

The few times colonization is named in the report, it is framed in the past tense.

Interpreting the testimony of expert witness Dr. Alexandra Wright, Commissioner Hughes conflates Canadian settler colonialism with its history of Indian residential schools. He writes,

“Many of the reasons why Aboriginal children and families are more vulnerable and more likely to come into contact with the child welfare system…have to do with the legacy of colonization and residential schools” (p. 449). While the residential school system and its legacy is, indeed, integral to Canadian colonialism, state officials often invoke residential schools to temporally

corral colonialism within a limited time period. By describing poverty, homelessness, and substance use as products of Canada’s colonial past, Commissioner Hughes identifies structural violence as the outcome of intergenerational trauma while, at the same time, eliding discussion on contemporary state violence. With the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Class-

Action Lawsuit Settlements, this view is further entrenched by official processes insisting that

Indigenous peoples heal from the past while refusing to acknowledge ongoing settler colonialism. Troubling official narratives pathologizing Indigenous peoples, “as being saddled by damaging psychological residue of this legacy,” Coulthard offers an alternative lens through which to view Indigenous anger and discontent. He argues, that what is frequently described by officials as an inability to “get over it” is, “actually an entirely appropriate manifestation of our resentment: a politicized expression of Indigenous anger and outrage directed at a structural and symbolic violence that still structures our lives, our relations with others, and our relationships with land” (p. 109). In taking this view, Coulthard exposes official disengagement with ongoing settler colonialism even while discussing it in extensive, albeit constrained, detail. Part 2: Narrating the “Bad Girl”

Through her investigation into the colonial underpinnings of the murder of 14-year-old

Reena Virk, Batacharya (2010) cautions against analyses naturalizing girlhood and, instead, urges scholars to examine the ways in which interlocking structures of oppression shape dominant femininity and what she calls “universal girlhood” (p. 40). Universal girlhood,

Batacharya explains, is informed by colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist systems and structures.

While femininity is typically subordinated within patriarchal frameworks, in white settler societies, femininity inevitably plays a crucial role in nation-building. Batacharya expands,

“hegemonic femininity simultaneously signals a subordinate gender position that defines women as objects and property without agency, and is celebrated as integral to the transmission of

bourgeois morality and respectability that defines white settler nationalism” (p. 45). For this reason, she elaborates, dominant conceptions of womanhood and girlhood are subject to intensive gatekeeping to protect against perceived threats. In a context where ideal womanhood symbolizes the purity and perpetuity of the nation, imposing rigid boundaries excluding

Indigenous women and girls from ideal femininity is integral to the creation and expansion of white settler societies. Here, Batacharya emphasizes that while Indigenous girls might be referred to and categorized as girls, their girlhood status is often qualified to denote a separation from universal girlhood.

Kematch was rarely, if at all, referred to as a girl in any case file concerning her role as mother to Phoenix. More often, Kematch is referred to as a young mother or teenaged parent. In every instance, Kematch’s ability to parent is questioned, thus inviting the view that perhaps she was an unfit, dangerous, or even bad mother. According to Batacharya, hegemonic femininity hinges on the belief that girls are inherently non-violent. When girls fail to meet this criterion, they are subsequently cast outside the category of universal girlhood and instead classified as racial and/or sexual deviants (p. 47). As Batacharya concludes, “bad girls” are not really girls, but discursively constructed as adults with predilections for criminality (p. 48). As elaborated further on, Kematch’s file is overwhelmed by forms, assessments, and summaries questioning her ability to parent because of her possible involvement in the sex trade, the fact that she has multiple children with different fathers, her proximity to alcohol and drug-using lifestyles, and, more generally, her hostile attitude towards child welfare officials. Added altogether, the chasm between Kematch and universal girlhood widens until readers are left with an image of a bad mother who is dangerous, dysfunctional, and requires state intervention.

Hours after delivering her second child, Kematch was approached by an on-site social worker following up on a referral slip issued by the nurse. The purpose of the visit was to

determine Kematch’s suitability for parenting. Through the course of this meeting, the on-site social worker noted Kematch’s girlhood involvement with CFS. In the Closing Summary, which eventually followed, case managers established links between Kematch’s suitability for parenthood and her own upbringing in CFS care. It is specifically noted that “Samantha’s years in the care of that Agency were fraught with difficulties for her, in that she was often AWOL from placements, involved in criminal activities, sexually promiscuous, didn’t attend school, was hostile and aggressive and generally had difficulties following any rules” (Greeley, 2000, p. 4).

The inclusion of this background information, coupled with the present-day concerns within the

Closing Summary, serves to justify CFS intervention through a depiction of a bad girl. Many of the present-day concerns raised within this report echo Kematch’s childhood records. As in girlhood, Kematch continued to display hostility and aggressiveness.

The summary establishes a link between her disobedience and Kematch’s eventual placement into the Independent Living Program (ILP) after delivering her firstborn at 16 years old. We are told, “due to these behaviors…she was eventually placed in an Independent Living program supervised by MacDonald Youth Services” (Greeley, Closing Summary, 2000, p. 4).

The ILP is designed for youth between the ages of 16-18. To participate in this program, eligible youth must be referred by a social worker, are assigned an Independent Living Worker, and are usually expected to complete a Life Skills Group (McEwan-Morris, 2006, p. 71). Within this program, youth are granted many of the responsibilities of an adult with financial support for food, shelter, and transportation provided by CFS. One of the purported objectives of the ILP is to assist youth in developing independent life skills necessary for making the transition from

CFS custody into adulthood. Susan Cahn’s scholarship, as interpreted by Batacharya, offers a unique perspective for examining state programs like ILP. In her historical work on “delinquent girls” with juvenile detention centres in the early 20th century, Cahn observes official

deliberations on whether delinquent girls were salvageable or “doomed for degeneracy”

(Batacharya, 2010). In many ways, we see this logic deployed in the decision to place Kematch in the ILP. This decision appears to be motivated by the apparent difficulties child welfare officials confronted in providing care. In this case, Kematch’s placement in this program reads as an abandonment by child welfare officials who have deemed her difficult and, therefore,

“doomed for degeneracy.”

For Indigenous girls like Kematch, transitioning from childhood into adolescence, it seems that state tactics for managing them as younger girls simply do not work as they grow into teens exercising increased autonomy and independence. In Kematch’s case, CFS records tell a story about exasperated officials tasked with caring for this so-called troubled teen. By the time

Kematch delivers her firstborn, it seems that CFS had decided that alternative custodial arrangements were needed for the teen mother. Thinking through Cahn’s work, I believe that the moment Kematch is transferred into ILP is the moment she undergoes a discursive transition from bad girl into young adult. The consequence is that while Kematch is left with the responsibilities of an adult, she is denied the privacy and autonomy that this life stage promises.

Transferring Kematch into ILP allows child welfare officials to relinquish nearly all responsibility for Kematch’s care while maintaining the right to monitor the teen.

Within the official narrative, Kematch’s pregnancies are almost exclusively described as a problem to be managed. Karen Stote’s (2012) research on coercive and forced sterilization practices in Canada throughout the 20th century sheds greater light on this viewpoint. According to Stote, the success of settler colonialism hinges on the white settler state’s ability to alienate

Indigenous girls and women from their bodies, kinship and communal relationships, and land (p.

119). Strict regulation over Indigenous girls and women’s sexualities is central to the project.

While Stote specifically addresses the impact of sterilizations practices and policies on

Indigenous girls and women, her analysis reveals much about Canada’s attitude towards

Indigenous motherhood. As indicated above, Canada’s preoccupation with Indigenous women’s presumed reproductive capacities is directly linked to anxieties around expanding Indigenous populations, an anxiety seen as in direct conflict with the state’s eliminatory agenda.

Constraining, if not stopping, Indigenous reproduction then is key to Canada’s settler colonial agenda. One of the common justifications for sterilization was promiscuity. If a woman was deemed promiscuous, it was then asserted that she was unfit to assume the role and responsibilities of motherhood. Within a white settler society, this logic has particularly disastrous consequences for Indigenous girls and women, who are frequently hypersexualized (p.

120).

Alongside state preoccupation with Kematch’s motherhood status, white settler anxieties around Indigenous girls and women’s sexuality is further seen through official records speculating on Kematch’s possible involvement in the sex trade. Relaying an interview with

Kematch’s sister in-law, the family worker states, “they have not yet heard anything from

Samantha and did not know where she was, all she knew that couple of her friends had seen her about two weeks ago and that she was prostituting on the corner” (Chief-Abigosis, 2001, p. 7).

While this claim was never verified, it was nevertheless documented in her official records. It is also worth noting that this statement is frequently recapped in subsequent documentation outlining the ongoing timeline of Kematch’s life. In May 2004, Kematch’s possible involvement in the sex trade is again raised in the History section, which reads “Samantha was also known to be abusing substances and prostituting” (De Gale, 2004, p. 2). The portrayal of Kematch as a prostitute within official record discursively links the young woman’s sexuality to criminality, thus reinforcing her bad girl status.

Surveillance and regulation of Indigenous women and girls’ sexuality is a foundational feature of Canada’s settler colonial regime. Through extensive archival research, Carter (2008) provides an in-depth examination of the ways in which marriage and divorce laws were used as a mechanism controlling Indigenous women and girls’ sexuality. Her research shows efforts to discourage miscegenation through the rhetoric of racial impurity. She writes, “powerfully negative images of Aboriginal women emerged and became entrenched. They were cast as the complete opposite of idealized white women, as agents of destruction of the moral health of the new non-Aboriginal community” (p. 152). Indeed, Indigenous girls and women were often portrayed as immoral, promiscuous, and as prostitutes, which seemed to invite pious concern and disdain of white settlers (p. 153). Interestingly enough, Carter points out, “the term ‘prostitute’ was often used to refer to a woman cohabiting without matrimony…Women who had sexual relations outside of marriage, or who had more than one partner in her lifetime” (p. 153). In other words, prostitution was a term applied to women who deviated from ideal models of womanhood and partnership. Underlying these sentiments, Carter argues, was the belief that miscegenation posed a threat to the establishment of a white settler society. Pathologizing Indigenous Girlhood

According to CFS records, Samantha Kematch is not merely a bad girl turned “bad mother,” she is troubled by mental disorder. During the initial meetings to determine Kematch’s suitability to parent, the family worker noted Kematch’s flat affect and apparent immaturity. We are told,

“Samantha presented as quite immature in her presentation and did not seem to understand the seriousness of the matter at hand” (Greeley, Transfer Summary, 2000, p. 2). Under the heading

Problems Identified, “Samantha’s reported flat and the reason for it There is concern she may have been suffering from depression” (Greeley, 2000, p. 3). As part of the investigation into

Kematch’s apparent flat affect, the case manager requested that Kematch seek a psychological

assessment. As well, a brief biography into Kematch’s upbringing was also conducted by CFS workers. As a permanent CFS ward since 1993, CFS workers were actually able to draw on a wealth of biographical information on Kematch found in her childhood records. In some of the earlier records dating back to 1989, Kematch is described as a girl exhibiting mental health issues, like depression, disorderly eating, promiscuity, and violent tendencies ([Samantha

Kematch CFS records], 1989, p. 8). While the excerpts of these early records tend to be comprised of checklists and short answer response categories, readers nevertheless gain insight into the author’s perspective on why these conditions exist. It is strongly suggested and at times explicitly stated that Kematch suffered a tremendous amount of violence at the hands of her mother before becoming a permanent CFS ward.

Kematch’s CFS records tell the story of a young woman suffering mental health issues as a result of early childhood abuse. On the surface, it reads as a straightforward narrative describing the steady decline of a young girl as she transitions into adulthood. This story encourages readers to establish causal links between early childhood abuse and her current psycho-social behavioral issues. Read through an anti-colonial, Indigenous feminist lens, however, the individualizing logics underpinning this official narrative falter. A counter-reading makes apparent the conspicuous absence of systemic poverty, historic oppressive programs, and ongoing colonial violence from the official narrative. If the official account tells the story of a troubled individual, a counter-reading attends to the interconnected systems and structures responsible for influencing and constraining this individual’s choices, options, and overall trajectory. I am interested in unpacking the rationale and objectives informing this official narrative depicting Kematch as troubled, as it bears striking resemblance to broader official narratives depicting Indigenous peoples as a damaged and dysfunctional people unable to recover from historic injustices. In both instances, shifting the onus of responsibility onto the

individual enables the state to both shirk any responsibility while assuming the role of custodian.

Here, Million’s discussion on the limitations of describing harms resulting from colonial violence exclusively in terms of trauma provides much insight. According to Million, therapeutic narratives are insufficient in addressing socio-economic damages resulting from historic and ongoing settler colonialism (2013, p. 105). Under these conditions, Indigenous peoples are instructed to heal from intergenerational trauma without acknowledgement or reparations for

Canada’s intentional destruction of traditional land-based economies or governance structures.

Decolonization, then, hinges on Indigenous peoples’ ability to prove themselves capable of healing as opposed to Canada’s willingness to cease with dispossession, extractivist, and eliminatory projects. In other words, “Healing from trauma begins to be narrated as a prerequisite to self-determination” (p. 105). Indigenous peoples’ collective ability to heal, however, is constrained by ongoing colonial violence. Million’s discussion certainly bears relevance to Kematch’s engagement with Manitoba’s child welfare system. Once Kematch comes into contact with CFS, she is similarly mandated by law to seek psychological treatment as a prerequisite for parenthood while, at the same time, contending with ongoing state surveillance and systemic impoverishment. Yet, as Million’s argues, there is no amount of healing from past trauma that can dismantle contemporary colonial ideologies and structures undermining Kematch’s ability to parent.

Intergenerational trauma is a significant recurring theme throughout Kematch’s official narrative. When asked why her firstborn is a permanent ward of CFS, we are told, “Samantha thought it was because they thought that she might hurt the baby, as her mother did her”

(Greeley, Closing Summary, 2000, p. 3). Using Kematch’s own words, the author invites speculation that perhaps the teen mom is genetical predisposed to mental illness or behavioural disorders inherited from her own mother. In response, the social worker suggests that Kematch

seek out psychological treatment for possible undiagnosed mental health conditions. Keeping

Million’s critique of therapeutic narratives in mind, it is clear that personal healing is insufficient for addressing collective harms (p. 114). Moreover, as outlined above, emphasizing individual pathologies has the effect of obfuscating state violence and oppression. As a consequence, responsibility for recovering from harm becomes shouldered exclusively by victims and survivors rather than assailants. Truth commissions and other state healing mechanisms are depicted as healing mechanisms as opposed to colonial machinery. In Kematch’s case, the child welfare system’s complicity in settler colonial violence remains unacknowledged even as the teen mother’s extensive involvement is outlined within the Transfer Summary. Instead, the summary portrays the child welfare system as a mechanism responsible for intervening on intergenerational familial violence.

On May 5, 2000, Kematch and Sinclair agreed to a Temporary Order of Guardianship, granting CFS custody over Phoenix for three months. One condition of this agreement was that

Kematch would seek some form of psychiatric/psychological assessment to determine whether she had any undiagnosed mental health conditions requiring treatment. Between May to July, with the support of a community advocate, Kematch attempted to locate a psychologist to no avail (Greeley, Closing Summary, 2000, p. 8). With the Temporary Order of Guardianship set to expire early August, CFS extended the agreement for an additional month to ensure Kematch completed a psychological assessment. The condition requiring Kematch to seek a psychological assessment highlights the interdependent relationship between Manitoba’s child welfare system and psycho-medical institutions to form official narratives about Indigenous mothers like

Kematch. As Foucault has extensively theorized, psychiatric knowledge is routinely deployed in legal and official realms to strengthen truth claims (1974/1994). Through the psychological assessment, a collection of medical documentation is gathered and assembled into both

Kematch’s medical records and her CFS case file. By relying on psychiatric knowledge to justify

CFS intervention, child welfare workers more readily dismiss accusations of prejudice, as scientific knowledge is often regarded as objective and indisputable. Cleanliness and Morality

Within the official narrative, the body and home emerge as recurring motifs symbolizing cleanliness, purity, and safety. As part of regular home visits, case workers typically noted the state of the Kematch-Sinclair household as part of their evaluation of Phoenix’s wellbeing. In one of the first assessments, readers are told that the parents moved into a larger apartment that was “clean, sparsely furnished and very tidy” (Greeley, Closing Summary, 2000, p. 9). Follow- up visits include remarks like “home was very clean although sparsely furnished” and “home is clean and well maintained and the child Phoenix appears, well cared for, clean and content” (File

Recording for Samantha Kematch, 2001 p. 2). Without disputing the significance of shelter and housing to anyone’s health, I am interested in troubling the conflation of cleanliness with safety and wellbeing by child welfare officials to expose underlying racist, misogynistic, and classist ideologies. Doing so exposes white settler’s weaponization of cleanliness discourses against

Indigenous peoples to fulfill white supremacist ideals. Million (2013) and other Indigenous feminists have shown how cleanliness discourses inform social practices, laws, and policies regulating Indigenous women’s bodies and homes to shape the overall body politic. With this in mind, I propose a reading of child welfare home assessments informed by Indigenous feminist critiques of white settler eugenics and anti-miscegenation ideologies and practices.

During a regularly scheduled home visit in 2001, the case worker describes the Kematch-

Sinclair household as “very clean although sparsely furnished” (File Recording for Samantha

Kematch, 2001 p. 1). Here, clean is taken to be an indicator that the home is functioning well; however, this is qualified by the indication that the home is sparsely furnished. As part of her

expert witness testimony, Cindy Blackstock points out that CFS often penalizes Indigenous parents for systemic poverty. We are told, “Issues such as poverty are often conflated with neglect” (p. 364). When case workers assess what parents provide children, there is often a refusal to acknowledge that parents simply cannot afford necessary things like food, clothing, and other household goods. Despite comments on the sparse furnishings, the case worker nevertheless concludes, “the family appears to [be] doing well although Samantha does appear angry and annoyed with the agency involvement – the home is clean and well maintained and the child Phoenix appear clean and content” (File Recording for Samantha Kematch, 2001 p. 2).

Here, I want to focus on the case worker’s engagement with Phoenix. Although many of the worker’s questions for Kematch centered around the care the parents provided the young girl, the notes from this home visit offer no indication that the worker spent any meaningful time with

Phoenix. This is not to suggest that meaningful engagement did not occur, but without any record, readers are left to speculate. What the notes do make clear is what the author finds important. As reflected in the notes, Phoenix’s wellbeing is assessed on the basis that Kematch and Sinclair are fulfilling CFS conditions, as well as her appearance. Because Phoenix appears clean and content, the case worker concludes the visit with a plan to continue home visits “as needed.” While I take issue with home visits, I still find it necessary to point out how the appearance of cleanliness is seen as sufficiently assessing Kematch’s ability to parent and

Phoenix’s wellbeing.

Besides maintaining a clean household, official records reveal an expectation that Kematch perform the role of welcoming host during home visits. As part of the initial case plan for the

Voluntary Placement Agreement, Kematch and Sinclair agreed to “work cooperatively with the

Agency in home support worker,” as well as “work cooperatively with the Agency Family

Services Worker” during regular home visits (Greeley, Closing Summary, 2000, p. 11). During

this particular home visit, the worker observes, “Samantha appeared angry and annoyed I was visiting…Samantha sat the entire time in front of the TV” (File Recording for Samantha

Kematch, 2001 p. 1). Although Kematch responds to each question, the young mother is nevertheless penalized for her hostile demeanor. As conveyed within the official narrative, child welfare workers generally found Kematch difficult and unpleasant. The official narrative tells the story of child welfare workers’ repeated attempts to perform their duties with very little assistance on Kematch’s part. A counter-reading of official records, by contrast, highlights legitimate concerns raised by Kematch that remained unacknowledged by child welfare officials.

During the field visit, “Samantha appeared agitated and clearly stated her obvious annoyance with the Agency and stated that if the Agency wants to meet with her in the future that we need to send a letter for an appointment and not just drop by” (File Recording for Samantha Kematch,

2001 p. 2). It is useful here to position Kematch’s frustration and request within the longstanding history of child welfare workers’ intrusive entry into Indigenous households, which ultimately resulted in mass apprehension of Indigenous children and profound disruption of Indigenous kinship formations. Without this context, child welfare workers readily depict Kematch as needlessly difficult; however, a counter-reading reveals the subtle ways in which portrayals of

Kematch as a “bad host” undermine her critique of contemporary child welfare practices and policies.

Without disregarding the deeply problematic settler superiority complex reflected in Heather

Robertson’s Reservations are for Indians, she presents an important case study illustrating the ways in which cleanliness discourse shapes settler relations and societal formation. In 1963, droves of children of Norway House, MB were unexpectedly admitted into the hospital complaining of vomiting, diarrhea, and other digestive issues (1970, p. 49). Initially, doctors concluded that the “slovenly housekeeping of the Indian women” was the cause of illness (p. 49).

Believing Indigenous women did not understand basic hygiene, public health nurses began making home visits “to teach the women the importance of cleanliness” (p. 50). As part of this cleanliness campaign, community members were hired to interpret for public health nurses. One assistant, Sam Anderson, recalled lecturing the women about the transmission of germs through food and water. Public officials distributed large volumes of disinfectant to local households.

Despite this aggressive public hygiene campaign coupled with the mothers’ efforts to implement these prescriptive measures, children continued to fall ill with the same complaints. With children continuing to fall ill, Sam Anderson began conducting informal tests of the community’s water source. After a series of tests, he discovered Norway House’s drinking supply had become poisoned by hospital waste upstream. As Robertson emphasizes, “Patients, nurses, doctors, cooks, janitors…used that sparkling running water system at the hospital every day. What happened to all the blood, the dirty dishwater, the contents of bedpans, the vomit” (p.

51). Yet, Anderson felt limited in his capacity to intervene, “How could I tell them? They are powerful white people. I’m just an Indian” (p. 51). Here, Anderson describes a voicelessness that continues to resound with countless other Indigenous peoples entangled within Canada’s child welfare system today.

Silencing is just one of many everyday forms of oppression and violence Indigenous peoples confront when navigating colonial institutions and caring professionals who put policy into practice. For Indigenous girls caught in the child welfare system, there are critical links to be made between colonial care, bureaucracy, and violence. Drawing upon child welfare documents made available through the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Phoenix

Sinclair, this chapter identified recurring themes, motifs, and dialogue deployed in the production of colonial narratives on Indigenous girlhood. In doing so, this chapter reveals one of the discursive tactics by which the Canadian state seeks to undermine Indigenous nationhood to

legitimize its claim as absolute sovereign. Organized into two parts, the first part examines the discursive production of Phoenix Sinclair as vulnerable to her so-called dysfunctional Indigenous parents, thus requiring ongoing state involvement and intervention. In part two, I describe the processes by which teenaged girls are reclassified from vulnerable to villainous as they become more sexually independent. In both cases, child welfare officials claim ongoing state surveillance and management is required, thus reinforcing colonial mythologies that Indigenous peoples are unfit and incapable of managing themselves. Further to this, I argue that state justice mechanisms, like inquests and inquiries, do less to remedy the violence of child welfare systems than to protect these institutions.

Chapter 4 Away from Home: Legal Narratives on Colonial Schooling

For decades I had been obsessed with anonymous figures, and much of my intellectual

labor devoted to reconstructing the experience of the unknown and retrieving minor lives

from oblivion. It was my way of redressing the violence of history, crafting a love letter

to all those who had been harmed, and, without my being fully aware of it, reckoning

with the inevitable disappearance that awaited me.

—Saidiya Hartman, 2019

There is very little I could actually tell you about Robyn Harper. I can tell you that she was an 18-year-old Oji-Cree teen from Keewaywin First Nation, but I could not tell you about her relationship with her family, community, or the land. I know that she left home to attend

Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School (DFC), but I have no idea whether she had a favorite or least favorite subject. I read she was homesick those first few days she landed in Thunder Bay,

ON, but I couldn’t say who or what she missed. In short, I did not know her. And, yet, there is something unmistakably familiar about the late teen and the circumstances surrounding her death. Like Harper, I left home and family to attend high school in a nearby city; unlike Harper, I had the option to return home to graduate high school. My community’s high school, Helen

Betty Osborne Ininiw Education Resource Centre, is named after a teenaged girl who was abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered while attending high school in a nearby town in

1971. As a teenager, I understood that Helen Betty Osborne’s belated dream come true was my inheritance: a safe place to study. I graduated at home with my friends, family, and community a few months following Harper’s death on January 13, 2007. I did not know Robyn Harper, but I understood then as I do now the ways in which we are entangled by the convergence of pursuits for life with complex colonial forces that have brought us into relation.

Although Harper’s death has received much official and media attention, the deeply entrenched colonial structures and systems shaping her life’s path remain under-examined. To begin meaningfully responding to these queries, I argue it is necessary to situate Harper’s death within the broader context of Canadian settler colonialism, a regime largely organized by educational institutions and gender-based violence. To this end, the chapter traces out the colonial terrain Indigenous girls must traverse through a close examination of historical and contemporary educational policies shaping Harper’s schooling and the official responses subsequent her death. I argue that contemporary educational policies requiring Indigenous youth to leave home for school reflects a continuation of colonial ideologies once embodied by Indian residential schools. Whereas previous generations were forced to attend residential schools as early as 6 years old, Indigenous youth living in remote reserves without high schools are compelled to relocate to nearby towns and cities in order to receive a secondary education.

Unlike residential schools, which enforced mandatory attendance until 1948, contemporary educational arrangements are non-compulsory; however, many youths seek a high school diploma for socio-economic security. Besides the lack of high school programming, the federal government has failed to provide reserves with life-essential infrastructure, such as clean and safe housing, healthy food, and adequate water systems. This, along with the increasingly invasive presence of resource extraction industries, has compromised Indigenous peoples’ ability to fully engage in traditional subsistence economies, thus compelling communities to participate in a capitalist economy. For these reasons, an increasing number of Indigenous teenagers are making what is now understood as a life-threatening decision to leave home for a secondary education.

As well as establishing temporal links between the past and present educational laws and policies, this chapter offers a spatial analysis that demonstrates the materiality of Canada’s

approach to Indigenous education. Thunder Bay, ON is a major site for educational boarding arrangements for Indigenous students, complete with a high school for boarding students and a well-established private placement program. Notwithstanding educational policies requiring

Indigenous youth to relocate here, Indigenous youth are unwelcomed in this city. Over the last 20 years, Thunder Bay has made headlines with the rising number of Indigenous youths dying under suspicious and violent circumstances while living in the northern city. As well, in the few short days that Harper resided in Thunder Bay, she was already confronted by white settler hostility, having racial slurs and trash hurled at her in the streets. This hostility towards Indigenous peoples is embedded within the city’s very infrastructure. Indigenous youth have reported facing harassment from public officials, including bus drivers refusing youth access to public services, police officers failing to adequately follow up on complaints, and shop keepers and servers denying Indigenous patrons service. As part of mapping out this hostile terrain, this chapter looks beneath the surface to assess the layers of historical sediment that give shape to this existing colonial landscape over time. This includes an examination of land acquisition through treaty agreements and land theft. In this way, the dynamic interplay between time and space take on particular prominence in this chapter.

As well as examining settler approaches to Indigenous education, I examine the production of narratives on Indigenous girlhood through the law. Through a critical analysis of how Harper’s experiences in Thunder Bay are taken up in the Inquest into the Deaths of Seven

First Nations Youth, this chapter provides greater insight into how colonial discourses on

Indigenous femininity and girlhood are deployed to uphold settler ideologies and institutions.

Initial talks of an inquest into youth deaths began in 2007, following the disappearance and death of Reggie Bushie. With family and community pressure, the inquest scope was eventually expanded to include an examination into the deaths of an additional six youth: Jordan Wabasse,

Kyle Morrisseau, Paul Panacheese, Curran Strang, Jethro Anderson, and Robyn Harper. The push to expand the scope was informed by the widely-held understanding that these deaths were not isolated incidences, but rather systemic in nature. As the only girl-identified youth represented within this inquest, examinations into the events and conditions leading to Harper’s death highlight the gendered dimensions of both Canada’s approach to Indigenous education and subsequent official narratives.

The chapter is organized into three parts. First, I focus on the spatial with an examination of recent educational policies and practices structuring Indigenous schooling today. The next part examines state surveillance and control over Indigenous girls’ movements and the production of colonial spaces using a spatial analysis. Finally, I address the official narrative portraying

Indigenous girls as vulnerable to violence due to their so-called high-risk lifestyles produced through the Inquest into the Deaths of Seven First Nations Youth. If I Set Out To Write This Chapter: Producing a Narrative

Robyn, if I set out to write this chapter about you it might turn out to be about all Indigenous girls who have ever had to leave home for school. This chapter might turn out to be about me,

Helen Betty Osborne, or Shannen Koostachin; it might turn out to be about any Indigenous girl from Keewaywin First Nation, Poplar Hill First Nation, Webequie First Nation, Pikangikum First

Nation, Kasobonika Lake First Nation, or any reserve that still does not yet have a school.6

In most media and official accounts, it’s those final moments of Harper’s life that are most often recounted. The following has become something of a refrain: Robyn Harper had only been living in Thunder Bay, ON a few days when she was found dead at the entryway of her

6 Inspired by Marylin Dumont’s “Helen Betty Osborne” from A Really Good Brown Girl (1996).

boarding home on January 13, 2007 after a night of drinking. What is rarely mentioned, discussed, or emphasized were the ways Harper managed the challenges of being away from her family and community. To cope with the homesickness, Harper called home every evening and sought to make friends. On Friday evening, Harper reached out to another teenaged girl from

Keewaywin for help navigating public transit; the two also made plans to meet later that evening to hang out at the mall and to drink outside with friends. It is here that media and official accounts often underscore Harper’s excessive alcohol consumption while failing to mention the white passersby who flung garbage and racial slurs at the teens from their vehicles and those who simply walked by the teens without helping when it was clearly required. Like the staff who left

Harper at the entryway of her boarding home, this is the place where most media and official accounts leave Harper. Most of these accounts trace a path from the liquor store to the doorstep without any consideration for the histories preceding these final moments or everything that came next.

The truth is that I struggled to write about the circumstances surrounding Robyn Harper’s death. In the first draft, I described Harper’s death as a detached, sequential order of events. In direct contrast with the core argument of my research, I unconsciously reasoned that a so-called objective stance would carry more weight and authority. After the first round of feedback, I was encouraged to interrogate my internal assumptions driving me to produce something I hoped would be indisputable. Even as I argued for creative, subjective, non-linear approaches to narrative, I had unwittingly conformed to western conventions in my own research and writing.

To me, this speaks volumes to the pervasiveness with which western notions of truth and knowledge circulate and the unabating persistence with which colonial power seeks to replicate itself. In revising this draft, I encouraged myself to return to Indigenous ways of knowing and doing, particularly those epistemological and pedagogical frameworks grounded in my

communities. The point, I realized, is not to produce something that is indisputable, but to contribute to a larger conversation informed by my unique subject location, priorities, and perspective. As it turns out, the moment I relinquish any claims to objectivity is the moment I am able to critically examine how the production of codified narratives serves to uphold settler colonial ideologies, systems, and structures.

In establishing my own set of ethics for recreating narratives, I am reminded of Sharpe’s critical exploration of the transatlantic slave trade and its afterlife. In making her way through this expansive archive, Sharpe describes repeatedly encountering a photograph of a Haitian girl receiving medical treatment following an earthquake. She observes a strip of tape affixed to the girl’s forehead. The piece of tape reads ship. Sharpe reflects on the ability of this flimsy piece of tape with the word ship scrawled across it to embody centuries of oppression. At the same time,

Sharpe recognizes the significance in allowing this piece of tape to command her full attention,

“that word ship threatened to obliterate every and anything I could see” (2016, p. 45). In returning the child’s gaze, Sharpe asks, “what was I being called by” (p. 45). As a scholar sifting through related archives, Sharpe reminds me to never lose sight of those very lives affected by the systems of power and oppression my work seeks to address. In recreating a narrative about the colonial laws, policies, and officials involved in Harper’s death, I must continually remind myself to write in a way that does not threaten to obliterate Harper. That as I critically examine the laws, policies, procedures, and officials executing these procedures and protocols, I must never lose sight of the girl who lost her life to these policies and practices.

While readers are not always privy to a storyteller’s creative process, every storyteller must certainly make narrative decisions to produce a story. Indeed, there is a politics to recreating narratives and, for this reason, no story is neutral. By now, the circumstances leading up to Harper’s death have been told hundreds of times by many different narrators, including

loved ones, public officials, journalists, and academics; these stories have been recounted across a number of mediums and forums, such as legal reports, policy briefs, newspaper articles, memorials, books, and podcasts; and each telling served a different purpose for different audiences. So, why write about the death of a teenaged girl who has been the source of much public attention? Here, I can offer some insight into the underlying priorities and commitments informing my narrative decisions. As much as I am invested in critically examining historical and contemporary educational policies and practices compelling Harper to relocate to a hostile city for schooling, I am also invested in addressing the production of legal narratives intended to bolster colonial approaches to Indigenous education. What this requires, then, is a conscientious balance that demonstrates care for Harper’s story while, at the same time, critically interrogating the circumstances and conditions that claimed her life. This also requires respecting the singularity and distinctness of Harper while, at the same time, situating the teen within the broader context in which Indigenous girls are routinely targeted by colonial oppression and violence. Indeed, it is not lost on me that I am recreating a narrative while critiquing official narrative recreations. Colonial Schooling: New Approaches, Old Ideas

Although the last federally-run residential school closed in 1996, the ideologies upholding these institutions persist in private home placement programs for Indigenous youth from First Nations communities lacking secondary schools. With the decline of residential schools through the mid-20th century, private home placement programs emerged as an alternative approach to Indigenous education. State officials understood private placements integrating Indigenous students into the public-school system as better suited to meet Canada’s assimilationist agenda than its segregationist predecessor (Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, 1991).

Furthermore, private placements neatly align with Canada’s bottom line, which is providing

Indigenous peoples with educational opportunities as cheaply as possible.

Harper’s placement was arranged through the Northern Nishnawbe Education Council

(NNEC), a First Nations-operated, federally-funded educational organization established in

1978. NNEC administers secondary and post-secondary services for 24 First Nations communities in the Sioux Lookout district located in northern Ontario. The education council operates two secondary schools, Dennis Franklin Cromarty (DFC) First Nations High School in

Thunder Bay and Pelican Falls First Nations High School near Sioux Lookout, and funds the

Northern Eagle Secondary School in Ear Falls. NNEC is all responsible for student accommodations, offering a mix of dormitory-style facilities and private placements in each community. The dormitory facilities include Pelican Falls Centre (PFC) located in Sioux

Lookout and the Northern Eagle Centre (NEC) in Ear Falls. For students living in Thunder Bay,

NNEC offers private placements with local families. In addition, NNEC aids students relocating to Winnipeg, MB for secondary or specialized vocational schools. NNEC’s vision statement expresses a desire to “create a positive influence in the lives of children and their parents,” in such a manner that “First Nations people succeed without the loss of their identity” (NNEC

Website). Similarly, NNEC’s mission is to provide a high standard of education while reinforcing cultural identity within the global community. Despite the admirable values and aspirations, students’ lived experiences reflect an entirely different reality. Since the establishment of DFC in 2000, six youth, including Harper, have unexpectedly died under suspicious and violent circumstances. Among the few existing studies and surveys, DFC students report feeling disappointed and frustrated with their experience of both the school, and home placement, as well as the city itself. Along these lines, students have also expressed frustration with NNEC support workers, boarding home parents, and the broader community members. Yet,

despite these serious concerns and complaints, students have few avenues for recourse given that their home communities do not provide similar educational programs.

The structure and operations of these schools embody eliminatory logics targeting

Indigenous children. Far from conventional understandings of schools as spaces of intellectual and creative development, NNEC schools assume more carceral dimensions. In 2003, a comprehensive review of NNEC led by Jerald Paquette found a serious disconnect between the organization’s mandate on student support and actual student experience while attending NNEC- run schools. In Paquette’s follow-up analysis, comparisons between NNEC schools and programming to imprisonment by the youth were noted as a recurring theme. Commenting on staff reflections of a student dormitory in Sioux Lookout, Paquette shares, “Workers recalled with grim humour, for instance, that students frequently referred to Pelican Falls Centre –PFC– as the ‘prison for children” (2007, p. 99). Whether students are living in dormitories or private placements, they are expected to observe an austere and restrictive lifestyle as reflected by the strict curfews, limited bus tickets, and harsh sanctions. Students have indicated that assigned support workers tend to act like prison wardens rather than counsellors. Paquette relates, “I heard from students that the support they received was more like the ‘support’ prisoners receive from wardens” (p. 94). Indeed, rather than provide psychological support and comfort, Paquette observes, workers were said to place greater emphasis on disciplining students. This attitude assumes that the youth are the source of the problem, not the environment.

Students are expected to take on the responsibilities of adults without receiving any rewards of adulthood. They feel as though the expectations of them are those of adults and yet, at the same time, they are punished like children. Some of the student feedback from the NNEC study included: “Not grounding the ones that are old enough. Give them some space instead of treating them like 14 year olds;” “By giving the students that are of legal age a little more space;”

“They should let the Centre students that have good grades, behaviour and are mature have jobs in town. They could work after school and come home at night. On weekends they could get in

[in] the morning and come back in the evening” (p. 96). Overall, the expectation that placement students take on the responsibilities of adults without the privileges of adulthood reflects an austere approach to Indigenous education. In other words, this model of education espouses a mentality of “just getting through,” stripped of joy and curiosity.

Describing her experience as a boarding student living in Thunder Bay, Kakegamic testified:

My time at Dennis Franklin Cromarty I think it’s very different from how it is today. Every

generation it gets different, different problems. Like when I was there I used to be homesick

a lot and I used to miss my mom, my dad, and it was scary I guess, but I was staying with

family so I wasn’t so scared right away. I wasn’t scared at my boarding place ‘cause I knew

them, but for other students to them their boarding parents are just strangers. And

sometimes the boarding places they, they’re not – like some places they starve. Like this

one boarding place I used to live was an older lady and her husband was – had Alzheimer’s

and we had to watch him too. And she would always lock up her food or keep it in the

room, in her room and we wouldn’t have nothing to eat. Our parents had to send us money.

I used to tell my mom, mom I’m hungry. I didn’t eat for like four days already. The only

time I would eat was, was at school for breakfast. I’d only eat once a day for breakfast

that’s if I’m lucky and if I make it in time for breakfast. And but now today they have free

lunch at the school, but back then they didn’t have free lunch for us. (2015 October 29, p.

27-28)

The limited and outright denied access to food is widely regarded as a colonial tactic deployed seen at other moments in history, including the systematized starvation at residential schools and

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state-endorsed mass buffalo slaughter throughout the Great Plains. Kakegamic’s testimony also reveals the denial of care through the expectation that she assumes caregiving responsibilities of her very guardians. Again, this treatment is eerily reminiscent of residential school curriculum, which ultimately prepared Indigenous girls to serve white households.

Although few scholarly studies on private placements for Indigenous education exist, students themselves have generated much discussion on their experience with secondary schooling through youth-led organizations, programs, conferences, creative pursuits, and reports.

Following the attack of an Indigenous student in a washroom at a public school in Thunder Bay, the Regional Multicultural Youth Council (RMYC) launched an initiative designed to address the incident, which included a survey, focus sessions, and report. The schools are described as segregated between white and Indigenous students. Racism permeates dynamics and structures interactions. RMYC observes that not only does the curriculum reflect systemic racism, but it is matched by racist slurs, vandalism, and attacks on Indigenous students by white students. What is worse, teachers and educational administrators either cannot or will not address this violence

(2000).

Following the death of Reggie Bushie, community members became increasingly concerned by a disturbing pattern in the disappearance of Indigenous youth. Youth activism and organizing around Indigenous student life became even more focused around this emerging trend in Thunder Bay. Racism always seemed to be a defining feature of the northern city, but the deaths of Indigenous youth focused this discussion with greater precision. In June 2010, RMYC released a report called The Reggie Bushie Inquest: Engaging Youth to be Part of the Solution, which included a survey completed by DFC students and summaries of presentations aimed at responding to these deaths. Among the 18 students participating in the survey, seven indicated that racism was the most important thing facing kids leaving northern reserves to attend school in

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Thunder Bay (2010, p. 5). Five indicated that the risk of assault and abuse was a matter of significance (p. 6). Three participants noted that the risk and occurrences of rape were important matters facing youth (p. 7). Mental health also proved to be an important matter to the participants, who indicated that loneliness and depression were top issues (p. 7). These same participants took issue with boarding home living conditions, noting that drug and alcohol use, verbal abuse, and emotional neglect took a toll on their well-being and experience of living away from home (p. 7). What students are indicating here is a complex set of structural problems manifesting through settler violence, internalized violence, and structural oppression.

When asked what Inquest participants needed to know in order to prevent events similar to the death of Bushie from reoccurring, the youth overwhelmingly indicated a need for more social activities and structures, like Big Brother programs, sports, and other recreational clubs (p.

10). Students are aware that the systemic racism permeating homes, schools, and the very city itself is harming Indigenous youth, yet they still hold space for dreaming and imagining a future.

In this 2010 report, they present a comprehensive plan called Big Dream To-Do List. On this list, funding is top concern. The youth recognize that greater funding for supplementary programming is essential (p. 24). The Big Dream To-Do List, to me, can be interpreted as a kind of refusal by the youth to accept the bare life imposed by limited federal funding. Implicit in this proposal is an understanding that a full life is produced through having access to “extras” and not just essentials. Students are not limiting themselves to requests for the bare necessities; they are asking for the material supports which will ultimately contribute to having full lives and futures.

The deaths of youth attending DFC are highly publicized and much discussed in popular media. Counsel for Harper’s family along with five of the youth’s families, Jonathan Rudin, has been vocal in expressing his view that the deaths of Harper and several other youths qualified as homicide as a result of NNEC neglect and their failure to seek medical assistance for the youth

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under their care. Murder, however, does not reflect the broader context in which Harper’s death occurred, or the eliminatory logics underwriting her passing. The lack of care or attention to

Harper by any of the adults charged with responsibility over her wellbeing and safety must be situated within the broader context of sexualized violence against Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit community members that is foundational to Canada. Sexual violence is not a central focus on official reports or student initiatives, but it is an ever-present shadow that, peripheral as it is, cannot be dismissed entirely, due to its pervasiveness. Student reports indicate that sexual violence begins in childhood for Indigenous peoples. From the outset, all children are vulnerable to sexual abuse. As children grow into youth and adolescence, however, due to systemic misogyny, sexism, and heteropatriarchy, Indigenous girls are more likely to be confronted by sexual predators at home, school, and in the community.

Perhaps one of the most comprehensive analyses of private placement programs available today is the Inquiry into the Death of Helen Betty Osborne, an examination of the circumstances surrounding the abduction, torture, sexual assault, and murder of the 19-year-old Cree teenaged girl while she was living in The Pas, MB to attend secondary school. For Commissioners

Associate Chief Justice Alvin Hamilton and Judge Murray Sinclair, racism lies at the heart of contemporary educational policies compelling Indigenous youth to relocate to nearby towns and cities in order to access secondary education. They argue that relocating youth rather than provide suitable facilities and programs on-reserve is a continuation of eliminatory government policies intended to undermine Indigenous peoples’ relationship to land, culture, and language while undertaking assimilatory and annihilative measures (1991, p. 91). Based on an in-depth investigation of Osborne and her peers’ experience with their private placements from the 1970s,

Commissioners Hamilton and Sinclair conclude that private placements lack adequate social, recreational, and professional supports; fail to ensure safe living and learning environments; and,

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overall, refuse to address systemic racism within public schools and the broader community (p.

91). Regrettably, nearly 30 years following this ground-breaking Inquiry, many of the policies and practices scrutinized in the final report remain in place today. The Mobility Paradox: Go Here, Don’t Go There

At the heart of contemporary approaches to Indigenous schooling is an irreconcilable tension between Canada’s expectation that Indigenous girls relocate to nearby urban centres for education and white settler condemnation of Indigenous girls’ presence in these very spaces.

Revealed through this conflict is the white settler’s unabated anxiety around the proximity to

Indigeneity that assimilatory tactics demand. As a management technique, assimilation requires inviting Indigenous populations into the white settler body politic; however, this very closeness triggers white settler anxieties and annihilative impulses. Violence, then, becomes the default coping mechanism that establishes spatial markers and boundaries enabling white settlers to distinguish between us and them. Harper’s journey to Thunder Bay exemplifies the innate conflict between white settler anxieties around losing oneself and the annihilative consequences at the heart of Canadian management of Indigenous girls. Beginning in Keewaywin First Nation,

I closely examine the historical production and ongoing maintenance of reserves to expose the colonial engineering for containing Indigenous peoples and depriving them of life-essential infrastructure and services as if to suggest that life itself belongs to white settlers (Agamben,

1998, p. 6). What follows is a close examination of the legal processes, policies, and attitudes monitoring and restricting the movements of Indigenous women and girls while, at the same time, establishing links to contemporary assimilatory education policies and practices.

Harper’s journey began in her hometown, Keewaywin First Nation, a small fly-in reserve located in northern Ontario. Although the official establishment of this reserve is as recent as

1991, the community has historical connections with the Deer Lake Band treaty signing of 1910

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and ancestral connections even further back (Deer Lake First Nation, n.d.). Prior to treaty signing, local bands participated in a subsistence economy, which involved hunting, trapping, fishing, and gathering (Sandy Lake First Nation, n.d.). The rapid decline of rabbits and other wildlife, however, motivated community leaders to begin treaty negotiations with the Crown to manage dwindling food sources and supplies (Nishnawbe Aski Nation, n.d.). The reserve system that came along with entering into treaty with the Crown served to further undermine socio- economic and governance structures by constraining Indigenous movement. Indeed, the reserve system proved to be an effective mechanism for managing Indigenous populations in order to grant newcomers unfettered access to land. Notwithstanding Canada’s efforts to constrain

Indigenous movement, some Deer Lake band members belonging to the Sucker and Crane clan relocated to Sandy Lake in 1920 and later, in 1986, Sandy Lake band members relocate to what became Keewaywin First Nation (Teach for Canada, 2018). As these historical developments crucially indicate, rapid colonial expansion certainly constrained and, indeed, undermined

Indigenous political, economic, and social life; however, local ideologies, systems and structures were by no means destroyed. Attending to the nuances of this dynamic interplay is so critical, as it highlights Canada’s concerted and improvised eliminatory efforts when confronted by

Indigenous resiliency.

As part of Canada’s ongoing pursuit of land and resources, reserves came into existence as a strategy for managing Indigenous populations. Although treaty negotiations presented reserves as protected lands meant to ensure Indigenous peoples’ ability to self-determine, lived experiences proved otherwise. As a number of scholars have suggested, reserves can be thought of as state-sanctioned sites of deprivation and containment zones restricting Indigenous movement (Monture, 2006; Palmater, 2015). Within these spaces, residents are often denied access to life-essential infrastructure, such as: potable water systems, adequate sewage systems,

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safe housing, and educational facilities. The denial of life-essential infrastructure within these spaces is not a mere oversight; rather, it is intended to mark Indigenous peoples as colonial subjects. As Razack (2015) has written, this inscription on bodies and land is both figurative and physical. Just as segments of land are designated sites of deprivation, Indigenous people, too, are marked as disposable within white settler configurations. According to Goeman (2017), embodied geographies account for “how bodies move through spaces and the scales of space set up through imposed criteria – or a logic of containment” (p. 102). Within this logic of containment are ongoing efforts to foreclose Indigenous futurity.

Within white settler configurations, Indigenous girls are not thought to have their whole lives ahead of them. This foreclosure is reflected through the production of girls’ surrounding environments. In a study examining on-reserve Indigenous girls’ engagement with tobacco smoking, de Finney et al. (2013) provide greater insight into the everyday challenges and realities of Indigenous girls living on reserves. Among the 63 girls participating in the study, the four most common reasons given as to why they started smoking were: experimentation and boredom; relational and peer pressure; drinking and partying; and stress relief (p. 151). As de

Finney et al. relates, “Several girls stressed that they smoked because they had ‘nothing else to do’ or ‘when we’re bored’ to fill times between breaks at school and when hanging out” (p. 156).

The feelings of boredom these girls describe can be seen as critiques of the lack of age- appropriate social programming relevant to youth in First Nations communities. On reserves, cigarettes even come to stand in for healthcare supports. We are told that Indigenous girls often smoke cigarettes to manage and alleviate daily stress unique to their social location and geography. According to the study, “girls linked their smoking to the sense of isolation or lack of supports they experienced in dealing with stressful or difficult circumstances in their lives” (p.

158). These stressful circumstances include coping with the intergenerational effects of

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residential schools with little to no available mental health supports. Indeed, as de Finney et al. make clear, Indigenous girls living on reserves are neither provided supports for grappling with ongoing consequences of the past, nor adequate means for envisioning a future.

There is a common saying among Indigenous peoples that “education in the new buffalo.” For many, education signifies socio-economic security and upward mobility granting access to life-essential supports like housing, food, and other essentials. Indeed, this understanding is further demonstrated by Indigenous peoples insisting upon the inclusion of educational provisions throughout treaty negotiations. Obtaining western educational training, however, has always been fraught with challenges as the federal government uses education as a means of elimination. Early legal documents advanced the fledgling nation’s assimilatory objectives:

Any such Indian of the male sex, and not under twenty-one years of age, is able to speak,

read and write either the english or the french language readily and well, and is sufficiently

advanced in the elementary branches of education…shall cease to apply to any Indian so

declared to be enfranchised, who shall no longer be deemed an Indian within the meaning

thereof. (An Act to Encourage the Gradual Civilization of the Indian, 1857)

Conveyed here is the belief that western education is antithetical to Indigeneity. In contrast to those Indigenous peoples who viewed education as an adaptive response necessary for collective survival as peoples, early Canadian laws served to eliminate Indigenous peoples by using education as an incentive for Indigenous peoples to enfranchise and, therefore, become absorbed into Canada’s body politic. Initially, as the gendered language in the above passage suggests, schooling was not made available to girls. Many early residential schools exclusively enrolled boys. In all cases, the education provisions outlined in treaty agreements

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were interpreted to suit Canada’s colonial agenda while constraining Indigenous peoples’ social mobility through the law.

The pass system is yet another historical policy implemented to monitor and regulate

Indigenous mobility. From 1885, Indigenous peoples were required to seek permission to leave the reserve from a local Indian agent or farm instructor. In order to obtain a pass, individuals were required to state the purpose and length of their absence (Carter, 1999, p.

162). While this system was never codified in Canadian law and, in fact, violated treaty agreements, there is evidence that the pass system was enforced on some reserves into the

1940s (p. 164). Laws and policies like the pass system did more than physically constrain

Indigenous movement; they reified racial hierarchies subordinating Indigenous peoples to white settlers. Categorizing Indigenous populations as fixed and immobile empowered white settlers to assume modern identities as free, unmarked subjects able to explore, discover, classify, and dominate (Mohanram, 1999, p. 15).

Although the pass system was applied to all Indigenous peoples, this historical policy targeted Indigenous women and girls in particular. Given white settler preoccupation with socio-biological contamination through interracial heterosexual relationships, the pass system alleviated this anxiety by restricting the movement of Indigenous women, girls, and queer people (Lawrence 2004; Olsen Harper, 2009; Razack 2002b). Razack (2002b) confirms that an underlying rationale of this system was to “limit the numbers of Aboriginal women ‘of abandoned character’ entering the towns” (p. 130). This measure proved to have enduring ideological consequences as Indigenous women and girls came to be understood by white settlers as hypersexualized threats to the social order. Carter elaborates, “the result was to entrench the representation of Aboriginal woman as immoral harlots and prostitutes who were a dangerous threat to the emerging settlements” (2008, p. 153).

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Hypersexual representations of Indigenous women and girls were further entrenched by Canada’s Criminal Code (1892), which established prostitution as synonymous with

Indigenous womanhood under the heading “Prostitution of Indian Women” in Sec. 190 in the part discussing “Offences Against Morality.” This conflation served to not only criminalize prostitution, but Indigenous femininity itself. Even the belief or perception that an Indigenous woman could be a prostitute was considered an indictable offence in the Criminal Code, which describes the offence as follows:

being the keeper of any house, tent or wigwam, allows or suffers any unenfranchised

Indian woman to be or remain in such a house, tent or wigwam, knowing or having

probable cause for believing that such Indian woman is in or remains in such house,

tent or wigwam with the intention of prostituting herself therein. (p. 83)

Such laws further constrained Indigenous women and girls’ movements in settler spaces and, further, insisted upon their self-regulation. In order to avoid falling within the purview of colonial law, these women and girls were compelled to act in accordance with white settler gender norms, namely that woman do not belong in the public sphere. According to Carter

(2008), the term prostitute was often applied to women who had sexual relations or were cohabitating outside of marriage (p. 153). Evinced here is a complete disregard for different

Indigenous gender norms, sexualities, and relationalities in favour of European heteropatriarchal customs. Although such laws are no longer in effect, Indigenous girls are marked by enduring traces of these historical laws and policies regulating Indigenous femininity.

Razack once wrote that an individual who can cross between respectability and degeneracy unscathed is, indeed, a colonial subject in control of his world (2002b, p. 136).

For Indigenous girls, moving through settler spaces unscathed is next to impossible. In

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Thunder Bay, a northern city known for state-sanctioned white settler hostility toward

Indigenous peoples, Indigenous girls must contend with the risks and realizations of settler violence on a daily basis. Localized expressions of colonialism within this city err towards outright contempt, rather than the exoticization and romanticizing of civility of Indigenous peoples that happens in southern cities like Toronto. Indigenous girls and women are largely unwelcomed in public domains, such as sidewalks, parks, shopping centres, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, public transit, etc. Their presence in many of these spaces, such as sidewalks, parks, and hotels, is often read through a hypersexualized lens, where they are interpreted as available for sex. In other spaces, Indigenous girls are read as a disruption or disturbance. Responses to this perceived disturbance include: being followed in a store by security; being denied service by retailers, restaurants, and even clinics and hospitals; subtle forms of contempt, such as glaring and muttering; and more direct forms of violence like shouting hypersexualized racial slurs, hurling garbage and other items from moving vehicles, and violent physical and sexual assaults. During a cross-examination by Karen Shea, a member of the coroner’s counsel, Skye Kakegamic testified that verbal and physical acts of violence are everyday occurrences for Indigenous youth living in Thunder Bay:

Shea: Now, you told me something before you testified today about something that

happened to you when you were helping Robyn get to the bus terminal?

…

Kakegamic: When we were walking, when we just crossed the road from the Friendship

Gardens and I crossed the road and we’re walking on the sidewalk and we’re walking

and a vehicle drove and was driving and then we heard like before we heard when they

got closer we heard that ooh, like, as a racist, racial slur and they threw McDonald’s

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food at us and they drove off saying go “go back home like Indians” and that’s

happened to me more than once at that time.

Shea: Do you want to talk about that a little bit more or do you want me to move on?

Kakegamic: I know like lots of people go through that in the city over here. I have at

least no more than five people that’s gone through that in the city while being in high

school, more, probably even more that I don’t even know. They get food thrown at

them, rocks, even sticks, yeah. And all the time it’s always that, that ooh and…

Shea: And just for the record I have to sort of describe it. You’re making a noise, but

then taking your hand and hitting it against your [mouth]…

Kakegamic: Yeah, that’s like what, what some people do to make fun of us like that

and they say stuff like “savages go back home” or “stupid savages.” (2015 October 29,

p. 26-27)

During a cross-examination by Jonathan Rudin, counsel for the families, Kakegamic describes the psychological impact resulting from these violent occurrences:

Rudin: So how did – I mean it’s not – how to [sic] you feel when that happens to you?

Kakegamic: I get mad. I get frustrated. I feel like I could be better sometimes.

Rudin: That you could be better?

Kakegamic: Yeah.

Rudin: So did you think it was like your fault that people were throwing things at you?

Kakegamic: Just the colour of my skin, yeah.

Rudin: But that’s not your fault.

Kakegamic: I know now.

Rudin: And did you feel you could do anything about that?

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Kakegamic: No just felt so helpless like even if we – even if I tried to say something

nothing ever gets done about it anyway (2015 October 29, p. 30-31)

Described here is the internalization of white supremacist ideologies denigrating Indigeneity, as well as the belief that there is no recourse for this violence. Towards the Horizon of Death

According to media reports and official testimony, Harper was reluctant to leave her home community to attend high school. Born and raised in Keewaywin, Harper was well- supported by her family and was involved in community life, accessing many available supports.

She was recognized as a thoughtful young person who showed potential to act as a community leader. Former educators remarked, “Robyn was a good student…as well as very helpful to the staff” (2015, para. 9). For her loved ones, Harper had her whole life ahead of her. Tina Harper described her daughter as quiet, artistic, and family-oriented (2015, para. 11). Contrary to the views held by Harper’s loved ones, Indigenous girls are never thought to have their whole lives ahead of them within white settler narratives. Instead, Indigenous girls are depicted as vulnerable due to their high-risk lifestyles and dysfunctional culture in media, law, and policy. Within these narratives, state officials are positioned as protagonists charged with the difficult task of “saving” these self-destructive girls. Such portrayals effectively naturalize interlocking structures of oppression and obfuscate Canada’s role in violence against Indigenous girls. As a result, when

Indigenous girls are disappeared, white settlers regard these occurrences as tragic, yet inevitable.

Drawing on Denise da Silva’s concept of the “horizon of death,” I elaborate on the ways in which legal narratives articulate Indigenous girls as always already dying in order to advance

Canada’s settler colonial regime.

According to da Silva, the post-Enlightenment European subject, as with the modern global order itself, emerges through the deployment of a modern racial analytic, a political-

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symbolic tool and scientific signification. A necessary byproduct of this formulation, da Silva explains, is the simultaneous emerges of the modern subject’s racialized counterpart the

‘affectable I.’ Within the modern global order, the affectable I, the racial other, is that which

“both threatens and institutes” the post-Enlightenment European subject (2007, p. 27). Therefore, da Silva argues, the absolute obliteration of the other by modern subjects is not possible without also undoing modern social configurations. Instead, racial signification violently marks the difference through the subordination of the other to the modern subject. For da Silva, racial signification is not merely destructive but integral to modern configuration. She writes, “the racial is an effect and a tool of the productive violent act that produces the global as a modern context of signification, one that refers to a mode of existing before historicity, the horizon of life, that the ontological context transparency thesis produces” (p. 29). Whereas the post-

Enlightenment European subject, also termed the transparent I, secures for itself universality unhindered by historicity, the affectable I is suspended before the horizon of death in perpetuity.

As da Silva expands, “the others of Europe gaze on the horizon of death, facing certain obliteration, the racial keeps the transparent I in self-determination (interiority) alone before the horizon of life” (p. 30). Put differently, the modern global order requires the continuous formation and obliteration of the affectable I. With Canada in mind, I understand the term Indian and subsequent racial terms grouping distinct and disparate nations as belonging to a colonial vocabulary intended to delineate the boundaries of white settler subjecthood. Within this context,

Indigenous girls are discursively and materially situated along the horizon of death as a tactic for managing the imagined threat Indigenous girlhood poses to the very existence of this white settler society. Yet, at the same time, articulations of Indigenous girls as always already dying provide the necessary counterpoint for asserting white settler superiority.

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The portrayal of Indigenous girls as vulnerable due to their so-called high-risk lifestyles is, arguably, a discursive maneuver positioning these girls along the horizon of death. Through this formulation, Indigenous girls’ experiences of violence are considered the result of self- destructive tendencies and risky behaviours as opposed to interlocking structures of oppression.

This high-risk lifestyle is often framed as pathology typically attributed to intergenerational trauma. According to Glen S. Coulthard (2014), in order to give the impression of a transition from an authoritarian past to a democratic present, “state-sanctioned approaches to reconciliation must ideologically manufacture such a [reconciliatory] transition by allocating the abuses of settler colonization to the dustbins of history” (p. 108). A consequence of this discursive maneuvering, Coulthard observes, is that individuals responding to Canada’s existing colonial structure, “are typically cast as being saddled by the damaging psychological residue of this legacy, of which anger and resentment are frequently highlighted” (p. 109). Similarly,

Indigenous girls are frequently portrayed as disturbed and irrevocably damaged by familial violence and cultural dysfunction. Such narratives claim that the inability of these girls to let go of the past by healing familial wounds, as evidenced by their reckless behaviour, ultimately forecloses any hope for their futures. The deployment and circulation of these narratives effectively situate these girls along the horizon of death.

Legal narratives are very expensive stories. With the staffing cost of legal professionals, court workers, and other administrative support; overhead costs like buildings and digital space; research materials; and other administrative expenses, the financial costs associated with inquests and inquiries is no small matter. The ways in which expenses inform legal narratives are layered and multidimensional. The very decision to conduct an inquest over an inquiry itself is informed by cost. While this inquest is one of Ontario’s largest discretionary hearings ever, it is worth noting that counsel for NAN and the families were met with resistance when pushing for an

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expanded investigation (Chiefs of Ontario, 2013; Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto &

Nishnawbe Aski Nation, 2015). While an inquiry is arguably better equipped to address relevant socio-political matters, such as the police investigations into the death of Harper and other youth, cost-saving measures ultimately constrained the scope of investigation. Presiding Coroner Dr.

David Eden himself admits that “if these deaths were the subject of a proceeding under the

Public Inquiries Act, the inquiry could possess authority to inquire into and make findings of misconduct…No such authority exists under the Coroners Act” (2015, p. 22). Another point to consider is that not only are inquests expensive to host, they can be prohibitively expensive for participants. The costs of legal representation–not to mention travel, accommodations, and time away from work–are frequently not feasible for Indigenous participants, which ultimately shape the proceedings and outcomes.7 The final note on cost is how prohibitive costs prevent community from engaging with the narrative after the fact. As an Indigenous researcher, my ability to critically engage with this inquest hinges on my ability to purchase court documents, such as transcripts. As an institutionally-based researcher, I have access to supports and resources that are simply not available for many of my community members. Thinking through the many costs of inquest proceedings while keeping in mind the extreme structured impoverishment amongst Indigenous peoples is important because it attunes us to the ways in which official proceedings subtly exclude Indigenous peoples from fully participating in the production of legal narratives.

In thinking about inquest decisions and reports as legal narratives, it is useful to think of the submissions requesting an expanded scope or the deletion of particular topics from the inquest as establishing the parameters of the story. On February 17, 2015, a Joint Submission on

7 The Inquiry into Missing Women in British Columbia refused to provide Indigenous families with financial support for legal representation, thus restricting their ability to fully participate in the inquiry hearing. For this reason, many denounced this inquiry as a sham (The Canadian Press, 2011 September 21).

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Scope by the Families and NAN argued for the removal of alcohol and drugs from the Inquest scope. It was argued that,

as it currently stands, the issue of alcohol and other substance abuse has been isolated as

an important aspect of the student’s personal lives, both prior to their enrollment at DFC

or MLC, and during their time at school. This focus on potential addiction issues

problematically reinforces discriminatory views in play. Without denying very real

problems with regard to addictions in First Nations youth, there are prevalent stereotypes

that impact the way substance abuse is regarded in First Nations people, and particularly,

that encourage our focus on addictions in First Nations people… If addiction issues arise,

they must be understood as linked to, and existing alongside, other conditions which are

equally relevant, such as isolation, poverty, and other social determinants of health. (p. 13)

On April 14, 2015, Dr. Eden issued his ruling, which again, can be thought of as defining the narrative parameters. Within this ruling, he claimed, “Based on the material contained in the inquest brief some, if not all of these deaths could have been prevented if alcohol and drugs had not been used by the deceased. There is extensive medical research, and known effective treatment, for drug and alcohol use when it poses a risk to health or life.” (p. 14). Dr. Eden concludes, “Alcohol and drug use have a strong causal relationship with the deaths, and therefore evidence about them could be material to the development of practical and effective preventative recommendations…To remove them from the scope would be inconsistent with the facts as currently known” (p. 14). Ultimately, alcohol and substance use remained within the scope, which in turn sets the tone of the legal narrative produced through this inquest.

During the inquest itself, determinations over the causes of death of the youth almost entirely boiled down to alcohol consumption. In Harper’s case, biological processes overshadowed the social determinants of health in two significant ways. First of all, it must be

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noted that despite each expert witnesses’ detailed description of the post-mortem examination process, they admit failing to comply with these key procedures, including consulting family members and the presence of the investigative coroners at the site of Harper’s death. As expert witnesses, Dr. Toby Rose, Deputy Chief Forensic Pathologist, and Dr. Karen Woodall,

Toxicologist, reveal, an integral component of an autopsy begins with an investigation of the surrounding environment. They explain that an autopsy covers five general areas, beginning in the broadest sense with scene and circumstance: the environment in which a person died. Dr.

Rose describes the scene and circumstance stage as receiving the individual’s history from coroner who investigates the scene, the police involved with the investigation, first responders, emergency doctors, and family members (2015 October 6, p. 16). After being cross-examined by the coroner’s counsel, Dr. Paul Dupuis, investigative coroner for Ontario, revealed that the people who are expected to be consulted were not involved. The chief coroner was not on the scene at the site of Harper’s death, and the family was not involved in this process. Dupuis admitted “the one thing that might have aided me would have been her position, but that had already been lost because EMS and fire had moved her, so by the time I heard about the call that information was no longer available” (October 30, 2015, p. 11).

Second, there was a lack of attention on the role of her guardians to provide Harper with medical attention. The lack of prioritization of determining the scene and circumstance is further demonstrated by the investigative coroner’s failure to follow up with Harper’s family at all.

Counsel for the families, Rudin, describes to Dupuis the role of the investigative coroner:

The coroner should attempt to contact the next of kin as soon as possible after attendance

at the scene. The coroner should introduce him or herself and describe his or her role in the

investigation. This includes informing the next of kin how to reach the coroner, what would

be done and when and what the family be told and when. The family should be asked as

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best by a contact person and how to reach that person.’ None of that was done in this case

was it. (October 30, 2015, p. 26-27)

Rudin then follows up with an earlier assertion Dupuis made explaining why he made no attempt to contact Harper’s next of kin, her mother, Tina Harper:

Dupuis: Again, I don’t recall who I contacted and when.

Rudin: But you didn’t, you didn’t ask for a phone number for Ms. Harper to call her?

Dupuis: I don’t recall.

Rudin: No, but you indicated earlier in your testimony, it can be difficult to reach people

in the First Nations, but Ms. Harper had a telephone and a telephone number. So had you

asked for the telephone and her telephone number you could have spoken to her. And so

were you aware that just a couple days after Robyn Harper passed away Tina Harper was

in Thunder Bay to gather the body of her daughter.

Dupuis: No, not specifically.

Rudin: Sorry, when you say not specifically did you know that, did you know that at some

point the family was going to be coming to Thunder Bay to, to get the body?

Dupuis: No.

Rudin: Did you ask?

Dupuis: I don’t recall.

Rudin: So then you did really essentially in respect to this investigation, you really did

nothing you can recall other – you did nothing that you can recall to communicate with the

family.

Dupuis: It appears not. (2015 October 30, p. 28)

While Dupuis is unable to explain why he failed to contact Harper’s mother, Rudin assists in drawing out the lack of care extended to grieving Indigenous families by medical professionals.

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Expert toxicologists and forensic pathologists concluded that she died from acute ethanol toxicity. She was frequently described as a “naïve drinker” who simply consumed more than her body could process. It is worthwhile to consider this assertion alongside the extended history of

Indigenous peoples stereotyped as unable to handle their alcohol. The stereotype carries so much weight, oftentimes fictitious evolutionarily claims are added to lend the claim more weight (i.e.

Indigenous people cannot process alcohol because evolutionary have spent less time with it).

Along these lines, the coroner poses the following hypothetical, “If the jury was to conclude on the basis of other evidence that she had little or no exposure to alcohol would that effect the likelihood that she had died of alcohol poisoning at that level” (2015 October 6, p. 147). To which Dr. Woodall responds, “The more naïve she was to alcohol the more likely that she would die of acute alcohol intoxication at that level” (p. 147). In essence, what is being said here is that

Harper would not have died if she could handle her alcohol better.

What is diminished by this narrative of Harper as a reckless yet naïve drinker is the failure of her guardians to provide her with adequate care for what experts affirm is an entirely treatable malady. While reading the pathology report, Dr. Rose dives into Harper’s death on a cellular level, such that the context in which it occurred is entirely missing. Yet when asked if intervention would have made a difference, she says yes. When asked by the coroner’s counsel whether hospitalization would have made a difference, Dr. Rose responds, “She would have had a mechanical breathing for a while until the alcohol level went down and then she may well have survived” (2015 October 6, p. 54). Later, Dr. Rose explains the forensic pathologists have the authority to determine causes of death to be homicide. She states, “homicides are cases where it is clear that someone, that someone has died as a result of the actions of another person” (2015

October 6, p. 99). However, what is not taken up is whether inaction is considered homicide. As

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Dr. Rose admits, had Harper received timely and appropriate medical attention, the teenaged girl may have survived. Colonialism and Codified Narratives

What this chapter offers is an interconnected series of arguments linking the production of codified legal narratives on Indigenous girls’ so-called high-risk lifestyles and Canada’s ongoing settler colonial regime. It is clear that the underlying eliminatory objectives of residential schools continue to inform Canada’s approach to Indigenous education. This is most clearly seen through the ascendency of private placement programs requiring Indigenous youth to leave their communities to attend schools in nearby towns and cities. Harper’s experiences in

Thunder Bay highlight the gendered dimensions of this educational program targeting

Indigenous youth. While living away, Harper navigated the social isolation brought about by the gendered anti-Indigenous racism pervading the settler ethos and social structures. This is clearly not a safe place for Indigenous youth to be living on their own. Still, Indigenous youth annually relocate to Thunder Bay for the school year. While there are supposedly many resources available for youth in the city, racism and classism limit Indigenous youths’ ability to access these services, leaving them with few appealing options for coping with social isolation and the threat of settler violence. Alcohol is one of these strategies. Yet prevailing stereotypes about

Indigenous people and alcohol have led settlers to pathologize Indigenous youths’ alcohol consumption. This is particularly true in Harper’s case.

This chapter has also examined the production of codified narratives through legal procedures. The Inquest into the Deaths of Seven First Nations Youth is one of the largest discretionary inquests ever held in Ontario. Families and community members pushed for this inquest, with the hope that it would address the root cause of the seven youth deaths. While the families and their legal counsel made critical interventions regarding the inquest scope and

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subsequent proceedings, healing and justice mechanisms were constrained by colonial agendas.

First of all, there was an initial push to do an inquest into just one death. This is one of the ways law undermines Indigenous peoples’ efforts to highlight systemic oppression –by individualizing things. Second, the scope was ultimately decided by one coroner, who ultimately dismissed family and counsel concerns around the inclusion of alcohol. Finally, the adversarial structure of a trial, which requires a cross-examination of witnesses as they relive a trauma, is not conducive to or supportive of community healing and justice. All these things together work to produce a particular kind of narrative on the conditions and circumstances surrounding the death of Robyn

Harper that says very little about her as a person and much more about nationalist ideologies.

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Chapter 5 By All Accounts: Narrating Sexual Assault

Katherena Vermette’s The Break (2016) is a multigenerational narrative following four

Métis and Anishinaabe families following the rape of 13-year-old Emily Traverse. Told from the perspective of the investigating police officer and four generations of Métis and Anishinaabe women and girls living in Winnipeg’s North End, the novel sheds greater light on the ways in which sexual violence structures Canada’s colonial order. Organized into four parts, each chapter shifts in perspective to gradually retrace the events leading up to the violent attack, in effect revealing the identity of Emily’s assailant. However, this is not a straightforward account of events. In the days following, each character must grapple with the implications of the brutal attack while contending with the everyday experiences of settler colonialism and resurfacing traumatic memories. In deploying this narrative technique, Vermette establishes critical links between sexual violence against Indigenous girls, intergenerational trauma, and existing colonial structures.

In weaving multiple perspectives together, Vermette examines the nature of storytelling through her account of one girl’s sexual assault and its aftermath. Following Vermette’s lead, a central question guiding this analysis is how do stories come to be regarded as sources of knowledge and truth? With this as my prompt, this chapter examines each narrator’s vantage point to expand on the significance of firsthand accounts, witness testimony, and second-hand information to narrative production. I am particularly intrigued by Officer Tommy Scott’s perspective throughout his investigation. From the outset, it is clear Scott’s understanding of truth and justice wildly diverges from those of Emily, her family, and the novel itself. In contrast to The Break’s overarching narrative structure, which relies on multiple subjective and oftentimes contradictory perspectives, Officer Scott’s investigation relies on truth claims,

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“authoritative” knowledge, “reliable” witnesses, and so-called experts to close the case. In questioning Emily, her family, and possible suspects, Officer Scott’s approach can be described as intrusive, non-consensual, and, at times, downright hostile. In examining Officer Scott’s perspective alongside the other narrators, this chapter questions the efficacy of police narratives as mechanisms for truth, healing, and justice.

This chapter begins with a spatial analysis of the complex and contradictory stories written on the ground. The North End is not merely the setting upon which the story unfolds; rather, space is depicted as a living entity in relation with each character and, therefore, prominently featured throughout the novel. As such, attending to Indigenous girls and women’s evolving relationship to space and place can yield greater insight into Canada’s settler colonial regime. The first chapter opens with the point of view of an unnamed narrator describing how a small plot of land came to be known as the Break. Readers are told that this eponymous plot of land was appropriated by Manitoba Hydro prior to the expansion of the settler city. Vermette describes the Break as an interruption to the surrounding environment that does not quite make sense. There are parallels to be drawn between the Break and Canada’s overarching settler colonial project. Indeed, colonial dispossession and displacement has similarly disrupted

Indigenous socio-political orders and relationships with the land, thus compelling Indigenous peoples navigate overwhelming hostile environments. That said, colonial occupation has not entirely severed Indigenous peoples’ relationship with the land. As Vermette emphasizes,

Indigenous girls have their own sense of geography inflected by desire; fear’ the threat and realization of violence; and connection with self, family, and community. In a sense, Indigenous girls’ stories map out sites and routes distinct to Indigenous girlhood. Through a critical exploration of the novel’s three teenagers’ coming of age in Winnipeg’s North End, alongside the women’s recollections of the way girlhood shaped their adult life, Vermette narrates

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Canadian settler colonialism through the words of each character and the ever-changing contours of the land. (Re)Mapping Indigenous Girls’ Geographies

It is no coincidence that The Break shares its title with a piece of land named by one of the novel’s protagonists, Emily’s aunty Stella McGregor. The Break is fundamentally a narrative

(re)mapping tool intended to draw out Indigenous girls’ geographies. With a focus on

Winnipeg’s North End, a neighbourhood frequently highlighted in the media for its ostensibly high-rates of poverty and crime, Vermette takes up a spatial analysis of the everyday ways in which Indigenous girls are both constrained by and questioning the legitimacy of the existing colonial order. In navigating this colonial terrain, each girl is tasked with creating alternative routes to manage the perils of living in a settler city, including dodging sexual predators, seeking shelter amidst homelessness, and escaping state institutions. In undertaking this (re)mapping,

Vermette defies western mapping conventions that privilege the illusion of objectivity, fixed boundaries, and standardization; instead, she emphasizes fluidity, subjectivity, uncertainty, contradiction, and the interdependency between humans, non-humans, and land. Whereas

Enlightenment philosophy insists upon distinguishing individual subjects from space through fixed boundary markers (Kirby, 1998, p. 47), many Indigenous epistemologies, including Métis and Anishinaabe ones, contend that individual and collective ontologies are inextricable to space and place. Vermette highlights this interdependency through each character’s respective understanding of identity, space, and place, as well as the connections made between each other.

Conversely, Vermette underscores the ways in which Indigenous girls’ connections to identity and land are undermined, fragmented, and sometimes even destroyed through colonial actors, systems, and structures. It is from these points of connection and loss that each girl maps out their world as they know and envision it.

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The centrality of place is established from the outset with the unnamed narrator’s brief historical overview of Winnipeg’s North End. Described here are the socio-political and economic processes influencing the emergence of this neighbourhood, first as an enclave for

Eastern European immigrants and, eventually, Indigenous peoples from surrounding reserves.

Deliberately elided in this passage are the pre- and early colonial Indigenous histories of this territory. The complex and layered socio-spatial histories of the Anishinaabek, Cree, Oji-Cree,

Dakota, and Dene Peoples; the formation of the Métis nation; and the Indigenous-settler fur trade era are not merely forgotten, but strategically set aside to first highlight systemic erasure before recovering these collective histories through individual narratives. As each girl’s narrative makes clear, there is neither one experience of Indigeneity nor of girlhood. While Phoenix, Emily, and

Zegwan all describe feelings of alienation, dispossession, and dis/connection to their Indigeneity, each girl’s life experiences, family history, national affiliation, and other social markers inform their unique relationship to identity, space, and place. Whereas Phoenix was instilled with a firm understanding that her ancestors have always resided in the Red River region as Métis peoples,

Emily’s family members express insecurity with their Métis identity, believing they are not

“Indian enough” and place-less. For Zegwan, her self-assurance as an Anishinaabe girl is tested by her family’s relocation from the bush to the city. In every instance, space and place is crucial to each girl’s sense of self.

While on the surface it might not appear as though Phoenix’s Métis identity bears relevance to her everyday life, Phoenix’s connections to her national identity, homelands, culture, and kin provide her with solace and fortitude in moments of profound alienation, isolation, and hopelessness. After being turned out by her cousin, Phoenix must find shelter through the night. As she traverses familiar streets, alleyways, diners, and convenience stores,

Phoenix recalls the stories her Grandmère would share about their family’s Métis heritage and

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homelands. She shares, “Grandmère was born in the French part of town and never spoke

English until she was grown up. Her père was a member of the Union Nationale Saint-Joseph and so proud about who he was, even when it was dangerous to say you were Métis” (p. 237).

Phoenix’s Grandmère made little distinction between urban life and being on the land, as “even though they grew up in the city, Grandmère and her brothers and sisters would snare rabbits along the river” (p. 237). Indeed, these very survival skills were passed down to Phoenix before she was placed into protective custody. In receiving these stories and skills, Phoenix does not necessarily regard Métis identity as incompatible with urbanity and, in fact, moves through the city as if at home.

In examining these stories, it is useful to draw upon Goeman’s notion of narrative

(re)mapping tools, which refers to the reconfiguration of colonial power relations through various narrative devices, including ledgers, itineraries, diaries, and oral storytelling (2013, p.

158). Grandmère’s stories offer Phoenix an important counterpoint to national narratives that describe Indians as close to extinct and fixed to remote regions untouched by modernity.

Moreover, Phoenix finds belonging, kinship, security, and resolve in Grandmère’s stories. We are told, “Phoenix loved those old stories, even if they all turned out sad. But it was nice, sitting there with Grandmère who was so old she could barely see but she could still talk and tell the same stories over and over” (p. 234). Each telling offers Phoenix an opportunity to establish a connection with a loving caregiver. Through photographs and memory work, Phoenix is able to continue accessing this connection long after her Grandmère’s passing. In blurring the lines between past, present, and future, Vermette encourages readers to question the linearity of time.

In moments of crisis, Phoenix can recall the past as a survival strategy, “She used to think of them as good secrets only she knew. When she was a kid, she thought if she knew more good secrets than bad secrets then everything would be okay” (p. 234). While Phoenix no longer

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believes this to be true, her memories alone are what keep her company when she is cast onto the streets one cold winter night.

Phoenix’s Grandmère did not shy away from stories of violence and oppression. In fact, it is through more challenging moments that Grandmère is able to emphasize her pride and conviction. For instance, Phoenix recounts her Grandmère’s experience of being denied entry into particular shops as a young woman due to segregation policies and attitudes. Her impressions reflect a complicated mixture of pride, admiration, and shame. Phoenix recalls seeing “the last picture is Grandmère when she was young. It’s black and white, and she’s all dressed up in old-fashioned clothes and standing on some corner downtown. She looks so fancy, like she was a real important lady” (p. 234). Phoenix’s impressions make clear the high-esteem in which she holds Grandmère. However, she quickly adds that she “knows [Grandmère] really wasn’t. She was just a half-breed and couldn’t even go into half the stores back then. But she still dressed up to go there” (p. 234, emphasis added). Phoenix’s assertion that Grandmère “really wasn’t” a fancy lady says less about the veracity of this statement than about the ways in which the teen has unconsciously accepted colonial ideologies as truth. Nevertheless, it is clear that

Phoenix emulates Grandmère when confronted by discriminatory attitudes and policies. At a rundown café, the waitress, “makes her pay upfront, but Phoenix doesn’t mind…she settles in with the paper” (p. 231). While Indigenous peoples are no longer barred from public establishments in Winnipeg, it is clear they are not welcome. Even still, Phoenix claims space and unapologetically asserts her presence.

For many of the characters in the novel, there is a sense of shame around their urban identity because of a belief that they are not Indian enough. As Lou remarks, “I smiled at her and thought of the picture: a real house in a real community with a real family. Real Indians! Not city half-breeds like us” (p. 42). Lou’s desire to belong to a “real” community with “real” Indians

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reflects the internalization of pervasive representations of the “authentic Indian,” a pre-modern caricature of Indigenous peoples produced by anthropologists, government officials, missionaries, mainstream media, and tourists. Although the production of the authentic Indian reflects an assemblage of complementary and competing interests and approaches, state and non- state actors’ interest in authenticity ultimately reflects a desire to control Indigenous populations and their land base. According to Paige Raibmon, the prevailing belief amongst white settlers is that “modern Indians were not Indians at all, they were assimilated…Only the vanishing had legitimate claims to land and sovereignty; surviving modernity disqualified one from these claims. Either way, colonizers got the land” (2005, p. 9). With respect to Lou, she is caught in a double bind between colonial policies that have undermined her peoples’ sovereignty and relationship with their homeland and prescriptive colonial ideologies holding Indigenous peoples to impossible standards (Raibmon, p. 9). Despite the fact that Lou and her family live as Métis people do under colonial occupation, pervasive ideologies insist that Indigeneity must look otherwise.

For Zegwan Sutherland, an Anishinaabe teen whose family recently relocated from her home territory to the city, displacement takes on yet another form. For status Indians, dispossession was facilitated through reserve systems for containment, surveillance, and deprivation. The creation of reserves forced Indigenous peoples to reconceptualize their relationship with territories to fit with the narrow, fixed constraints of western boundaries. Prior to this, boundaries were demarcated temporally, geographically, socio-politically, and spiritually.

For a long time, Indigenous peoples were confined to reserves, requiring permission from the local Indian Agent to leave. From the mid-20th century, Canada’s assimilatory approach shifted from isolation to absorption. By the 1960s, Razack observes, Indigenous peoples were relocating from reserves to urban spaces in greater numbers (2002b, p. 131). Driven by necessity into

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nearby towns and cities, Razack notes, Indigenous peoples continued to struggle with socio- economic insecurity, unemployment, and housing insecurity (p. 133). In response to structural racism and social exclusion, Sylvia Maracle (2003) points out that Indigenous peoples living in urban settings would often create their own services and resources (p. 72). It is also worth noting that despite increasing urbanization, Indigenous peoples continue to maintain strong connections with their community of origin, frequently splitting their time between both places (Toronto

Aboriginal Research Project Final Report, 2011, p. 89). The practice of moving between rural and urban settings not only defies colonial stereotypes of the Indian fixed to a particular landscape that is remote and untouched by modernity, but it demonstrates the continuation of

Indigenous understandings around the multiplicity of home.

Zegwan’s experience reflects neoliberal takes on Canada’s longstanding colonial project.

For many youths today, participating in traditional economies is not a viable option as a result the environmental devastation of resource extraction and ongoing theft of land. Survival for young people is often understood as participating in the capitalist economy in order to secure access to life-essential necessities, like shelter, food, and water. Not only is the decision to relocate a potentially life-threatening move, it is heartbreaking, as Zegwan shows. Following the attack, Zegwan expresses a desire to return to the bush, “She misses home this morning, has never wanted to be anywhere so bad in her whole life” (p. 130). For Zegwan, living in the bush provided the teen with a strong sense of identity, as well as access to extended kin, and land- based knowledge and skills. She recalls, “It was Ziggy’s job to pile the wood that her Moshoom cut. It wasn’t an easy job, and you had to be very careful and very strong…Ziggy had to be fast so the wood wouldn’t sit in the snow too long, and she dusted the pieces off before setting them carefully on the others” (p. 131-132). Through the act of stacking firewood with her Moshoom,

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Zegwan conveys the ways in which her relationship with the land mediates her relationship with her grandfather.

As part of living under colonial occupation, Vermette makes clear that Indigenous girls must map out alternative routes to manage individual and institutional white settler violence.

When Phoenix escapes Migize Centre, she follows a winding route to avoid detection on her way back to the north end of the city. As she cuts through upscale residential neighbourhoods,

Phoenix reflects on the way the city streets curve and twist “like they were trying to confuse you,” a subtle critique on colonial spatial arrangements (p. 28). Beginning from Winnipeg’s more affluent south end, Phoenix is conscious of being out of place. Vermette explains, “All the white yuppies got out of their fancy houses and into cars, and glared a little too long at her in her thin army jacket” (p. 28). To avoid drawing attention to herself, Phoenix must remain in motion.

According to Samira Kawash (1998), when individuals experience homelessness, they find themselves in a perpetual state of motion as a result of social exclusion. She writes,

“homelessness is not only being without home, but more generally without place” (p. 327). For

Indigenous girls, this placelessness is exacerbated by state-sanctioned laws and policies intended to dispossess and eliminate Indigenous populations.

When Phoenix is turned out by her cousin Bishop, she must find a way to survive the night in the middle of winter. The teen begins by dressing for her journey. She also notes that because it is snowing, “it’s not so fucking cold” (p. 230). We are told Phoenix makes her way,

out of the bushes, around the yard, and she turns toward McPhillips. She knows things this

way – coffee shops she can sit at. Maybe one or two of her good doorways are still there.

It’s been a while since she’s been out all night, and she hates doing it in the winter, but she

knows how to rest when she can, keeping walking when she needs to warm up. Cardboard

blocks the wind – that’s all she needs. (p. 231)

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Phoenix’s route includes familiar landmarks designated as safe, unsafe, warm, open all night, etc.

Her conditional access to cafes, convenience stores, and diners relies entirely on her ability to make a purchase, otherwise she is unwelcome. Phoenix relays, “Shops like this are less likely to kick you out if you’ve had a full meal” (p. 231). The clear distrust towards the Indigenous teen is made clear when the server insists that Phoenix pay in advance; in order for Phoenix to access the settler’s public domain, she must first demonstrate her capacity to conform to socio- economic norms as a consumer. Since Phoenix does not always have the available funds to participate in the public sphere, she must rely on a wide set of survival skills to navigate homelessness and social exclusion.

Phoenix’s route is more than survival, it is a futurity mapping device that activates kinship connection and lifeways. Phoenix’s ability to re(map) her geography invites reflection on the ways in which we hold space for Indigenous girls’ desirous geographies beyond historicization. Phoenix’s intimate knowledge of the socio-political and physical shifts her familial territories have undergone throughout her lifetime along with her grandparents’ lives allows her to map out futures otherwise foreclosed by settler colonial cartography. We are told,

“She walks up Main and turns on to Redwood and walks over the bridge. It all feels so normal it’s almost good. In her head, she’s pretending she’s just going home” (p. 235). As Phoenix navigates the settler city, she is simultaneously mapping survival routes as well as designating spatial markers of belonging, desire, family, and home. Her journey also includes a visit to her childhood home. Upon arriving, Phoenix can readily recall memories prior to being apprehended by child welfare officials. Vermette writes, “she’s pretending she’s just going home, that

Grandmère and Elsie will be there waiting for her, and even Grandma Margaret will be nice to her. And Alex, Alex is there with his bike and will take her for a ride, even though it’s winter”

(p. 235). Phoenix carries old photographs which have similar effects, allowing her to transcend

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her circumstances. In this way, these photographs act as narrative (re)mapping tools, allowing

Phoenix to transform her social, physical, and psychic geography. Colonial Geographies: Coming-of-Age in State Custody

What does it mean to come-of-age in state custody? For Emily and Phoenix, coming-of- age in state custody involves navigating a series of interconnected institutions designed to monitor and manage Indigenous children. Although custodial institutions are sometimes described as providing care, the treatment Indigenous girls receive is anything but care oriented.

Once Phoenix and Emily are taken into custody, both girls encounter a number of caring professionals, including social workers, doctors and nurses, police, and youth correctional staff who, despite their distinct roles, insidiously undermine these girls’ autonomy and familial connections. In narrating multiple Indigenous girls’ coming-of-age, Vermette describes the different ways Indigenous girls become ensnared by custodial institutions based on their unique social location. Unlike official narratives, which tend to describe state custody as discrete,

Vermette successfully conveys the overlapping nature of custodial institutions and the ongoing involvement these institutions have in girls’ lives. As Phoenix’s coming-of-age reveals,

Indigenous girls’ transition from childhood to adolescence under state custody often involves transitioning from the child welfare system into carceral facilities. In addition to examining custodial surveillance and restriction, Vermette emphasizes the ways Indigenous girls are led by desire and subvert colonial control. Bringing the tension between desire and destruction into focus serves as a powerful reminder that colonialism remains an incomplete project that is very much responding to Indigenous resistance and enduring systems of thought and structures. As well, these tensions remind readers that agency, choices, and desire are inevitably constrained by structural conditions under colonial occupation.

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Phoenix’s unabating loneliness is more than an individual feeling; it is the product of

Canada’s concerted efforts to systematically isolate Indigenous children within custodial institutions. The processes and effects of systemic isolation are extensively explored through

Phoenix’s experiences in various custodial institutions. Prior to being placed into child protective custody at 10 years old, Phoenix describes her role as the primary caregiver for her two younger sisters to compensate for her mother’s periodic absences. She recalls feeling intimacy, connection, and fulfillment through these bonds; however, when Phoenix is separated from her siblings due to the lack of suitable accommodations, her sense of connection, safety, and security are profoundly disrupted. Despite the fact that child welfare systems claim to provide children with care in the form of safe guardianship and stable living arrangements, the separation of the siblings demonstrates a disregard for the significance of familial bonds. The practice of placing

Indigenous children into hotel suites, as Vermette illustrates, is a clear example of systematized isolation. Within these arrangements, children are discouraged from embracing vulnerability, compassion, and cooperation. When Phoenix was first placed into CFS custody, “She cried that first night…She tried to hide it and just cried into her blanket. One of the older girls caught her and laughed” (p. 235). Systemic isolation, as illustrated here, has the effect of isolating individuals even in the presence of others in similar circumstances. In this way, systemic isolation is less about one’s company, but an embodiment that informs how one inhabits space and relations.

As observed in chapter three, Manitoba’s Child and Family Services’ longstanding practice of placing Indigenous children in hotel suites also places these children at greater risk of violence, disappearance, and death. Given the white settler imagination interpreting Indigenous girls’ presence in hotels as signaling sexual availability, this practice is particularly dangerous for

Indigenous girls. Following the vicious attack of an Indigenous girl placed in a local Winnipeg

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hotel, the dangers of hotel placements came under particular scrutiny. Beyond the ever-present threat of white settler violence, these placements fail to meet Indigenous girls’ holistic needs. It is not uncommon for Indigenous girls to attempt to escape these undesirable and unsafe conditions by running away. Since there is limited supervision, running away is fairly easy.

Although running away is a common practice that tends to be dismissed by state officials (e.g.

“She’s just partying for the weekend.”), this is practice often leaves Indigenous girls vulnerable to potential assailants (Scribe, 2018, p. 52). Instead of dismissing this practice, it would be useful for state officials to both critically evaluate the conditions compelling Indigenous girls to run away and take seriously the ever-present threat of violence girls confront when running away.

Phoenix’s unclear transition from child protective care into the carceral system highlights the naturalization of state custody. Although Phoenix never clearly draws out this transition, her time in “lock-up” is described as both unremarkable and as an adolescent life stage. She describes youth corrections as part of a graduated custodial system. When readers meet Phoenix, she has recently escaped the Migize Centre, a low-security youth corrections facility that emphasizes holistic rehabilitation. According to Phoenix, “the Centre was like a kiddie pool compared to lock-up, just a bunch of messed-up kids with too much time on their hands, all depressed and shit” (p. 26). In other words, it is a space for young offenders who have committed minor offences. Phoenix takes pride in her familiarity with the different levels of incarceration,

“The don’t put many ‘hood rats like her in there. Most of the guys she knows go to youth lock- up. She’s been there, it’s rougher, but everything’s easier in the girls section” (p. 26). Phoenix confidently navigates these spaces and understands how to earn respect and authority: “Phoenix is a big girl. She’s never had a hard time getting one over and can usually grab their wrists and pin them” (p. 26). The way Phoenix describes these custodial institutions suggests her expectation to move through this graduated custodial system. The novel confirms this

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expectation when readers learn that Phoenix will likely be tried as an adult offender for assaulting Emily Traverse.

During her time at Migize Centre, Phoenix critically observes what she views as systemic hypocrisies embedded within the institution. Phoenix’s observations provide greater insight into the contrasting ways carceral institutions are presented as opposed to how they are experienced.

This includes the discourse that often obscures underlying institutional objects. For example,

Phoenix takes issue with the fact that staff are referred to as mentors. As she incisively observes,

“They call the guards ‘mentors’ but they’re still fucking guards” (p. 27). Furthermore, the staff reflect broader racial hierarchies structuring this white settler society. Phoenix elaborates,

“Grace, that was her name. Tall, thin, and beautiful, Grace was everything Phoenix wasn’t. And rich…Grace only worked during the days and would never get caught sleeping like some other

‘mentors’” (p. 31). Here, Phoenix gestures toward the racial bias embedded within institutional hiring practices which serve to further demean incarcerated youth. Relatedly, Phoenix points out that, “They didn’t lock the doors ‘cause they liked to pretend they trusted the kids” (p. 28).

Although Phoenix does not explicitly theorize the underlying objective informing these practices, it is clear that institutional officials are invested in maintaining a particular image. This preoccupation is consistent with the Canadian state’s efforts to present itself as a friendly multicultural nation. Similarly, by describing these spaces as rehabilitative or “healing” spaces it is easier to conceal the fact that the state is forcibly confining and monitoring large numbers of

Indigenous youth. In this way, the state maintains its image as the benevolent caregiver charged with the difficult task of caring for troubled Indigenous youth.

Even in so-called ‘healing’ spaces, colonial custodians continuously seek to undermine

Indigenous girls and their family members. When Emily is admitted into the local hospital following the attack, the medical staff assumes an impressive decision-making authority over the

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teen. This interaction further highlights the constellatory relationships between caring professionals across institutions. As a doctor informs her mother, “Now Paulina, we have to report this. In matters like this, as violent as this looks, we have to report as you know…The police should be here right away. They will need a statement and some information from you”

(p. 97). For Emily to receive medical care, her mother must defer to the hospital’s policies and practices, which includes maintaining connection with the police, regardless of the preferences or best interests of herself or her child. In this instance, Paulina does not dispute the doctor’s interpretation of the policy; however, given the violent history of Canadian policing, many

Indigenous peoples feel unsafe in the presence of police to the extent that they would not call the police in the event of an emergency.

Emily’s interactions with the two police officers in the hospital exemplify the astonishing level of state power exercised over Indigenous girls. During the initial interview, immediately following emergency surgery, Emily expresses reluctance in answering the officers’ questions.

At this time, Officer Christie threatens to privately question her in an attempt to pry more information from Emily. At this point, Emily’s Aunty Lou immediately points out the illegality of this practice, to which Officer Christie counters that under certain circumstances it is permissible (p. 124). There is much to be said about this brief interaction. First of all, it is clear that Officer Christie maintains an antagonistic view of Emily and her family despite positioning the teen as a victim. As well, it is clear that Emily’s family is regarded as an obstruction rather than an important source of support and knowledge for the teen, and possibly even the investigation. A third point to note is the police practice of suspending conduct rules and guidelines during encounter with Indigenous peoples. In many cases, people might not be familiar with police policies or, if they do, might not speak up for fear of reprisals. In this instance, Lou informs Officer Christie that she is familiar with police procedures, which halts his

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intended course of action; however, although he does not proceed further, he informs Lou that he has the authority to suspend these procedural rules at his discretion. As this encounter reveals, regardless of whether a girl is positioned as a victim or criminal, police involvement in

Indigenous girls’ lives is remarkably invasive and hostile. The Production of Police Narratives

Vermette’s critique of police narratives lends itself well to part one of the dissertation, which interrogates the underlying objectives and processes involved in the production of official narratives. Police investigations, summaries, and reports are rarely described as stories, yet these forms observe a set of narrative conventions, as with any style of storytelling. If we frame police investigations as a form of narrative production, it then becomes possible to recognize Officer

Tommy Scott as a storyteller guided by a distinct ideology and set of conventions. In essence, investigations are stories police tell in order to make sense of circumstances, events, and outcomes. What is important to note here is that making sense is inextricably linked to the worldview guiding the storyteller’s rationale and logic, which in this case is heavily informed by white settler objectives. As Vermette illustrates throughout The Break, the production of police narratives frequently relies on a wildly divergent set of conventions and underlying logics than

Indigenous women’s storytelling practices. This includes Officer Scott’s claims to objectivity and tendency to privilege chronology. Working backwards, police officers attempt to establish a sequential timeline of events to explain how and why a particular outcome occurred. That said, as state officials tasked with defending the legitimacy of white settler societies, police narratives must then assume an authoritative posture. By accompanying Officer Scott through his investigation into the rape of Emily, Vermette outlines prevailing ideologies, assumptions, practices, and procedures informing the production of police narratives while, at the same time, elaborating on the significance of these narratives to white settler nation-building.

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In The Break, Vermette draws out two major lines of inquiry with respect to police narratives. First, she interrogates Officer Scott’s belief that he can transform policing from the inside out. In accompanying the newly-minted officer through one of his first major investigations, Vermette sheds greater light on the underlying colonial ideologies informing police practices and the ways in which Officer Scott is frequently constrained by these principles and practices. While Officer Scott expresses genuine interest in fostering community, he often finds himself assimilating to manage workplace harassment or wielding power in ways that undermine his personal beliefs. Vermette’s second line of inquiry addresses the procedures shaping the investigation. As Scott endeavors to uncover the identity of Emily’s assailant, readers bear witness to Officer Scott’s clumsy attempts to uphold his values while, at the same time, follow standard police practices throughout the investigation. In negotiating these apparently competing objectives, Officer Scott gradually begins to question his belief that policing effectively serves community interests. Instead, what he and readers come to find is that police procedures were never intended to serve community interests, but to confer greater authority to police in carrying out state objectives.

What role does mythologization play with respect to dominant understandings of policing in Canada? What are the underlying ideologies informing this institution? How do the many and often divergent perceptions inform different communities’ relationships with police? These are some of the questions Vermette invites through her examination of Officer Scott. Through

Officer Scott, readers are asked to consider how myths are formed, sustained, and circulated in service of colonial institutions. Early on, we learn that Officer Scott grew up in an abusive household. As a white-passing Métis person born and raised in Winnipeg by his Métis mother and white father, Officer Scott witnessed his father psychologically and physically abuse his mother throughout his childhood and adolescence. Left with no recourse, Officer Scott coped by

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fantasizing about how he would one day intervene and put a stop to the violence. Unlike other

Indigenous households, Officer Scott’s family was not subject to constant police surveillance

(likely because it was led by a white man) and, therefore, he had little interaction with the police outside of widely circulating police narratives. It is unsurprising then that Officer Scott clung to the dominant myth portraying police officers as state officials responsible for protecting community and maintaining social order. As Officer Scott’s childhood fantasies and attitude in his early career evinces, dominant ideologies and individual perceptions mutually inform and reinforce one another.

One year after joining Winnipeg Police Service, Officer Scott’s idealized view of policing remains largely intact. Driving through Winnipeg’s North End, he reflects,

The officers drive slow like they’re supposed to. Eyes always open. What cars there are

fall into this same slow, careful drive, the way civilians do around police cars. Tommy

always liked that, how he’d drive and the world around him seemed to straighten out, get

better. Same thing happened when he wore his uniform –everyone stood up a little taller,

and some would even smile and nod at him, some even looked genuine. (p. 70)

Through Officer Scott’s perspective, constant police presence in racialized, low-income neighbourhoods is interpreted as aspirational, as opposed to threatening. When Officer Scott sees cars slowing down and people straightening out their posture, he reads this affective shift as positive motivation rather than decisions made under duress or threats of state violence. That said, Officer Scott subtly indicates understanding that something else is motivating these affective shifts when he notes “some even looked genuine,” although he does not elaborate on alternative motivating factors influencing community members’ behaviours in the presence of police.

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While Officer Scott does not delve into alternate reasons cars slow down and people straighten out in the presence of police, Canada’s use of policing to control Indigenous peoples sheds crucial light on the matter. Prior to the formation of the North-West Mounted Police, Sir

John A. Macdonald proposed sending a police force to Manitoba to quell Métis resistance in

1869. While this proposal was not initially carried out, a military expedition was organized to respond to Métis resistance near the Red River area (Marquis, 1997, p. 210). Led under Garnet

Wolseley, over 1,000 men outfitted with provisions and weaponry travelled hundreds of kilometers over the span of two months to claim Upper Fort Garry, the location of the Métis provisional government (Vermette, 2018, p. 46). While the Wolseley Expedition is often described as a “bloodless victory” on the part of the Canadian government, the scale with which this expedition was carried out must not be missed. This requires turning our attention toward the number of soldiers deployed and the heavy artillery issued in response to a series of failed negotiations with the Métis regarding the legality of Canada’s purchase of Rupert’s Land and territory disputes. To draw rough comparisons between the so-called bloodless victory of the

Wolseley Expedition to Officer Scott’s presence in the North End, it can be argued that the influence and success of Canadian policing has less to do with inspiration than the threat of lethal state-sanctioned violence.

Officer Scott’s idealized view of Canadian policing is further upheld in the contemporary moment by claims to Canadian exceptionalism. According to Elizabeth Comack and Jim Silver, some criminologists view Canada as an exception toward increasingly punitive approaches to policing seen in other countries. Oftentimes, these scholars note the availability of therapeutic programming in federal prisons, stable incarceration rates, and the lack of public support for tough on crime policies, as seen in the United States (2008, p. 816). As Comack and Silver counter, however, organizing policing along a punitive/non-punitive binary does not allow for

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critical analyses of tensions, contradictions, and nuances–especially in local contexts (p. 817).

Through a close examination of policing in Winnipeg, Comack and Silver observe recent developments that more closely resemble American style “get tough” approaches to policing that hold wide community support (p. 818). Although Winnipeg is a relatively small city, it has gained a reputation as a place plagued by violence and crime. From 1981 to 2012, Winnipeg was known as the murder capital of Canada for having the highest murder rate among Canada’s major cities (Homicide in Canada, 2011). While Comack and Silver note extreme socio- economic barriers imposed on the city’s more racialized neighbourhoods, policing strategies in recent years have adopted zero-tolerance approaches that target the city’s most vulnerable community members. They elaborate, “Panhandlers, street sex trade workers, street-level drug users, the homeless, and the disorderly are the main targets of this approach…it also relies upon a more aggressive, militaristic style of policing and typically involves giving police officers increased powers” (p. 822). As an examination of historical and contemporary approaches to

Canadian policing shows, public perceptions and national myth-making heavily rely on presenting police as valiant protectors of social order while, at the same time, positioning

Indigenous populations as societal threats.

When Officer Scott joins the Winnipeg Police Force, the view of Indigenous peoples as societal threats is made apparent through the intense workplace harassment he experiences when his colleagues discover he is Métis. On Tommy’s first day, his partner Christie states, “I hear you’re May-tee,” deliberately mispronouncing Métis as a show of disrespect (p. 72). Christie continues, “Well, young buck, your special treatment ends here. Got it” (p. 72). With this statement, Christie dehumanizes Scott by using a saying “buck,” a term commonly used to refer to Indigenous men. As well, Christie’s mistaken assumption that Indigenous peoples receive special treatment on the basis of race is launched accusingly at Tommy as if to suggest that he

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was hired just because he’s Indigenous. Surprised and ashamed, Tommy does not dispute this accusation and harassment by his partner, but internalizes it. We are told, “Tommy, all brushed up in his new uniform and with fresh nerves, felt suddenly dirty. He rubbed his hands together and wanted to wash them” (p. 72). Besides shaming Tommy for disclosing his identity, Christie’s harassment establishes that Indigenous people are largely unwelcome within the police force; thus, further reinforcing the “us” versus “them” mentality that broadly organizes Indigenous- police relations in Canada.

As well as establishing the anti-Indigenous and settler colonial ideologies informing myth-making and public perception of Canadian police, Vermette looks specifically at principles and protocols informing the production of police narratives. The investigation begins when Stella calls the Winnipeg Police Service to report witnessing a violent attack in the field across the road from her house (p. 10). Readers are told Officer Scott and Officer Christie arrive several hours after the 911 call is placed. Once the pair begin interviewing Stella, Vermette highlights key characteristics about police-witness relationality. Stella is left with a clear sense that the investigating officers do not believe her or view her as a reliable narrator (p. 13). She describes detailing the sequence of events multiple times, in different ways. She describes placing emphasis on aspects she finds important, only to receive flat uninterested responses. It is clear to

Stella and the readers that the police do not share Stella’s view. In fact, they state this plainly when they begin to question her conclusion that she witnessed a sexual assault. It is interesting that the police are so confident that Stella is mistaken, considering they did not witness the attack. Relying on past experience alone, they insist that Stella witnessed a gang attack. This undermining is further amplified when Stella’s white husband returns home to find the police in his kitchen. Once he is caught up and assured that the family is okay, Stella’s husband tellingly begins questioning Stella’s conclusion by aligning himself with the investigating officers (p. 14).

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Stella is rightfully frustrated to be questioned by three men who were not present. She is aware that her visible emotions impact their perception and work to undermine her credibility.

Initially, the senior investigating officer, Christie is eager to close the case, believing that it was a gang attack. Here, Vermette offers a subtle critique about the level of seriousness police apply to violence against Indigenous peoples. In many ways, this initial attempt to close the case is reflective of many Indigenous investigations, which are short, rough-shod, and rely on preexisting assumptions. Officer Christie’s eagerness is reflective of Canada’s attitude toward gendered Indigenous violence more broadly. Nowhere was this disinterest more apparent than through former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s consistent refusal to investigate missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls on a national level. Harper claimed that the murder of

Tina Fontaine was a crime and not a sociological issue, despite the fact that at that time numerous girls and women’s bodies had been recovered from Winnipeg’s Red River, and that in

2014, over 1000 Indigenous women and girls were confirmed missing or murdered (The

Canadian Press, 2014 August 21). Throughout his two terms as Prime Minister, Harper went out of his way to thwart investigations into violence against Indigenous women, including cancelling funding for Sisters in Spirit – a research body that first confirmed at least 500 Indigenous women and girls were murdered or missing from 1980 to 2005 (Jackson, 2015 September 9). Officer

Christie embodies a similar attitude to Harper in his commitment to dismissing Indigenous peoples’ concerns when brought forward.

While police investigations are necessarily collaborative, the police claim singular authority. Following yet another frustrating interview, Officer Scott’s senior partner Christie issues a harsh reminder about interview techniques, “First of all, you don’t fucking ask questions with the whole family there...That is not going to get you anywhere. They’re all going to defend themselves and protect their own” (p. 119). Christie’s guidance sheds light on the adversarial and

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individualist attitudes and assumptions informing this procedural practice. While officially the police unit is claimed to serve and protect, this interaction betrays official rhetoric, instead underscoring an even more pressing concern to find a “bad guy.” As Christie continues, “you were so fucking busy trying to be sympathetic to the mom, you didn’t even notice the big fucking Nate fucker sulking and staring at her in the corner” (p. 120). This line suggests that while police claim to seek out truth through investigation and fact-finding, it is clear that they are unable to meet this ideal standard, and instead rely on stereotypical assumptions in assembling a narrative. Moreover, Officer Scott is admonished for expressing concern for the family, which signals practices that are not permitted within police narrative conventions.

When Officer Scott returns for another round of questioning, he begins with mild expressions of sympathy before quickly turning to his agenda. He begins, “‘How about we go over the timeline again…There is an odd excitement to his voice” (p. 277). Almost immediately,

Emily becomes overwhelmed and shuts down. Seeing her niece in distress, Lou intervenes,

“Officer...can you understand that Emily is in a really vulnerable position here” (p. 277).

Ignoring Lou’s appeal, Officer Scott responds, “But if she’s deliberately delaying an investigation” (p. 277). Officer Scott’s response plainly indicates a greater regard for the investigation into Emily’s rape than Emily herself. Crystallized in the moment is the reality that

Officer Scott’s mission has less to do with serving and protecting the community than with upholding and maintaining policing standards and practices. The two competing approaches to narrative production are made even clearer when Lou responds, “This has to stop. She has to heal. She can’t keep getting goaded by you” (p. 278). To which, Officer Scott simply replies,

“This is an investigation” (p. 278). For Lou, and the rest of the family, Emily’s recovery, safety, and wellbeing take precedence over figuring out “whodunnit.” This response is in contrast to the actions of Officer Scott, who redoubles his efforts to advance the plot through standard police

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practices, regardless of the family’s wishes. Perceiving the family to be unnecessarily difficult,

Officer Scott fails to consider not only alternate means of solving this investigation, but that his unyielding adherence to police tactics actually thwart his efforts. While Officer Scott believes he is working in Emily’s interest, his actions reveal an unconscious wielding of police power over the young teen and her family. Witnessing: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

What is the role of witness to narrative production? Depending on the storyteller, a witness may be someone stripped to their most basic functions to meet entirely utilitarian ends.

In this scenario, the storyteller might turn to a witness for a little exposition, to advance the plot, or possibly lead to a break in an investigation. A witness is a storyteller in their own right.

Whether a witness relates this story to others or solely themselves, this individual must make meaning from the encounters, scenes, and situations unfolding before them. What’s more, the meaning made here has less to do with the transmission of information than with how witnesses’ stories shape ontologies and relationalities. With that in mind, the following section considers the role of witnessing in shaping Indigenous girlhood through a close reading of Stella McGregor,

Emily Traverse’s aunty.

Stella’s life is largely defined and shaped by her role as witness to sexual violence.

Witnessing, in Stella’s case, is as much about writing the story of self as it is narrating sexual violence. When it is revealed that it is her niece who was raped, Stella must grapple with complex emotions of shame, despair, and fear. When she eventually confides in her Aunty Cher,

Stella’s story spills like a confession, “Aunty, I have to tell you something…I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. I hurt every day and I am so sorry…It was me. I saw it. I saw it and I didn’t do anything about it. I was too scared. I was so scared…I didn’t know it was Emily” (p. 267). Stella’s regret is a critical prompt for reflecting on the roles and responsibilities of the witness. While

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contemplating Stella’s role as witness, Vermette urges readers to consider the ways in which settler colonialism invariably mediates white settler’s approach to witnessing sexual violence in the lives of Indigenous women and girls. For Canadians, there is an investment in resisting this role, as denying witnessing sexual violence against Indigenous women and girls ensures that this white settler society remains undisturbed and intact. This refusal is both individual and systemic.

As Vermette shows, Canadian police and mainstream media either dismiss cases of sexual violence outright or present decontextualized, ahistorical narratives representing Indigenous women and girls as responsible while, at the same time, establishing white settlers as superior. In the following section, I elaborate on the different ways Stella has interpreted her role as witness as compared with Canadian officials.

After witnessing the rape of a then unknown woman, Stella must recount the sequence of events to two investigating police officers. As this interview illustrates, Indigenous women and girls’ testimonies and pleas are often either dismissed as an overreaction or subject to intense scrutiny by police officers under colonial occupation. Certain she has witnessed a rape, Stella is frustrated when the police dispute her account with, “Your wife believes it was a rape of some sort…” to which Stella reflects, “The young officer says the words as if they are questions” (p.

13). Stella’s recognition of the officer’s doubt gestures toward systematized police bias portraying Indigenous women and girls as unreliable narrators and witnesses to violence. One of the more recent examples of this bias can be seen through the Vancouver Police Department’s refusal to follow up on community tips directing the police towards Robert Pickton, a white serial killer targeting largely Indigenous women living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In this case, police bias was so glaringly apparent, a provincial inquiry into the role of police was conducted. Through this Inquiry, Honourable Wally T. Oppal identified seven “critical police failures” in Vancouver Police Services’ response to reported disappearances eventually linked to

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Pickton. These seven themes included: discrimination, institutional bias, and indifference; lack of leadership; poor and outdated police systems, approaches, and standards; fragmentation of policing; inadequate resources; inadequate training; and allegations of conspiracy and cover-up

(Oppal, 2012, p. 28). As Stella’s interview makes clear, however, misogynistic anti-Indigenous sentiment embedded within policing institutions prevents police from meaningfully engaging with Indigenous women and girls’ witness accounts.

Without listening to Indigenous women or girls, the officers’ investigation heavily relies on stereotypes and assumptions about both the people as well as the place. When reporting back to the office, Officer Christie summarizes Stella’s statement as, “just nates beating on nates.

Same old” (p. 72). Stella’s memories of growing up in Winnipeg’s North End describes something much different. In a moment of reflection, Stella recalls the joys of girlhood interrupted by the intrusion of white settler men into her neighbourhood to prey on Indigenous girls. As Razack argues, “the subject who must cross the line between respectability and degeneracy and, significantly, return unscathed, is first and foremost a colonial subject…and lives in a world where a solid line marks the boundary between himself and racial/gendered

Others” (2002b, p. 136). In other words, white settlers enter and exit the North End in ways that

Indigenous peoples simply cannot without the threat of violence. When white men enter the

North End, they assert their settler subjecthood by exercising the freedom of mobility through

Indigenous displacement. Stella recalls wandering around the neighbourhood on a summer day with her cousins when the teens realize they are being followed by a man in a sedan. After running through back alleys and backyards, losing their slushies, and one of the girls sustaining an injury (Stella twists her ankle), they make it home safely, only to spot the same man in the same vehicle. Stella explains, “They all froze, and knew it was him. The car was tan coloured,

Stella saw now, the headlight rounded, and the guy white, tall, curly hair, round glasses. He

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passed by slowly looking right at them leering” (p. 166-167). As both a witness and victim to white settler stalking, Stella is left with the unremitting awareness that the threat of sexualized violence by white settlers always exists.

Despite learning early on the threat white settler men pose, Stella’s view of sexual violence is undeniably informed by widespread anti-Indigenous narratives. With the loss her mother, Stella first steps into the role of witness as a young girl. Her mother Rain, the novel’s unnamed narrator, was violently raped and murdered by a white man she encountered at a local bar. After revealing witnessing Emily’s rape, Stella describes learning of her mother’s death. We are told, “They just told her she died. That’s how they said it: ‘I am so sorry Stelly, but your mom has died’ (p. 271). When Stella later learns her mother was found in a dumpster with her pants around her ankles, she brings the newspaper to her Kookoo who reinterprets the article.

Kookoo explains, “‘Your mom was at a bar. She was dancing, you know how your mom loved to dance. Well, she was there alone and danced with the wrong fella. He was mean to her, Stelly’”

(p. 271). In juxtaposing these two narratives on the murder of Rain, Vermette invites reflection on the different motivations and priorities present in narrative production. While mainstream news outlets maintain an investment in attention-grabbing, sensationalist reports that are easily digestible to a wide audience, Kookoo’s account is informed by an intimate knowledge of Rain and consideration for her granddaughter.

Confronted by two competing narratives, Stella becomes preoccupied with learning the

“real story". For Stella, the real story is pieced together by mainstream media, official reports, and eavesdropping on adults:

Stella learned all the facts. She gathered them like bits of debris and glued them

together…She learned everything she could until she put everything together, wedging

each piece side by side with the others. The bar. The hospital. The street. The back lane. It

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wasn’t a night out anymore. It was a timeline. Her mom wasn’t a person anymore. She was

a story. (p. 272, emphasis added).

Stella’s attempt to piece together an authoritative narrative through official documents and reports itself highlights the artifice of narrative production. In other words, a singular, authoritative story waiting to be uncovered simply does not exist. Authoritative narratives, like any other story, must be assembled.

Throughout the novel, Vermette commits to examining the many ways in which sexual violence is carried out, including within Indigenous communities. Discussions on sexual violence committed against Indigenous women and girls by Indigenous men are often framed as

“dysfunction.” As Vermette shows, however, these violent relationalities are very much a product of settler colonialism:

One afternoon…she and her cousins passed the light around their small circle…They were

maybe eight. Yes, she doesn’t remember an ache in her chest, so her mother must have still

been alive. That summer, her cousins moved back the first time. They all lived together in

the big house and Stella was so happy. Then, Lou told her the story, the first one she ever

kept… ‘I felt his thing. It was so, so gross,’ Lou told them. The extra so made all the

difference. ‘And he was breathing deep like he was running. I would’ve punched him if I

could’ve.’ Paul started to cry, even though it wasn’t her turn yet. Stella took the flashlight

for her little cousin, but Paul only shook her head. Lou grabbed it back because she knew

Paul wouldn’t. Paul always lets Lou talk for her. ‘He smelled too. Like he needed a

shower.’ ‘What did you do?’ Stella gasped out, knowing this was the most important thing

she had ever heard. ‘I said I was going to the bathroom and went and locked the door…Paul

came in from outside…I came out, flushed the toilet so he’d think I’d really gone and

thought a story to go home, but he had Paul on his lap and they were both crying. (p. 86)

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Stella hangs on the question of why he was crying, but the girls do not explore it further, so readers are left to puzzle over the question with few clues. For readers familiar with the violent legacy of Canada’s residential school and child welfare systems, it is possible to establish connections between their assailant/caregiver’s tears and this profound act of sexual violence.

Packed into this dense story are the many ways girls protect themselves when the adults in their lives are harming them or refuse or are unable to intervene. In bearing witness to each other’s pain, these girls protect one another. Stella recalls a later instance where she was called to bear witness to the sexual violation of her friend. We are told, “Elsie was her someone special”

(p. 200). After her mom’s death, Stella did everything with Elsie. Every weekend, Elsie and

Stella would pool their money to go to local house parties attended by friends and families.

When Stella sees Elsie go upstairs at the party, she isn’t initially concerned, “She’d been trying to get the Other Mike to notice her…so Stella was surprised but not unhappy when she saw them walk upstairs together. She didn’t notice all the other guys following” (p. 202, emphasis added).

When Stella discover that Elsie has been gang raped, she immediately finds her cousins to intervene, “That’s when Stella kind of woke up…she screamed but her best friend didn’t move”

(p. 203). Witnessing her friend’s complete detachment, Stella is stunned and immobilized until her cousin tells her to get help. Vermette relays, “That Stella could do, and she ran down the stairs. The other two were already coming up. She pulled at Paul’s sleeve to make her move faster. James and Lou got Elsie dressed…Paul just stood there with Stella, crying like an idiot”

(p. 203-204). As Vermette illustrates, bearing witness is not a passive role, but presents opportunities for intervention within individual and collective capacities and limits. A Whole Story: Narrating Indigenous Girl’s Desire

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For Vermette, desire does not exist solely outside or after hardship, pain, and loss. Rather, these feelings and aspirations exist alongside and through each other. In re(mapping) Indigenous girls’ geography, Vermette, as Belcourt puts it, strives to, “discern practices of care and joy where they are expected to be absent” (2018, para. 20). In this way, Indigenous girls’ geographies are both constrained by and exceeding colonial occupation. For Vermette, a whole story attends to violence, grief, desire, and worlding with the understanding that for Indigenous girls there is not always a clear distinction between these affective experiences.

The night that Phoenix has been asked to leave Bishop’s home, there is a moment where she stands in the middle of the bridge imagining what it would feel like to jump. We are told,

“She thinks about how it’d feel to jump off onto the ice and snow, how much it’d hurt. She’d probably just die” (p. 236). But Phoenix does not die; instead, she keeps walking in search of warmth. As she does, Phoenix recalls her Grandmère. Phoenix, “doesn’t remember all the stories, just the feelings and pictures in her head” (p. 237). In this reflective moment, Phoenix returns to a scene that offers her a sense of kinship, belonging, security, and love during a moment when she is experiencing the exact opposite. In this way, Phoenix is able to draw strength and fortitude from past memories. For Phoenix, the past coexists with her present and often informs her decisions for the future.

The indistinction between desire and pain can again be seen in the passage describing

Emily’s mortification over being interviewed by a handsome police officer when she considered herself to be disheveled. Emily laments, “That police officer was so nice, and really good- looking, and then she had to tell him. She wanted to die. She knew it was stupid to think about her messy hair and puffy face but she did” (p. 304). In providing readers with access to Emily’s innermost thoughts after being sexually assaulted, Vermette opens up space within the narrative to consider Emily’s complex and unexpected thoughts and feelings following such a vicious

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attack. In shifting away from common narrative tropes, Emily more closely resembles a person.

She continues, “She wanted him to think she was pretty but she was just a mess. A victim. That’s what he called her. She knew what it meant, but still, it sounded ugly” (p. 304). Here, Emily’s thoughts suggest a resistance against being identified as a victim and the foreclosures this label entails. As her stream of conscious reveals, she is someone who continues to feel attraction and a desire to be seen in particular ways while making sense of the violence she has experienced.

Through her novel, Vermette tells a story about how rape structures Indigenous girls’ psychic, physical, and social geographies. As the story unfolds, the role of kinship, cultural and spiritual practices, and storytelling traditions in shaping these geographies are also made known.

In balancing these seemingly opposing realities, Vermette’s The Break puts forth critical theoretical and methodological tools for examining sexual violence in the lives of Indigenous girls. Unlike official narratives that tend to focus exclusively on the attack, Vermette emphasizes the importance of context. She makes clear that the story’s setting of Winnipeg’s North End is a neighbourhood organized by converging forces and actors. While sexual violence is a prominent feature of this settler colonial terrain, Indigenous girls’ enduring relationship with their geographies likewise leaves an impression. Alongside mapping out Indigenous girls’ geographies, Vermette’s intergenerational narrative calls into question the linearity of time. The novel follows the characters prior to and immediately following the rape of Emily; however, as

Emily’s mother, aunties, and grandmother come to grips with the event, their own violent histories coming rushing forth. In this way, sexual violence is not a singular incident, but something that structures Indigenous girls and women’s lives going forth. And, of course,

Vermette’s perspective and approach to storytelling offers crucial theoretical and methodological insights and tools. Her decision to tell a story about the rape of one girl from the perspective of multiple narrators is one that questions objectivity, rejects the idea that truth is discovered, and

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dismisses the notion of authoritative knowledge. Instead, Vermette shows how healing and justice are ongoing processes made in relationship with those around us.

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Chapter 6 Paths to Pimatisiwin: Critical Indigenous Legal Consciousness

When Bernice travels from northern Alberta to Gibson, British Columbia in the hopes of meeting her childhood crush, Pat Johnson of CBC’s Beachcombers, she does not know then that another journey awaits her in this beach town. At first, nothing appears out of the ordinary.

Within days, Bernice manages to land a position as baker’s assistant at Lola’s Little Slice of

Heaven and the bachelor suite above the shop. Besides not yet sighting her childhood crush,

Bernice finds contentment with her new life in Gibson. She enjoys the meditative quality of rolling out dough out of view of the public. Bernice even seems to appreciate the companionship of her racist-yet-quaint employer/landlord Lola, a white woman of French descent. In Gibson,

Bernice enjoys a tranquillity she has not previously experienced in her childhood home in Little

Loon First Nation, her Aunty Val’s apartment, the group homes, and foster homes of

Grandetowne, the streets of Edmonton or its psychiatric facilities. The rhythm of Bernice’s new life is abruptly disrupted when her past catches up to her in Gibson. About a month after arriving,

Bernice learns that her mother has disappeared in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The quiet that filled her day is replaced a month-long binge on food, alcohol, and sex until one morning after another one night stand she enters through the shop, climbs the stairs into her apartment, and lays down in her bed where she falls into what appears to be a catatonic state. As the days pass with little change, Lola manages to contact Bernice’s grandmother who sends along her cousinsister Skinny Freda and littlemother Aunty Val. Together these three women tend to

Bernice all without the knowledge that while Bernice is on her spiritual journey, these women have begun preparations for the journey that comes next.

In many ways, living as an Indigenous girl under colonial occupation is something of a dialectical feat. This is a point most readily apparent in Indigenous girls’ very presence within

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spatial configurations designed to eliminate Indigenous peoples. Tracey Lindberg’s debut novel,

Birdie, takes up this paradox to consider what it means to understand home as where the harm and heart live. Through Birdie, Lindberg renders a humorous and harrowing story of how incestual sexual violence profoundly affects Indigenous girls and, as an indirect consequence, radically alters kinship formations. By focusing her attention on just one Indigenous girl and her family, Lindberg attends to the intersections of child abuse, gender-based violence, and racialization to effectively address historical and contemporary eliminatory ideologies, laws, and policies informing Canada’s settler colonial project. As Lindberg foregrounds an experience of

Indigenous girlhood under colonial occupation, she remains committed to an in-depth examination of how Cree legal philosophy organizes daily life and poses potential options for transformational healing and justice. In this way, Lindberg attends to an under-appreciated perspective, to borrow J. Kēhaulani Kauanui’s (2018) words, that “settler colonialism is a structure that endures indigeneity, even as it holds out against it” (p. xiv). As such, Lindberg’s novel embodies a necessary intervention for Indigenous feminist approaches to theorizing settler colonialism. Through this subtle, yet powerful, shift in perspective, Lindberg reframes settler colonialism from a formidable project to one that remains incomplete and, as such, unsuccessful in the face of enduring Indigenous ideologies, systems, and structures. For Lindberg, it is not simply that Indigenous peoples are resilient and resist (experiences that are always oriented in relation to colonialism), but that Indigenous peoples exceed settler colonialism.

In this chapter, I consider Lindberg’s development of a critical Indigenous legal consciousness through a coming-of-age narrative about a Cree woman named Bernice “Birdie”

Meetoos. As the details of Bernice’s history emerge, it quickly becomes clear that she has endured many violations over the course of her lifetime, including neglect, and physical, psychological, sexual, and spiritual violence. Through these multifarious forms of violence and

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oppression, Lindberg contemplates the possible mechanisms for healing and justice by framing these harms as violations of Cree socio-legal principles and practices. Elsewhere, Lindberg has described Birdie as an exploration of the breakdown and repair of Wahkohtowin within a colonial context (2015 June 15). Wahkohtowin, she explains, is a legal principle outlining protocols, conventions, and obligations with respect to extended kinship, relationality, and interdependence between two or more parties (2007, p. 55). In viewing sexual violence through the lens of Wahkohtowin, the differences between Cree and Canadian law are especially pronounced. Whereas Canadian law tends to focus on individuals and singularized incidents,

Wahkohtowin interpretations of sexual violence emphasize interconnectivity and relationality on multiple planes. This includes considerations of how the violation (or violations) impacts the individual’s relationships with the offending party, immediate and extended family and friends, as well as the broader community. As Lindberg conveys throughout Birdie, violations are not discrete events, but situated within an interconnected web of experiences and events. Further to this point, violations such as incestuous sexual abuse not only structure the harmed individual’s life, but also intimate relations and kinship formations. Throughout the course of the novel,

Lindberg presents different examples of Wahkohtowin breakdown where, in some instances, processes of repair are undertaken and, in others, relations are irreparably dissolved by repeated harm. As each example stands to suggest, Wahkohtowin offers a valuable framework for ensuring social harmony.

Lindberg’s examination of Wahkohtowin coincides with a creative exploration of

Pimatisiwin, a physical manifestation of a Cree philosophy Mino Pimatisiwin, roughly translated as “the good life.” In the opening pages, readers are introduced to Pimatisiwin, one of four sacred trees scattered across the world. At first, the role of Pimatisiwin is not entirely clear; however, as the story unfolds, the relationship between the protagonist and Pimatisiwin become apparent.

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Following this introduction, readers meet Bernice, shortly after she embarks upon a spiritual journey from adulthood into girlhood. According to Lindberg, this journey is prompted “when the fury of her past began to race ahead of her future” (p. 18). While the journey requires Bernice to revisit scenes of Wahkohtowin violations throughout her girlhood, the journey itself is ultimately oriented towards Pimatisiwin. Indeed, only upon completing this spiritual journey is

Bernice able to make the physical journey with her surviving family to Pimatisiwin for ceremony.

Through this storyline, Lindberg initiates a sustained discussion on mechanisms for healing and justice available through Cree socio-legal frameworks and ceremony. One thing that stands out in this discussion is that Cree justice systems are rendered illegible within the

Canadian context. This is most readily seen in the frequent pathologization of Bernice’s spiritual practices. There are material consequences to this pathologization, as Lindberg shows. As a young adult, Bernice is involuntarily committed to the Alberta Regional Psychiatric Centre or, as it is commonly known, “the San.” The nickname comes from the institution’s previous function as a sanatorium for Indigenous tuberculosis patients. Here, Lindberg alludes to an ongoing history of Indigenous institutionalization. During her stay at the San, Bernice contemplates her growing spiritual abilities that she first developed as a teenaged girl. As an adult, she marvels while those around her diagnose her with a psychiatric disorder and prescribe western medicine and treatments. Lindberg continues to explore the apparent illegibility of Cree spirituality later in the novel when Bernice undertakes her spiritual journey. This time, Bernice is encircled by her aunty Val, cousinsister Skinny Freda, and white employer/landlord Lola. Similar to her earlier experience at the San, Bernice’s experience is incomprehensible to her loved ones. Yet, one of the most significant differences is that even with this lack of understanding of her experience,

Bernice’s loved ones do not question it or try to change it, they simply provide her with support,

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maintaining her basic hygiene and keeping her fed. In this way, they commit to embarking upon

Bernice’s journeys alongside her. Towards an Indigenous Legal Consciousness

In this section, I consider how Lindberg works to create a critical Indigenous legal consciousness through her novel, Birdie. In her legal theory, Lindberg has spent much time thinking about the existence of an Indigenous legal consciousness and the role it can play in dismantling colonial structures while empowering Indigenous peoples, with the ultimate goal being to move towards the original relational agreements between white settlers and Indigenous peoples outlined in treaties. As a Cree person, much of Lindberg’s analysis is focused on Cree socio-legal theory. She has written about finding inspiration through other Indigenous legal theorists, such as the late Patricia Monture, a prolific Mohawk legal theorist. In both her creative and academic pursuits, Lindberg has researched and thought extensively about Cree legal theory and how it applies today within the Canadian colonial context. In the following section, I examine Lindberg’s close engagement with one legal framework in particular, Wahkohtowin, which she has described as a central concern of the novel. Then, I engage with Lindberg’s theory on the need for a common language. In her discussion of the need for a new vocabulary, I unpack her points about how a common language can clear up misunderstandings and dispel colonial assumptions. I wrap up this section by demonstrating how the application of Wahkohtowin principles, along with a new vocabulary, can both dispel colonial narratives of Indigenous dysfunctionality and highlight the existence/importance of extended kinship ties within Cree communities.

Wahkohtowin: Principles and Practices

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At the time of writing her novel, Lindberg was already a prolific legal scholar with decades of experience as a legal practitioner and educator. Her award-winning dissertation,

Critical Indigenous Legal Theory, provides one of the few written comprehensive examinations of the historical and contemporary existence of Indigenous socio-legal frameworks under

Canadian colonial occupation. In writing Birdie, Lindberg continues her examination of

Indigenous legal theory through a creative exploration of Wahkohtowin, a Cree law that governs kinship and relations. Through close engagement with one family, Lindberg attends to the intimate, everyday exercise of Cree law between individuals while asking “What do reciprocal obligations look like? What happens when they’re broken, and how do you rebuild” (2015 June

15). In asking these questions through a novel rather than an academic article, Lindberg challenges discussions framing Indigenous peoples as merely legal subjects by, instead, undertaking a legal analysis committed to drawing out the personhood of each character. As argued in previous chapters, western legal narrative conventions rely on the appearance of objectivity, linearity, and causation which, in effect, flattens people into legal categories like victim, assailant, or witness. By contrast, Lindberg offers another kind of legal narrative informed by a different set of conventions through Bernice’s story. Without explicitly naming

Wahkohtowin, Lindberg conveys the ways in which relationality and reciprocity organize daily life for Bernice and her family. For Bernice, justice and healing are secured through relationships, as opposed to adversarial processes privileging the individual. In exploring the complexities of relationships, Lindberg demonstrates both the continued existence of Cree law and why it is needed more than ever.

Lindberg’s doctoral dissertation offers one of the few comprehensive written examinations of Indigenous legal theory available to date. The overarching purpose of her work, she explains, is to outline critical Indigenous socio-legal theory to interrogate historical and

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ongoing settler colonialism, while also developing systems and structures that support the emancipation of Indigenous nations (2007, p. 10). Lindberg argues, “if we have not examined how we as Indigenous nations behaved prior to colonization…what our philosophies and beliefs contain as guidelines and instruction (generally and with regard to this colonial relationship), then we risk a partial solution” (p. 10). Lindberg eschews any claims to objectivity by turning to her elders, traditional teachers, and community members to identify and expand upon these guidelines and instructions. Turning to Harold Cardinal and Walter Hildebrandt, Lindberg defines Wahkohtowin as the code of conduct governing extended kinship and relations. She expands, “there are rules/codes stemming from the nature of that relationship that determine the shared obligations inherent and agreed to in that relationship” (p. 23). Lindberg further elaborates on the importance of attending to the diverse types of relationships in order to determine precisely which Wahkohtowin protocols are applicable. This is certainly not a one-size-fits-all law:

Specificity related to relationships needs to be addressed in applying the accurate values,

laws, and principles to the topic. There are certainly rules governing how you behave and

interact with a person and these are linked to the nature of the relationship that you have

with the person. I have an obligation to my grandmother that I do not owe to a cousin. I

have an obligation that I owe to an adopted cousin that I do not owe to my sister. These

obligations and responsibilities may overlap and mirror each other, but the nature, content

and degree of obligation differs depending upon the nature of my relationship to the person.

(p. 23)

As Lindberg’s discussion makes clear, Wahkohtowin remains as relevant as ever and, for many, is a legal code that continues to organize social relations within families and communities.

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While Wahkohtowin remains as relevant as ever, this legal philosophy is simply not accessible or available to many Indigenous peoples, particularly Indigenous girls and queer youth denied safe access to ceremonial and community spaces. To facilitate greater access, I propose extending Lindberg’s analysis by considering the ways in which Indigenous youth engage and expand Indigenous legal theory in their daily lives. To do so, I return to Lindsay Nixon’s scholarship on Indigenous queer ethics introduced in chapter two. Here, Nixon describes the impact of cis-heteropatriarchy and settler colonialism on Indigenous kinship and care models.

Canadian law and policies seeking to systematically isolate and eliminate Indigenous peoples resulted in the mass removal of Indigenous children and youth from communities into residential schools, foster care, sanitariums, and corrections facilities. Colonial ideologies permeating

Indigenous communities serve to further alienate Indigenous peoples from one another. For

Indigenous queer youth, cis-heteropatriarchy has left many without support from their families and communities of origin. Without using the language of Wahkohtowin, Nixon describes

Indigenous queer youth’s response to such colonial ruptures. They write, “we didn’t have queer and trans mentors, or the support of our cisgender and straight Elders. We had to teach one another what it meant to occupy gender-diverse and sexually diverse roles within our community” (2018 May 23). Indigenous queer youth’s expansive reformulation of kinship and care in response to settler colonial violence highlights here the necessity and potential of

Indigenous youth’s development of Indigenous legal theory. As Nixon shows, Indigenous queer youth ensure Indigenous law remains both relevant and accessible by adapting these kinship protocols to respond to contemporary colonial realities.

Cree Poetics

While Wahkohtowin continues to organize many Indigenous families and communities within the Canadian context, this law remains largely unknown to white settlers as it continues to

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be suppressed by Canadian law. For Lindberg, Canada’s refusal to recognize Indigenous law lies at the heart of tensions between Indigenous people and white settlers. To meaningfully address these tensions, Lindberg insists that a transformative terminology grounded in Indigenous philosophy and ethics is required (p. 9). Without a mutually agreed upon terminology, colonial laws and policies will continue to organize uneven relations that subordinate Indigenous peoples to white settlers:

We are not locked in a word war –we are forced to validate the foreign legal and external

system and invalidate our own existences and understandings in order to accord with

inaccurate (and in our context illegal) definitions with rations (of money, space, pieces of

home) meted out to those who best reify the systemic disentitlement from and forcible

occupation of our territories. (p. 18).

As Lindberg emphasizes, there are significant material implications that accompany the production and circulation of particular ideological concepts. In this case, the subjugation of

Indigenous peoples is greatly facilitated by Canadian law and policy. In order to dismantle these colonial structures, Lindberg argues a paradigmatic shift attending to the ways “Indigenous laws…are being broken by the occupier” is required (p. 13). According to Lindberg, the creation of a transformative terminology can facilitate this shift. The creation of this terminology is not to

“merely translate verbatim English words and English understandings into the Cree language” or vice versa (p. 16). Rather, Lindberg envisions transformative terminology as a dialogue of freedom, grounded in Indigenous philosophies and ethics. Perhaps most significantly, the creation of a transformative terminology is unavoidably a shared project.

Although I am in agreeance with Lindberg that new language is needed, I am more interested in undertaking this project with Indigenous, Black, and racialized populations than with white settlers or their nation. Prior to the arrival of European settlers, Indigenous peoples

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were not grouped under a common racialized banner as we are now. In fact, beyond myriad socio-political frameworks distinguishing Indigenous nations, intergenerational disputes and rivalries further set certain nations apart. Under colonial occupation, Indigenous rivalries, disputes, and war oftentimes go unacknowledged and, yet, these historical events continue to shape relations today. As a Cree person, I am particularly interested in learning more about Cree-

Dene and Cree-Inuit historical tensions reconciliation measures required today. According to Ila

Bussidor and Üstün Bilgen-Reinart (1997), throughout the eighteenth century, Cree-Dene relations were marred by war and a Cree practice of enslavement (p. 13). In Inuit Cree

Reconciliation (2013), Zacharias Kunuk and Neil Diamond interview Inuit and Cree elders from

Kuujjuarapik and Whapmagootsui to understand the historical and contemporary impact of an

18th century war between the Inuit and Cree in Northern Quebec. With these two examples in mind, I believe addressing these historical conflicts, establishing alliances, and committing to relational repair through the development of a shared transformative language is integral to decolonization.

Enslavement, anti-Blackness, racism, and xenophobia are as foundational to Canada as settler colonialism. Yet, as King notes, Canadian racial discourses promote a settler-Indigenous binary, which effectively erases Canada’s history of slavery and its afterlife (2019, p. 13).

Addressing this erasure through the development of a shared vocabulary, I argue, facilitates

Indigenous-Black relations necessary for dismantling this white settler nation-state. Moreover, a shared decolonial discourse better supports Indigenous and Black peoples in balancing a dialectical reality in which we share a common oppressor, but experience distinct forms of oppression. Along these lines, developing a transformative language with racialized communities is necessary for grappling with the complex circumstances and forces through which racialized peoples arrive in Canada, including British and American imperialism; historical and

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contemporary indentured labour programs; political asylum as a result of wars, massacres, coups, and persecution; and more convention immigration routes. As Sunera Thobani explains, the migrant is a complex figure, “Propelled into the circuit of migration by structural conditions within the global economy,” which includes movement under duress, as well as a desire for economic advancement (2007, p. 16). Again, developing a common language supports

Indigenous, Black, and racialized peoples in mutual liberation pursuits.

For this shared project to be fully realized, there are practical considerations that must be addressed. It is useful to recall Wilson’s (2008) discussion on Swampy Cree language introduced in chapter two. Here, Wilson describes the limitations and challenges of translation. With respect to Swampy Cree and English, there are significant structural differences that inform meaning.

While both languages are organized along a binary, the binaries themselves are quite distinct.

Within the Cree language, the binary is animate/inanimate, while the English binary is male/female. Wilson does not suggest translation is impossible, but that there is an inevitable loss that occurs through the translation process. For example, when translating a Cree statement about an individual into English, translations with individual pronouns almost always reflect

English conventions, such as she or he. What might be assumed here is that the Cree speaker conceptualizes gender in the same manner as an English speaker. However, in conforming to

English grammatical conventions, such a translation fails to reflect Cree worldview. Indeed, while the English language can more readily accommodate western ideologies; at best, the

English language awkwardly clutches and grasps at Cree ideologies and systems of thought.

Notwithstanding the inevitable loss that accompanies translation, a holophrastic reading of Lindberg’s Birdie offers great insight into the subtle ways in which Cree worldview is rendered in English. Holophrastic reading is a methodology coined and developed by Mareike

Neuhaus that attends to the tools and techniques of Indigenous literature, which includes form,

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structure, guiding principles, and conditions under which literature is produced (2015, p. 4).

Drawing from Scott Richard Lyons, Neuhaus contends that writing in English is certainly not evidence of Indigenous peoples “becoming willing subjects of (neo)colonial linguistic practices,” rather that, “Indigenous peoples have claimed English in order to exercise rhetorical sovereignty”

(p. 6). She adds, “Wherever ancestral linguistic traditions have been destroyed or interrupted,

Indigenous voices are often expressed in English; thus, English becomes a means of pursuing

Indigenous purposes…in their use of this language, Indigenous people have reinvented English”

(p. 6). What, then, does it mean to reinvent the language of English or, more specifically, to

Indigenize English? For Neuhaus, a holophrastic reading requires a focus on the form and structure of writing to gain an enriched understanding of the topics, questions, and meaning the author wishes to impart (p. 9). A focus on the form and structure can include examinations of figures of speech, intertextual references, syntax variations, and morphology (p. 4). Put differently, a holophrastic reading attunes theorists to the ways in which Indigenous writers recover meaning through creative engagement with the English language that might otherwise be lost in translation.

To better describe the complexities of Cree kinship formations, Lindberg developed a vocabulary embodying Cree familial roles and socio-legal principles through a creative rendering of the English language. When asked about words like motherlove, birdBernice, and ashwords,

Lindberg stated emphatically, “I just think of them as big enough. Finally, there was a word big enough to encompass what I was feeling or thinking and I would press them together and they made sense to me” (2016 March 13). Elsewhere, Lindberg elaborates,

English language didn’t capture that there are shared, reciprocal relationships and

obligations between…the women. So I started to put words together for what I knew to be

true that there were and are people who have four or five mothers and who call grandparents

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mom and dad, that English doesn’t fully reflect the nature of our shared and dual

relationships with each other in Cree communities. (Fortin, 2016, para. 7)

A more technical way to describe Lindberg’s vocabulary is as a form of holophrasis.

Holophrasis, Neuhaus explains, is the process of expressing a complete thought, phrase, or complex idea within a single word (p. 17). Indigenous holophrases, Neuhaus adds, are grammatically complete sentences that when translated into English must be modified by relative clauses in order to be correct (p. 18). Through the use of Cree holophrases rendered in English,

Lindberg relies on the form to demonstrate Cree kinship roles that do not exist in English. For example, rather than describe Bernice’s cousinsister as a sister and a cousin (implying two distinct roles), Lindberg’s holophrase presents an entirely different kinship role that had not previously existed in English. In this way, Lindberg’s vocabulary effectively contributes to her vision of a shared vocabulary between Indigenous peoples and Canadians.

Along with a common vocabulary, Lindberg’s translation project is further carried out by the novel’s narrative structure. While Birdie can easily be categorized as a coming-of-age narrative, Lindberg also deploys Cree storytelling techniques and conventions throughout the novel, including an indirect, non-linear, and circular style not readily translated into western storytelling. Critical responses to Birdie reflect the challenges associated with translating Cree storytelling conventions into a novel for a general audience. Lindberg’s debut novel received mostly positive responses from major media outlets, and many reviewers described Birdie as an epic feat in storytelling; however, alongside this warm feedback, one thing reviewers consistently took issue with was the novel’s challenging narrative structure, which moved between Bernice’s present-day life and her past. Some reviewers complained that seeing

Lindberg’s characters frequently revisiting memories left them wondering if they reread a passage by mistake. Others were frustrated by the sudden shift in perspectives. These complaints

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are unsurprising, especially when interpreted alongside Lindberg’s legal theory on the difficulties of conveying Cree law in English. Notwithstanding these difficulties, Lindberg’s narrative decisions coupled with her extensive legal theory on the incompatibilities of Cree and Canadian legal frameworks, legal narratives, and storytelling suggests that efforts to bridge these differences must be made, despite existing challenges. Lindberg seems to understand readers’ complaints about and challenges in encountering the language and structure of Birdie, but asks them to join her in a common translation project. Extended Kinship: Dispelling Narratives of Indigenous Dysfunction

In relating Bernice’s upbringing with her biological family in Little Loon First Nation,

Lindberg maps out how one Cree family is organized by Wahkohtowin principles and practices.

Elsewhere, Lindberg has described how law informs kinship formation as follows: “Some

Indigenous laws can be understood to be how to live your life in relation to your nation and relations. The laws themselves can be thought of as the structure upon which relationships, as a basis for interaction and which define which laws are applicable” (2007, p. 19). As Lindberg vividly illustrates, Bernice’s family is comprised of a complex interconnection of immediate and extended family members that do not necessarily mirror western familial roles. As well, there is a distinct, yet subtle, set of protocols and obligations informing how different family members relate to one another. By outlining some of the central tenets of Cree kinship, Lindberg expands on Wahkohtowin while, at the same time, issuing an important counter-narrative and critique of the colonial narrative of Indigenous dysfunctionality that circulates within national discourse. As outlined in part one, this colonial narrative poses a significant threat to Indigenous families. The myth that Indigenous families are inherently dysfunctional has been wielded by child welfare officials and residential school staff in order to apprehend children en masse from Indigenous

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families and communities. Razack (2015) argues that this rhetorical strategy is integral to the consolidation and expansion of the white settler nation. That in representing Indigenous peoples as unable to cope with the demands of modernity, Razack argues, Canada readily positions itself as a benevolent nation charged with the responsibility of managing this troubled population.

Lindberg’s narrative, by contrast, demonstrates that Cree kinship is actually a robust framework with many built-in protective mechanisms to cope with unexpected loss and disruption. The issues colonial officials frequently describe as dysfunction, Lindberg reveals, are actually products of historical and ongoing colonial violence.

In highlighting the links between narratives on Indigenous dysfunctionality and settler colonialism, Lindberg turns to Bernice’s reading choices to explain why and how colonial discourse comes into existence and, ultimately, gains traction. The pervasiveness of narratives depicting Indigenous families as dysfunctional is such that Bernice herself has internalized this colonial discourse. Bernice turns to literature as a form of escapism when her mother hosts drinking parties at home, and her favourite books feature white middle-class households.

According to Bernice, the perfect book depicts, “a clean house with flowers in every available container” (p. 33). Bernice’s ideal home, it seems, is imagined in direct contrast to her childhood home. Lindberg elaborates, “There would be no cigarette burns in gaudy-coloured carpet, no empty bottles or glasses half-drunk or spilled on the floor on weekends” (p. 33). Within this ideal home, Bernice imagines, “There would be happy shiny people who always hugged and smiled.

They would never put each other down or make fun of one another to make other people laugh”

(p. 33). Bernice’s engagement with these narratives are more than childish fantasies; her engagement reflects the insidiousness of colonial discourse in circulating and reinforcing dominant ideologies. Indeed, at just ten years old, Bernice has already internalized ideas about the ideal family, against which Indigenous families fail to measure up. Without the historical

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context and anti-colonial analysis to counter claims advanced in her books, Bernice is left with the feelings of inadequacy and the hope that one day she will find herself in her ideal home.

While a children’s story, official study or media report might imply that a family like

Bernice’s is broken, dysfunctional, or even dangerous, Lindberg’s narrative offers historical context and anti-colonial analysis that Bernice’s stories lack to convey all the ways her family embodies Cree kinship form. One of the ways this is apparent is in Lindberg’s description of

Bernice’s immediate family. Although her biological father has abruptly left, Bernice is not lacking in guardianship. The responsibilities for Bernice’s guardianship and care were split across her mother, Aunty Val, and grandmother. Because of the continued existence of Cree kinship models, Bernice and her mother are protected from the full impact of this unexpected desertion. As western familial models place emphasis on the family as a self-contained independent unit comprised of a father, mother, and children, when the father leaves (especially if he is the main income provider), this can be extremely devastating to the family. In Bernice’s case, there is a well-established, extended kinship network in place that ensures Bernice’s basic needs are met, along with her receiving care and affection from several guardians. When

Bernice’s mother struggled with the effects of intergenerational trauma, “Auntie Val would come over while Maggie took to her bed. She lavished Bernice and Freda with praise, food and hugs”

(p. 62). In these instances, Lindberg gestures towards the devastation of colonial policies and laws on Indigenous families while, at the same time, emphasizing the resilience of Wahkohtowin formations in the face of such destruction. Whatever dysfunction might exist, Lindberg suggests, is a product of ongoing colonialism, not an innate feature of Indigenous families.

When the western nuclear model failed Bernice’s family, as it often did, prevailing Cree kinship models intervened. Lindberg expands:

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Having seen all of their fathers and husbands walk out the door (with booze or a brunette

in hand), each woman understood most completely the nature of women’s

interconnectedness…all four of the women had always maintained graceful coherence for

the sake of the family and the community. A grotty one, but still a coherence. (p. 30)

It is important to note here that Bernice’s father’s abrupt departure belongs to a multigenerational practice fundamental to Canada’s very existence. In reading Bernice’s experience against the longstanding practice of white men abandoning their Indigenous families, it becomes poignantly clear that this practice is an integral feature of Canada’s settler colonial strategy.

Initially, with the fur trade, heterosexual intermingling was a common part of trade relations

(Carter, 1999; Olsen Harper, 2009; Van Kirk, 1996). With the shift from mercantile to settler colonialism, however, these “country marriages” were considered in conflict with the shifting colonial objectives and actively discouraged. As part of the shift towards settlement, white men were encouraged to marry the white women who were immigrating en masse in order to create a white settler nation (Olsen Harper, 2009, p. 178). These newly immigrated white women were considered paragons of femininity; whereas, Indigenous women were subject to increasingly hostile disparagement (p. 178). Oftentimes, deserted Indigenous women were accused of being sexually licentious and immoral because they were perceived as unmarried with children. In addition to being subjected to intense scorn and ridicule, the material loss also had serious ramifications for deserted Indigenous women. All this is to say that western nuclear family models have never served Indigenous women and their families; yet, they are compelled by the threat of violence to enter into these arrangements and left with all the blame when they eventually dissolve. Sites of Violence

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Birdie does not follow Bernice into adulthood, but rather accompanies the protagonist on an odyssey returning her to girlhood. This journey, Lindberg emphasizes, is both temporal and spatial. In returning to formative moments of her childhood, Bernice must also return to places where she has endured profound violence, neglect, and oppression. Lindberg’s unique take on the coming-of-age genre emphasizes the enduring relevance of one’s upbringing, thus emphasizing the continuum that exists between girlhood and adulthood. Similarly, as Bernice traverses her traditional territories seized, occupied, and transformed by the colonial state,

Lindberg calls attention to the interconnectivity of seemingly disparate sites, such as the home, school, foster care, and hospital. By exploring the relationship between time and place, Lindberg can more readily probe the colonial logics structuring sites of violence, even as they undergo cosmetic changes over time. Throughout Birdie, there are three major sites in particular that exemplify this argument: the home, foster home, and school. In exploring each site, Lindberg skilfully articulates violence as a structure sustained by existing conditions, curriculums, mechanisms, protocols, and those caring professionals charged with maintaining and enacting these systems. Through Bernice’s story, Lindberg emphasizes the interconnectivity of these sites in a manner not always apparent in official or legal documents.

Sexual Violence in the Home

In western takes on girls’ coming-of-age narratives, essentialist notions of puberty are often described as a natural hinge between childhood and adolescence. Such narratives typically feature cisgender heterosexual girls navigating the onset of menstruation and forays into romance and sex, which are often described as catapulting girls into womanhood. In narrating an

Indigenous girl’s coming-of-age, Lindberg presents an entirely different set of themes and conventions specific to Indigenous girls’ experiences and conditions under colonial occupation.

Perhaps one of the more significant distinctions to be made is the colonial expectation that

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modern girls will eventually transition into fully-realized women, whereas Indigenous girls are meant to disappear. Through Birdie, Lindberg examines the ways in which sexual violence is used to mark Indigenous girls as disposable. Besides elaborating on the ways sexual violence is used to disappear Indigenous girls, Lindberg convincingly expands on the ways in which sexual violence structures relationships and place.

Although Sarah Deer describes an entirely different settler colonial context, her discussion linking rape to the formation of the United States provides crucial insight into the ways in which sexual violence structures Indigenous girls’ daily lives, as well as white settler societies. According to Deer, it is not a matter of if an Indigenous girl will be sexually assaulted, but when (2015, p. 5). The sexual violation of Indigenous girls and women is rarely a one-time occurrence as these individuals are often involved in ongoing, intimate relations with their perpetrators (p. xvii). Further to this, Deer contends, not only is rape not a one-time, short-term incident as portrayed in popular media, it is an intergenerational struggle with as many as four or five generations of rape and/or sexual assault survivors in a family line (p. xi). At this time, there are few official mechanisms for healing and justice. Recalling her experience as a rape crisis advocate, Deer explains that Indigenous girls are often reluctant to report sexual assault because they fear officials will not believe them (p. xi). Deer reveals that Indigenous mothers will discourage their daughters from reporting rape because, “It only make things worse” (p. xii).

These attitudes and approaches typically stem from prior encounters with so-called caring professionals such as doctors, nurses, police officers, emergency medical service workers, and social workers who failed to provide these girls and women with adequate support. In order to effectively address the crisis of rape in Indian country, Deer argues, it is imperative that we recognize rape as the central means of dispossession and destruction for the purposes of settler colonial expansion (p. xiv). By bringing Deer’s powerful thesis into dialogue with Lindberg’s

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Birdie, the symbolic and material dimensions of sexual violence in the lives of Indigenous girls come into view.

In one of Bernice’s earlier expeditions into the past, she finds herself in her bedroom under the staircase. The adults are about to start partying, so she returns to her room and begins to lock up for the night. Early on, it is clear that these parties cause Bernice a tremendous amount of stress. There is a certain foreboding quality to her retreat. Lindberg hints that Bernice is afraid her loved ones when they come together, but does not explain why. Over the course of the novel,

Bernice reveals in bits and pieces that she was molested throughout girlhood by her uncle Larry.

Importantly, Bernice does not describe sexual violence as a singular event. She does not itemize each incident as if an episode in a series. Rather, Bernice regards this sexual violence as a structure organizing her girlhood. The violence is not merely limited to instances of direct sexual violence, but permeates her relationship to her body, relationships with self and family, and space. Lindberg emphasizes, “No one ever talked about a lot of things…Why no one stayed with the uncles. The silence about what was happening around them seeped into the kitchen, first.

Permeating the curtains. Eating into the linoleum. Eventually settling in the fridge. It was like some sort of bad medicine – it made Freda skinny, Bernice fat, and Maggie disappear” (p. 62).

As this passage exemplifies, sexual violence is not merely a series of violations, but organizes every aspect of one’s reality.

To live within a home structured by sexual violence, Bernice responds to the threat of sexual violence by detaching from her body through deliberate weight gain. Detachment through deliberate weight gain, Lindberg elaborates, provides Bernice a sense of safety and the ability to hide in plain sight. There are unintended consequences, which includes Bernice’s inability to provide for her physical needs. Wahkohtowin, however, provides an important counterbalance, however, as Bernice’s extended kinship network mitigates the pervasive ways sexual violence

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has shaped her life. When Bernice begins developing breasts, it is her kookom who assists her in purchasing a bra. As well, she makes clear that coming-of-age for Bernice differed significantly from her western counterparts. Lindberg states, “there was none of the Seventeen awkwardness or glee in that trip” (p. 159). Notwithstanding Bernice’s obvious discomfort with having so much attention directed toward her body, she is grateful to have the assistance of her knowledgeable grandmother. Lindberg shares, “There was a certain comfort in having someone so assured make decisions at such an embarrassing time. Still, it was hard to remember that when her kohkom whipped out a piece of twine, wrapped it around her rib cage and passed it to the wide-eyed sales clerk” (p. 159). Through this passage, Lindberg demonstrates both the pervasiveness of sexual violence, while also revealing the enduring Indigenous systems and structures obstructing colonial development. While there are devastating instances where the women in Bernice’s life uphold colonial structures, they largely individually and collectively work to cope with and dismantle colonialism.

Colonial Schooling

As examined in chapter four, Canadian schools have proven to be significant sites of violence for Indigenous girls. Although the long-standing and widespread policies and practices compelling Indigenous youth to relocate from their remote communities to nearby towns and cities for school are increasingly regarded as dangerous, these youth still find themselves in unfamiliar places to receive an education. While most Canadians leave their parents’ homes at 18 years old to pursue post-secondary education, many Indigenous youth must make a similar decision to leave home at just 14 years old to receive a secondary education. Those youth who decide to leave their family and community are then required to either live with a host family or in a boarding residence. For many, the leap from elementary to secondary school is particularly challenging, especially for those youth coming from federally-funded schools that receive

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significantly less resources and support than their provincially-funded counterpart. On top of all of these structural barriers, the homes, schools, and communities that Indigenous youth are compelled to enter are often hostile and anti-Indigenous. In these spaces, Indigenous youth are subject to covert and overt forms of everyday and extreme discrimination. As Lindberg illustrates through Bernice’s educational journey, there is a distinct spatiality to the educational policies and practices directing the protagonist’s journey. As Bernice navigates this pathway,

Lindberg draws attention to the perils of seeking education as an Indigenous girl in Canada.

Bernice left home for high school. In Grandetowne, Bernice lives with her Aunty Val as a secret tenant in a Native Co-op called Pecker Palace. Bernice’s days are spent in a “religious all- white girls’ school” and her nights in an all-white neighbourhood (p. 75). While Bernice describes attending high school as a “luxury,” she also indicates feelings of estrangement and disconnect while living away from home in this unfamiliar place. In describing access to secondary education as a luxury, Bernice subtly indicates that what most Canadian youth receive as a given is not necessarily available to Indigenous youth from reserves. What’s more, when these educational services are made available, the cost is great. In addition to experiencing feelings of alienation, as Bernice describes, many Indigenous youth living away from home also describe feeling heightened anxiety by the threat of violence, and despair around the pervasive gendered and racist hostility. As outlined more thoroughly in chapter four, when Indigenous youth arrive in Canadian towns and cities for school, racial hostility permeates every aspect of society, including their boarding home, school, and the town or city itself. For Indigenous youth leaving home for school, it is like being catapulted into adulthood without guidance or support.

In Grandetowne, Bernice finds herself taking on many new responsibilities, “Bernice remembers doing most things alone…Shopping for groceries. Getting smokes for Val. Making her lunches.

Walking to school” (p. 75-76). To return to my central argument introduced in chapter one, this

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passage exemplifies the ways in which Indigenous girls are compelled to take on all of the responsibilities of adulthood without any of the privileges or rights of this life stage.

Unsurprisingly, Bernice dreaded her walk from the Pecker Palace to Christ’s Academy.

The teen’s daily walk to school reveals much about the broader colonial terrain she must traverse as an Indigenous teenaged girl:

Cutting through the courthouse parking lot and looking towards the steps (where busy-

looking men in business-looking suits walk quickly in and out of the doors) Bernice had

always felt an increasing sense of dread every time she took a step closer to school. The

courthouse was perched on top of the hill…. She could see the A&W sign to the north

peeking up from behind the mall. At the time, her Auntie Val lived across the street from

the restaurant. (p. 76)

For those aware of the increasing rate at which Indigenous girls, women, and queer people are entering Canada’s criminal justice system, Bernice’s observation of the courthouse is certainly foreshadowing. While on the surface the school and the courthouse have little to do with one another, these institutions actually serve as critical landmarks for Indigenous girls. Interestingly,

Bernice notes only business men (presumably white) entering this establishment. The absence of

Indigenous people entering the building suggests that white settlers are the exclusive arbiters of law, while their racialized counterparts are its subjects. The location of the courthouse itself is also significant; the courthouse’s symbolic elevation is mirrored by its physical location on top of the hill. By contrast, Bernice looks down from the hilltop toward her auntie’s place. recalling eating cheap hamburgers from the neighbouring fast food restaurant that she could not afford.

Here, it is clear there is a link between one’s social standing, class, and race. As Bernice makes her way to school, she must make split-second assessments about this foreign environment and her place in it. Instinctively, she understands that the courthouse is for busy business men and her

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place is somewhere closer to the bottom. She knows she does not really belong there, hence her uneasiness, so she finds shortcuts that will allow her to arrive at her destination undetected.

Once Bernice arrives at Christ’s Academy, she must continue to navigate a hostile landscape filled with uninterested white girls, mean teachers, a Eurocentric curriculum, and unnamed yet strictly enforced social protocols. From the outset, Lindberg makes clear that assimilation continues to underpin Canada’s approach to Indigenous education. When sisters discover Bernice’s medicine pouch, she is publicly reprimanded and punished. Sister Marie

Thérèse’s response highlights the role of caring professionals in this colonial project:

Sister Marie Thérèse had asked her what was in the bag, in front of the entire history class.

She told the Sister that it was a sacred bag – that’s what the grandmothers told her – and

Sister Marie Thérèse sent her to Sister Mary Margaret’s office. The stern principal

demanded an explanation for the bag. (p. 78-79)

In reprimanding Bernice in front of the classroom, the teacher ascertains Bernice’s otherness as an Indigenous girl in an all-white girls’ school. The teacher confirms that Bernice does not belong in the space as an Indigenous girl and, in order to remain in the space, she must conform to the dominant norms. However, Bernice is not alone in navigating this terrain. Her grandmothers provide her with spiritual guidance:

She remembers the grandmothers telling her to keep quiet. Be still, Birdie, they told her as

she wriggled in her chair…They used to cut our hair, they reminded each other. Remember

when they beat us for speaking our language, they whispered to each other in Cree…Run!

the grandmothers told her. Don’t let her touch the medicine! (p. 79)

Although Bernice mostly attempts to find the quickest route through which to move undetected, there are moments where her Indigeneity cannot be concealed and she must then make difficult decisions on how to proceed. Through an encounter in which Bernice is confronted by her school

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principle, Lindberg opens a discussion on Canada’s ongoing and subtle efforts to suppress

Indigenous laws and governance. When the principal attempts to confiscate her medicine pouch,

Bernice must violate her school code in order to protect her ancestral code. In other words,

Bernice’s Indigeneity violates the school’s code of conduct. In upholding her ancestral code,

Bernice finds herself not only evicted from the classroom, but the school itself.

Foster Homes

When Bernice is apprehended by Social Services just shy of turning 16 years old, she is placed in a group home where “no matter where she was, where she went, she was in the way.

Even curled up in her little cot, taking as little space as possible…She seemed to be the epicentre of some unkindness” (p. 140). Although Bernice describes herself as “close enough to crazy to be left largely alone…Bernice knew that to speak was to be noticed” (p. 140). In other words,

Bernice disappeared herself to survive the group home. The neglect and violence that Bernice describes is consistent with the testimonies of many Indigenous youth living in group homes across Canada. A recent investigation, summarized in The Report of the Expert Panel on the

Deaths of Children and Youth in Residential Placements, found that the eight out of the 12

Indigenous children and youth who recently died while in the care of Children’s Aid Societies or

Indigenous Wellbeing Societies struggled with mental health issues, as well as the impacts of the legacy of residential schools and systemic barriers limiting their access to life-essential services on reserves (2018, p. 5). The report noted that while living on reserve, these eight youth “did not have equitable access to education, healthcare including, mental healthcare, social services, and recreational activities” (p. 5); however, access to these life-essential services did not increase once these children and youth were placed in settings far from home (p. 6). Placements for

Indigenous children in care, like the group homes described in Lindberg’s Birdie, do not address systemic inequities on reserves. Instead, these placements amplify already-existing insecurities

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and alienation for Indigenous children and youth. As the expert panel found, the removal of

Indigenous children and youth from their homes and communities is often justified as a safety measure, but the reality is that these placements present the same issues along with new dangers.

At first glance, Bernice’s placement with the Ingelsons following her hellish experience at the group home is, by contrast, a dream come true. As Lindberg reveals, however, underlying the Ingelsons’ generosity is a deeply ingrained belief that it is their role as white Canadians to uplift helpless Indigenous children and youth. While it is clear the Ingelsons care for Bernice, their unexamined prejudice towards Indigenous peoples proves to negatively inform their relationship by reifying existing racial hierarchies that subordinate Bernice to themselves. It is difficult to detect these underlying dynamics at first. The Ingelsons are a British couple who represent the western ideal as a heterosexual, white, middle-class couple. They seem to have everything–except for their own children. Even still, this couple manages to transform what could be read as a deficiency into their strength by becoming attentive foster parents. Beyond the attention and affection that the Ingelsons provide, Bernice is provided a material stability she has never known, including:

[a] canopy bed, one fish tank, one set of back-to-school clothes, one trip home every couple

of weeks, one amazing sleepover party with no locks on the door, one trip to Vancouver

Island, one computer, one bookcase and all the books she needs, one package of envelopes

with stamps on them, her own bathroom and three good meals a day. (p. 142)

Held in the custody of the Ingelsons, Bernice can actually live out her childhood fantasy of belonging to a “normal” family like the characters in her favorite books; and, yet, Bernice cannot quite shake her unease. Only once Bernice becomes aware of the underlying racial dynamics structuring her relationship with the Ingelsons does she finally find relief.

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In her initial excitement, Bernice cannot help but contrast the Ingelsons’ apparent emotional and material wealth to her family’s poverty and the stress it brings. In doing so, the teen unwittingly establishes the Ingelsons as the standard against which she always seems to fall short. Only after realizing that the Ingelsons hold a similar view does Bernice begin critically interrogating the Ingelsons’ unconscious sense of superiority. Nowhere is this sense of superiority over Bernice more apparent than in what Bernice refers to as “the pork incident.”

Through this scene, Lindberg illustrates Canada’s paternalistic attitude toward Indigenous peoples at the level of the individual. The pork incident, Bernice explains, refers to Ann

Ingelson’s discovery of fresh food in Bernice’s “perfect room with the canopy bed” (p. 143).

Since the discovery, Bernice laments, it has become dinner table conversation fodder, where Ann recalls, “And I kind of thought that something wasn’t right, that there were kitchen smells where there shouldn’t be any...This sweet little girl was afraid...that we would run out of food!” (p.

143). Through this experience and the multiple accounts following it, Bernice silently counters the assumptions made by the Ingelsons and the horrified reception by the dinner guests:

There was always food at home. Sure, sometimes you had to plan more and work harder

for it, but there was always an aunt or uncle, or Kohkom, to turn to in a pinch. And, yes,

most certainly, the Meetooses had more pinches than the Ingelsons. But that was the result

of history and design, not some flaw in her family or her people. (p. 143)

As Bernice powerfully concludes, this disparity is not due to Indigenous dysfunctionality or

Canada’s superiority, but structural inequities established by the white settler state.

Through the pork incident, Lindberg places emphasis on the re-telling of the story of the incident rather than the event itself. Highlighted here is the power of narrative in producing and maintaining national ideologies. Lindberg notes, “Ann said kindly, looking at Bernice kindly, transmitting her kindness kindly to her kind guests who look at Bernice less kindly, not

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understanding Ann’s kindness but wanting to emulate being kind” (p. 143). Lindberg’s repeated use of the word “kind” calls to mind the image of Canada as a “friendly multicultural nation” established through the peaceful settlement of lands through treaties with Indigenous peoples.

What is clear to Bernice, but less so to the dinner guests, is that Ann’s story is filtered through

Eurocentric assumptions about Bernice and Indigenous peoples more broadly. These assumptions being that Indigenous peoples’ poverty is the result of some inherent dysfunction as opposed to historical and ongoing colonialism. How this story is told also matters here. In addition to upholding Canada’s reputation as a friendly nation, Ann’s kind demeanor lends her claim to tolerance greater credibility when confronted by her charge’s unusual behaviour. A similar logic applies to Canada’s colonial approach. In relying on eliminatory laws and policies framed as inclusivity measures such as involuntary and voluntary enfranchisement through education, military enrolment, and marriage, Canada successfully maintains its international reputation as a benevolent nation responsible for ensuring Indigenous well-being even as the nation systematically disappears this population with these very laws and policies. Pimatisiwin: A Model for Justice and Healing

In the final section, I examine Lindberg’s engagement with Mino Pimatisiwin and how this philosophy can guide approaches to decolonial justice and healing. Bernice’s healing journey began when she was involuntarily admitted into the Alberta Regional Psychiatric Centre; not because of the medical care she received, but in spite of it. As an in-patient, Bernice further cultivates her ability to travel while confined within the institution. It is also during this time that

Bernice begins practicing personal rituals and ceremonies. Yet, despite the fact that these practices have allowed Bernice to tap into a well of knowledge and power she did not know existed, the medical professionals who have assumed custody over Bernice interpret these same practices as manifestations of mental illness. Through a detailed exploration of Bernice’s journey

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through Canada’s psychiatric system, Lindberg interrogates the ways in which intergenerational trauma and responses to ongoing colonialism are pathologized. Lindberg also addresses the illegibility of Indigenous ceremonial knowledge and practices within psychiatric and medical models, which are consequently interpreted, again, as an illness, disorder, or pathology. In the remainder of this chapter, I critically examine the differing approaches taken by Canada’s psychiatric system and Bernice and her family towards her health and wellness. Through this comparative analysis, I have found that western medical approaches pathologizing people do less to treat patients than to uphold systems of oppression; whereas, even when Bernice and her family did not fully understand the matter or exact course of action required, Bernice had the first and final say in her healing process.

Pathologizing Discourses Uphold Colonial Structures

In an interview following the publication of Birdie, Lindberg discussed her reluctance to diagnose Bernice, noting that “at no time does Bernice ever say ‘I’m depressed.’ Nobody in the book says she’s depressed. Nobody talks about post-traumatic stress disorder” (Fortin, 2016, p.

13). Rather, Lindberg continues, “what I see her doing...was not to accept anybody’s label of what her health was but to be a self-determining person who made an assessment of what she needed and went and did it” (Ibid). Nevertheless, while Lindberg rejects the use of psychiatric labels, she readily examines the implications of psychiatric and biomedical approaches to mental healthcare for Bernice. To survive her ever-changing, yet persistently challenging, circumstances as a child and adolescent, Bernice has developed a set of coping strategies. She frequently describes attempts to make herself as small and quiet as possible in an attempt to avoid or minimize scrutiny and abuse. When Bernice is a child, Lindberg explains, these coping strategies are regarded as quirks and peculiarities. As Bernice transitions into adulthood, however, what

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were once regarded as innocent, yet odd, eccentricities are largely seen as signs of mental illness, which ultimately leads her to be involuntarily admitted into a psychiatric facility. Rather than leaving it at that, Lindberg interrogates the external conditions that prompt these behaviours, while also closely engaging with Bernice’s interpretations of her experiences that are otherwise dismissed as compulsions and disorder. By foregoing labels, Lindberg provides a blueprint outlining historical and ongoing colonialism and other interlocking systems of oppression that are too often obfuscated by pathologizing discourses. In other words, Lindberg does not portray

Bernice’s manner of being as the problem, but as symptomatic of the problem.

Taking on the narrative conventions of official medical records, Lindberg’s description of

Bernice’s hospital admission for severe burns from a house fire allows for even greater interrogation of the production of official narratives. When Aunty Val unexpectedly comes across Bernice’s medical history, she is pained by the unfamiliar account of her niece. Here,

Lindberg advances the narrative from the medical officials’ viewpoint. The official narrative is titled Case file: AB-IA23546-444 Meetoos, Bernice Clara. Within this abbreviated account, the subject is described as a “22 year old Native woman” who is also described as “obese” and

“severely agitated” (p. 120-121). The narrators indicate that she arrived “with partial thickness burns” on her arms, feet, and hands (p. 121). It is noted that her fingertips suffered exceptional damage. The cause, readers are told, is the result of “a fire that killed her uncle and injured the patient” (p. 121). In reproducing a typical medical account, Lindberg invites a comparative analysis between this official record and the narrative told over 256 pages. One of the more striking differences is that Bernice’s medical file seems invested in offering an objective, detached account intent upon producing a linear sequence of events. Birdie, on the other hand, is decidedly subjective, non-linear, and circular in its telling. Within the fictionalized official account, it is clear that readers are instructed to read Bernice as simply an obese Native woman

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who is agitated. Although such accounts purport to adhere strictly to objective facts, it is clear that these narratives are undeniably laden with colonial assumptions, ideologies, and objectives about Indigenous peoples.

In offering Aunty Val’s reaction, Lindberg reveals the authority of official accounts.

Lindberg observes, “the pieces rain down, come together…she now knows. Bernice killed someone. She has always thought of it as an accident because the truth was too painful to even admit to herself. Now, she knows, is the time for truth” (p. 121). As Aunty Val’s reaction reveals, official accounts leave little room for alternative interpretations. Until that point, Aunty

Val held an understanding that accounted for Bernice’s history and their relationship. Upon reading the medical file, however, Aunty Val is convinced that the medical file contains a truth that overrides her knowledge and experiences.

In a follow-up account in the file, Bernice is described as “delirious and mutters. ‘Stay away.’ ‘Sorry.’ ‘Tree Killer.’” (p. 125). In labelling Bernice as delirious, this official account suggests to readers that her mental health is compromised and, therefore, she is not to be taken seriously. Bernice’s own account is further dismissed as muttering; however, by this point readers understand that the phrases recorded here actually describe Bernice’s evolving relationship with her uncle. In situating this official account within Birdie, Lindberg implicitly invites readers to consider everything these medical records fail to address, including the historical context offered by Aunty Val and Bernice’s personal accounts of events. As such,

Lindberg subtly critiques any truth claims issued by such official accounts.

Bernice recalls being admitted into the San after living on the streets of Edmonton for four or five years. In contrast to the medical reports diagnosing the young woman as delirious,

Bernice describes experiencing “a stormy harmony…Freedom within a straitjacket” (p. 98).

Lindberg further elaborates, “What she found was that the ritual of that place, or the ceremony if

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you will, was soothing in its repetition” (p. 99). At the San, Bernice develops a set of rituals and practices that supported her healing. Although she is consequently saddled with mental illness diagnoses, she is nevertheless provided the space to carry out her healing journey within this category. Lindberg illustrates, “She washed her hands four times, repeated certain words (peace peace peace peace) (mother mother mother mother) four times, and patted herself four times

(bless yourself bless yourself bless yourself bless yourself)” (p. 99). Through these rituals,

Lindberg indicates, Bernice develops a cognizance that eventually allows her to undertake the larger journey into her girlhood. Nevertheless, Bernice’s rituals and ceremonies are perceived by medical staff as evidence of disorder. Lindberg notes, “If she could have seen outside herself then, she would have seen the stream of doctors and nurses who walked by her each day” (p. 98).

Suggested here is that although Bernice is subject to constant surveillance and regulation, her healing practices render the colonial scrutiny irrelevant.

Toward Pimatisiwin

As the rhetoric of truth and reconciliation gains more traction amongst Canadians, so too does the interest in Indigenous cultural practices. This interest, however, does not translate into radical systemic change and is often encouraged to the extent that ceremonies fit within Canada’s existing framework (Coulthard, 2014). Lindberg’s decision to feature physical manifestations of

Pimatisiwin throughout Birdie flies in the face of liberal approaches by insisting on the centrality of space and place to Cree ceremonies and culture. The Cree philosophy Mino Pimatisiwin, which is closely related to the Anishinaabe philosophy Mino Bimaadsiwin, is often translated as the good life (Absolon, 2016; Hart, 2002). Through Mino Pimatisiwin, Cree people find instruction and guidance on pursuing a fulfilled life while maintaining good relations with family

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and community. As Bernice’s journey reveals, pursuing Mino Pimatisiwin is not merely a psychic exercise, it is a framework for justice and healing grounded in the material world.

The materiality of ceremony and culture remains a consistent theme throughout Birdie.

According to Lindberg, Bernice’s journey to Pimatisiwin first necessitates a journey through her girlhood and adolescence so that she may return whole. Once Bernice completes her spiritual journey, she has quite literally shed nearly half her weight or what she has referred to as her armour. At this point, Bernice is no longer using deliberate weight gain to physically detach or hide in plain sight. As employer/landlord turned chosen family, Lola silently observes, “The Kid looks gorgeous…Like her body fits her spirit” (p. 234). Even throughout her spiritual journey,

Bernice is undergoing a physical transformation that mirrors her psychic healing. The moment

Bernice decides to reclaim her human form, she is both shaky and powerful. Feeling blood rush through her, “Bernice sits up, no longer a bird…rises shakily to her feet. And realizes. She is on her time” (p. 240). The connections Lindberg establishes between the spirit and the body emphasize the symbiosis between the two. Even when Bernice undertakes her spiritual journey,

Lindberg never suggests that her body is not relevant or important. As a matter of fact, the question of her body is a central concern of Bernice’s loved ones and state officials throughout the novel. The times Bernice is able to take extended spiritual leave are when her corporeal form is in the custody or care of another, whether a straightjacket in The San or the hands of her family.

When readers are first introduced to Pimatisiwin in Bernice’s dreamscape, she is told the tree is hungry, and that “she needs some tiramisu” (p. 3). Throughout Birdie, Bernice’s dreams provide important information and clues about her journey towards Pimatisiwin. Bernice’s dreamscape opens most chapters under the heading “pawatamowin,” which Lindberg translates as dreams. Through her dreams, Bernice has begun preparing for a ceremony of which her

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waking self is not yet aware, “she looked down and saw a note in her scarred and cut scabby hand: muskeg, grapefruit, lemon, cumin…She doesn’t recognize her own handwriting” (p. 5-6).

What Bernice does consciously know is that the four Pimatisiwin scattered around the world are dying. We are told, “The one in Loon Lake was in sad shape. She heard the one in B.C. was dying too, from pollution” (p. 24). While it is clear these trees are highly revered, it is less clear whether anyone, including Bernice and her family, understands that life itself depends upon the survival of these trees. By rooting the philosophy in these four trees, Lindberg insists that pursuing Mino Pimatisiwin requires the ongoing maintenance and protection of the land and everything it holds. Pursuing Mino Pimatisiwin, then, requires spiritually-informed instruction that are then carried out in the physical realm. Throughout the novel, Bernice and her family receive spiritual instructions that do not immediately make sense:

‘I can’t believe we are doing this,’ Skinny Freda grunts as she takes an armload of pine

boughs from Valene off the back of the rented Ram. Valene had the boughs sent from Kelly

Lake, even though she didn’t know why. For this, she thinks and gingerly carries them to

Pimatisiwin. (p. 243)

Only once these preparations are complete can Bernice perform the ceremony at the Pimatisiwin to receive healing and justice after suffering a lifetime of Wahkohtowin violations. Through land-based ceremony, Bernice finally finds peace; thus, reinforcing Lindberg’s argument that restoring Indigenous socio-legal frameworks can effectively address systemic violence and oppression stemming from ongoing settler colonialism.

Lindberg’s Birdie brings Indigenous girls’ experiences with custodial violence to the fore through an in-depth examination of the breakdown of Wahkohtowin under colonial occupation.

Through this analysis, Lindberg establishes critical links between incestuous childhood sexual abuse, gender-based violence, and anti-Indigenous racism to Canada’s settler colonial project.

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Yet, all the while, Lindberg remains committed to mapping out the ways this Cree legal philosophy organizes daily life, as well as to offering paths forward through her extensive engagement with Mino Pimatisiwin. In doing so, Lindberg illustrates a fuller picture of

Indigenous girlhood.

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Chapter 7 Conclusion

When I was a girl, I ran away from home with my younger sister. The morning we left, we packed a knapsack filled with sandwiches, juice boxes, snacks, a change of clothes, and a blanket. We followed a familiar path through the bush towards the water. When we arrived, we laid out our blanket, folded our clothes, and ate lunch while looking out at the seemingly endless expanse before us. We spent the afternoon commiserating, taking comfort in shared misfortunes, as we traipsed across the craggy shoreline, imagining ourselves headed somewhere else. As the sun slipped away and our supplies dwindled, we reluctantly made our way home.

I have often thought about that day. As much as I think about the circumstances and conditions that compelled us to run away, I have also thought about the little world my sister and

I made for ourselves. Whenever I consider the treacherous colonial terrain that Indigenous girls must navigate, this memory reminds me of the skill with which these girls assess danger, harm, and risk; strategize, prioritize, and make decisions; endure when they must; and envision and transform when and with what they can. When I recall this afternoon, I know that Indigenous girls’ experiences under colonial occupation cannot be reduced to violence and suffering—not accurately, anyway. As I continued to reflect on this moment while also considering the daily realities of other Indigenous girls, some reminding me of myself and others not at all, my guiding research question inevitably expanded from considering how violence against Indigenous girls advances settler colonialism to the following interrelated questions: 1) how is the production of

Indigenous girlhood informed by Canada’s settler colonial project, as well as territorial- and nation-based ideologies, systems, and structures; 2) how does Indigenous girlhood influence colonial and decolonial nation-building; 3) and what is the role of narratives about Indigenous girls to nation-building projects?

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Through this project, I have endeavored to examine how Canada’s two central strategies for enacting colonial violence, that is, violence against Indigenous children and gender-based violence, violently intersect on the bodies of Indigenous girls. This first required a critical analysis of colonial institutions targeting Indigenous children, while also attending to the ways in which a hierarchical gender binary organized both these spaces and the children held captive by them. Here, I challenged official claims that these custodial institutions were established to provide Indigenous children with care and guardianship by interrogating thinly veiled assumptions that Indigenous peoples are unable to manage themselves. Through this line of inquiry, it has become undeniably clear that these institutions, far from providing care, were always intended to monitor and manage the most vulnerable Indigenous peoples. Once this was established, it then became necessary to address the hierarchical gender binaries structuring these custodial institutions. While there is no question that all children experienced profound violence, it also must not be denied that because these institutions are modelled after the patriarchal white settler societies from which they emerge, Indigenous girls were subject to subject to particular forms of subordination, surveillance, and management on the basis of their gender assignment alone. The gendered curriculum organizing residential schools is one such example, where children categorized as girls were subject to so-called lessons that severely constrained future economic independence while emphasizing these girls’ socio-political subordination to not only white Canadians, but to their brothers and male peers. In this way, custodial institutions like residential schools targeted all children while enacting gender-based violence.

To better illustrate the ways in which Canada enacts gender-based violence and violence against Indigenous children as part of its settler colonial regime, this analysis has carefully examined Indigenous girls’ experiences within contemporary custodial arrangements, such as educational boarding arrangements, foster homes and hotels, and youth corrections facilities. In

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focusing specifically on present-day custodial institutions, this project has emphasized the continuity of colonial violence even as Canada shifted away from overtly eliminatory tactics.

While the prevalence of residential schools gradually declined from the mid-20th century until the last school closed in 1996, scholars across disciplinary fields have observed the simultaneous emergence and rapid expansion of private home placement, child welfare, and carceral facilities.

At the same time, Indigenous peoples are better able to secure greater protections and rights within the Canadian constitution as Indigenous self-determination enters public discourse. As a consequence, identifying contemporary institutions as colonial is portrayed by the state as not only overly reactionary and extreme, but an inaccurate assessment informed by the past. In granting Indigenous peoples limited protections and rights, which allow communities to administer educational and child welfare programming, Canada has taken the position that violence in the lives of Indigenous girls, and Indigenous people more generally, is an outcome of

Indigenous governance approaches, as opposed to chronic under-funding and other systemic inequities. In direct contrast to this reasoning, this project delves beneath official rhetoric on

Indigenous self-determination to expose the many ways in which the Canadian state continues to exert colonial power over Indigenous peoples through present-day custodial institutions.

By examining the production of official and legal narratives, this project has shed greater light on the role of stories in maintaining and consolidating colonial power. With respect to official and legal realms, stories can be told in the form of research studies, statistics, final reports, websites, and other media. The purpose of stories within official and legal contexts is to ensure the continuation of colonial institutions, with the overarching intent to protect the white settler nation from which these institutions emerge. Furthermore, official and legal narratives protect white settler nations by normalizing eliminatory logics while shifting the burden of responsibility from the state onto Indigenous peoples. With respect to narratives about

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Indigenous girls in official and legal realms, prevailing discourses claiming that these girls are at- risk due to their so-called high-risk lifestyles and dysfunctional cultural and familial upbringing are most commonly deployed to normalize violence and excuse the Canadian state. Through a critical exploration of the eliminatory logics underlying institutional narratives on Indigenous girlhood, this dissertation has endeavored to disrupt the production of such narratives.

In order to offer a fuller picture, this project also examined Indigenous feminist narratives on Indigenous girls’ experiences with violence. To my mind, analyses exclusively focused on colonial narratives just one aspect of a multidimensional matter. My personal experience of girlhood along with the experiences shared with me in relationships with people and stories told me that there was more to the experience of Indigenous girlhood under colonial occupation than these official narratives could ever fathom. Thinking through Belcourt’s powerful thesis shared in chapter two, this project has sought to “discern practices of care and joy where they are expected to be absent” (2018, para. 20). For this reason, I decided to turn to Indigenous feminist literature featuring Indigenous girls’ coming-of-age narratives. Doing so provided, in Belcourt’s words, “an even broader social project, as one that we and our people have co-produced” (para.

20). While the first part of this dissertation offers instruction on how to critically read official narratives, the second part offers ways of critically examining white settler society and producing a narrative that more readily addresses colonial ideologies and structures while also seriously engaging with enduring Indigenous ideologies, relationships, and structures that continue to influence the production of Indigenous girlhood and challenge settler colonialism. Indeed, through Indigenous feminist prose and poetry, it is possible to address settler colonialism, while simultaneously envisioning Indigenous worlds and futurity. Findings and Contributions

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This project offers many contributions to our understanding of Indigenous girlhood and

Canada’s settler colonial regime. In part one, I take up two landmark legal cases focused on

Indigenous girls who died while in state custody. The purpose of the first part is to critically examine the production of official narratives through legal inquests and inquiries. It breaks the process down to its most basic units and reveals the colonial ideologies underpinning each case.

In both chapters, I provide a genealogy exposing the colonial logics underpinning each official narrative while, also, producing a counter-narrative that reveals the centrality of violence against

Indigenous girls to Canada’s settler colonial regime. Each chapter takes up different colonial narrative themes deployed for different life stages of girlhood.

Through a critical examination of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the

Death of Phoenix Sinclair, chapter three focuses on the colonial tactics deployed for managing both the Indigenous girl-child as well as Indigenous teenaged girls who are also mothers. As this chapter reveals, the girl-child is framed as vulnerable to her dysfunctional family and culture and, therefore, must be protected. This rhetoric serves to justify the intrusion of child welfare services within Indigenous families and communities. Teenaged mothers, by contrast, are discursively depicted as dangerous threats who must be managed through Canada’s carceral regime instead of its child welfare system. By examining Canada’s different approaches to managing Indigenous girls at two distinct life stages, this chapter highlights the multiplicity of state management tactics deployed for the purposes of monitoring, containing, and controlling

Indigenous girls.

In chapter four, I examine the official narrative produced about Robyn Harper through the Inquest into the Deaths of Seven First Nations Youth to better understand state management of Indigenous teenaged girls. In stark contrast to the girl-child who is regarded as vulnerable and in need of protection, the teenaged girl is articulated as vulnerable due to her so-called high-risk

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lifestyle. Official narratives describe Indigenous girls as criminal deviants who require a different kind of management, usually through schooling and youth corrections. What these official narratives fail to address are the contemporary policies requiring Indigenous youth to leave home in order to receive an education in much the same way as previous generations. Further, these narratives refuse to seriously consider the dangerous and unsuitable living and educational conditions provided for Indigenous youth as a result of chronic underfunding, systemic gendered anti-Indigenous racism, and settler hostility. Through this chapter, I endeavored to draw out these conditions while, at the same time, provide a critical analysis of the ways in which official narratives depicting Indigenous teenaged girls as at-risk due to their high-risk lifestyles serve to advance Canada’s colonial agenda.

In providing a genealogy on the emergence of child welfare (chapter three) and colonial schooling (chapter four), this dissertation offers new ways for interpreting the conditions of

Indigenous girlhood under colonial occupation. In every instance, the rhetoric of care is deployed to structure custodial institutions and the inform the state actors who animate these spaces.

Whether Canada portrays Indigenous girls as vulnerable to their families or a danger to themselves, care emerges as narrative tactic for capturing and confining these girls in state custody. Once taken into state custody, however, Indigenous girls are oftentimes exposed to state-mandated neglect and abuse. Caring professionals such as social workers, doctors and nurses, teachers, and corrections officers play a key role in this violence, but they are not cartoon villains manically scheming torture methods. Oftentimes, these professionals believe they are helping and doing their best. There are so-called caring professionals who take advantage of their privileged access to violate Indigenous girls; but more often than not, many professionals enact harm by following orders and relying on colonial procedures, practices, and policies. By

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organizing these two chapters into one overarching section, my aim is to shed greater light on these custodial institutions and the state actors populating these spaces.

Part two turns to Indigenous feminist literature to offer a new way for narrating

Indigenous girlhood and possibilities for kinship under colonial occupation. Whereas part one emphasized how to read colonial narratives, part two focuses on the ways in which Indigenous feminist storytelling resists settler colonialism through explorations of Indigenous girls’ knowledge and desirous geography. In this way, Indigenous girlhood is a site of emergence that expands notions of care and kinship. In navigating this colonial terrain, Indigenous girls interpret ruptures with their present-future in mind, thus deploying any and all survival strategies at their disposal while also innovating Indigenous knowledges, socio-political models, and ceremonial practices. In this way, Indigenous girls’ engagement with Indigenous cosmologies, epistemologies, and governance models shifts beyond historicization and resembles something more like futurity mapping devices. Through the works of Vermette and Lindberg, this dissertation elaborates on the production of decolonial narratives that better encapsulates

Indigenous girls’ whole worlds. In these narratives, girls are not reduced to their suffering, rather violence is one part of their existence.

Chapter five critically interrogates the discursive production of Indigenous girls as criminal deviants through Vermette’s The Break. Through a critical exploration of the novel’s teen protagonist and antagonist, this dissertation (re)maps Indigenous girls’ desirous geographies under colonial occupation. In doing so, I contest colonial discourses labelling Indigenous girls as vulnerable or criminal. Instead, this chapter emphasizes how colonial spatial arrangements, disenfranchisement and deprivation, and sexual violence has intergenerational consequences that constrain Indigenous girls’ options. In (re)mapping Indigenous girls’ geographies, this chapter further highlights Indigenous girls’ enduring relationship with their traditional territories and

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traditions. As such, this chapter expands on the ways in which Indigenous girls reconfigure and innovate Indigenous kinship and care models. Throughout this chapter, I have also considered the significance of narration. By attending to Vermette’s decision to tell the story of one girl’s rape from the perspective of multiple characters, The Break invites in-depth analysis of narrative production, knowledge, power, and objectivity. This chapter also provided an in-depth analysis of Vermette’s critique of police approaches to storytelling, which are often alienating and oppressive, even when these police accounts are produced to respond to Indigenous girls’ experiences of violence. Through this line of inquiry, this chapter accompanies Vermette as she considers the possibility of multiple truths and ways for communicating these truths in story.

Through close engagement with Lindberg’s Birdie, chapter six provides a sweeping account of Indigenous girlhood from childhood into adolescence. I look at how Lindberg smashes the stereotype about dysfunctional families and culture and, instead, produces a compassionate Wahkohtowin narrative, a Cree law outlining kinship responsibilities through the story of one Cree girl and her family. Birdie shows how Cree legal frameworks continue to inform families and communities even under colonial occupation. Expanding Lindberg’s legal analysis, this dissertation urges readers to consider the ways in which Indigenous girls and queer youth have critically engaged with Indigenous legal philosophy to better reflect and respond to settler colonialism and cis-heteropatriarchy. I argue that for Indigenous law to continue to bear relevance, it must reflect the desires and circumstances of its members. By dissolving the disciplinary boundaries between literature and law, Lindberg’s Birdie presents a wider audience outside the legal arena opportunities for learning about, engaging with, and expanding Cree legal philosophy. Omissions and Gaps

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There is something unsettling about drawing this dissertation to a close just as it has opened up a much-needed discussion on Indigenous girlhood under colonial occupation. There is still so much that remains incomplete, unaddressed, and conspicuously absent. One thing that might seem most apparent in this project on narratives of Indigenous girlhood is that none of the narratives are by Indigenous girls themselves. This is partly the result of design, choice, and circumstance. In a study focused very specifically on violence in the lives of girls and the narratives surrounding those experiences, this violence is often only recounted in legal arenas when the violence has reached one of its fullest extensions–death. In these cases, the girls themselves are denied the opportunity to tell their story within this particular area, although this is not to say they have not told it at other times prior to their death. Nevertheless, this project does critically engage with instances where Indigenous girls and youth did find platforms to voice their concerns and experiences. In recounting the night of Robyn Harper’s death, Skye

Kakegamic provided testimony that also described her experience of living away from home with boarding family in a racist city. Skye’s participation in this legal process provided an important intervention and interruption to the assembly of colonial narratives about Indigenous girls. In this same inquest, community members advocated for the inclusion of a youth roundtable as part of the process as a means by which to elaborate on contemporary experiences of Indigenous schooling. The Feathers of Hope youth panel included testimony by Brandon

Timmerman, Harley Legarde Beacham, Marilyn Boyce, and Shane Monague. Outside formal legal proceedings, we see youth producing counter-narratives in a number of ways, including youth gatherings and youth-driven reports by the Regional Multicultural Youth Council, based out of Thunder Bay. All this to say that while legal arenas often exclude Indigenous girls’ narrative accounts, these girls inevitably make themselves heard. Throughout this project, I have endeavoured to observe and critically engage with Indigenous girls’ interventions.

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Future Research

In taking up a critical exploration of Indigenous girls’ unique social location to better understand their experiences with systemic violence, this project has shed greater light on the centrality of this violence to Canada’s settler colonial regime. Rather than simply accept girlhood as a biological reality, this research reveals the ways in which race, gender, sexuality, and class intersect to establish girlhood as an exclusive social category. In advancing this argument, this project invites further analysis into the ways in which the production of social categories like girlhood impact non-binary and transgender children and youth also traversing this settler colonial terrain. Indeed, centering the experiences of Indigenous non-binary and transgender children and youth provides another critical entry point for analyzing how the gender binary organizes this settler colonial society. Pursuing this line of inquiry requires further meaningful engagement with the ways Indigenous non-binary and transgender youth are violently categorized, as well as they ways in which they strategically pass and resist depending on their particular social location. And, of course, this area of future research provides even greater breadth and depth to the arguments laid out in this current project. While this dissertation expands our understanding of race, gender, and age, further research grounded by the experiences of non-binary and transgender youth can provide even greater insight on the centrality of sex and sexuality to Canadian settler colonialism.

In contemplating the ways that I can meaningfully center the experiences of Indigenous non-binary and transgender children and youth while also interrogating intersecting structures of oppression shaping these experiences, I began talking to other two-spirit and LGBTQI- identifying Indigenous community members and scholars to figure out what was needed and wanted. One insight that came out of these discussions was the collective realization that many two-spirit and LGBTQI-identifying Indigenous scholars and organizers have long been

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theorizing the intersections of sex, gender, sexuality, and settler colonialism. However, this body of work is mostly unpublished. In this particular instance, I realized that we do not necessarily require new research inquiries or new knowledge; we need to elevate two-spirit and LGBTQI- identifying Indigenous thinkers and actually pay attention to their ongoing discussions. With this realization, I have initiated conversations with two-spirit and LGBTQI-identifying Indigenous scholars on the possibility of publishing a co-edited collection of previously unpublished two- spirit scholarship. In taking up this project, I hope to play a role in disseminating the work of two-spirit and LGBTQI-identifying Indigenous scholars who are also interested in the intersections of sex, gender, sexuality, and settler colonialism.

Going forward, I understand that any future research on Canada as a white settler state must critically engage with the intersections of settler colonialism, xenophobia, and anti-

Blackness. In this particular historical moment, many Indigenous and Black feminist thinkers and writers have begun to grapple with this very matter through their scholarship and creative works. An unexpected outcome of immersing myself in coming-of-age literature on Indigenous girlhood was being exposed to the critical work of Indigenous and Black speculative fiction writers. Although Indigenous and Black writers tend to have distinct priorities and concerns, it is clear that their work is mutually informed. Through the works of Indigenous speculative fiction writers like Cherie Dimaline (The Marrow Thieves), Chelsea Vowel (in 250 Years Revisited), along with Black speculative fiction writers like Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring), I have been provided many opportunities to critically engage with the intersections of anti-

Blackness and settler colonialism from a creative standpoint. It is all at once instructive and heartening to see the ways we write each other into our futures. This signals to me a desire for

Indigenous and Black feminist writers to be in conversation with one another to better address overlapping concerns and contemplate shared possibilities for liberation. As someone who began

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her scholarly program in the midst of these rich and complex conversations on the possibilities and challenges of theorizing anti-Blackness alongside settler colonialism in scholarship and literature, I feel I am well-supported and well-equipped to join this conversation. My Sisters

Nearing the completion of this project, I arranged to meet with my three sisters for a week in June 2019. Each one of us, at our different life stages, with our different circumstances, were working through our own challenges and realized that we really needed to be together. Robin and

I were in the final stages of our studies and thinking about our next steps, my 20-year-old sister

Danielle navigating her new role as a mother to a drooling, teething baby, and my youngest sister, Tristan entering adolescence and everything that entails for teen girls living in Norway

House. It felt like a week without the adults until I realized I was the adult or “kidult” as Danielle has called me. Being a big sister is partially wish-fulfillment, an opportunity to do the things I wish I could have done as a child or be the person I wish I had. Being that person and doing those things mostly looked like cruising around the city, eating fast food, and watching a lot of movies.

Being a big sister also looked like bringing my sisters to Joi T. Arcand’s exhibit “She Used

To Want To Be A Ballerina.” Originally from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Arcand is a multimedia artist who engages photography, graphic design, digital collages, diorama installations, and large-scale installations to Indigenize and reclaim public space. “She Used To

Want to Be A Ballerina,” which showed at the University of Saskatchewan from March 24 to

August 17, 2019, featured two neon signs, a music box, photographs, and several stacks of magazines. Walking through the large dark room illuminated only by the violet fluorescent glow of Nēhiyawēwin signage, I could not read the neon syllabics, yet recognized them immediately. I watched my youngest sister wander into the adjacent room as if called by the melody of the

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music box, while the second youngest along with her baby explored the opposite room filled with back issues of Kimiwan magazine. Curious, I peaked in on my youngest sister contemplating the spinning ballerina housed in a pink box adorned with butterfly stickers and named Buffy after the profound, Cree musical artist, Buffy Sainte-Marie. I thought about the unique challenges and competing pressures she must face as a Cree teenaged girl from a northern, remote reserve that is inundated by western ideologies and practices in media and education. Joining my sister and nephew in the Kimiwan archive, we took photos of the back issues and a few selfies. As we studied each cover, I was overcome with a curious nostalgia as if revisiting my girlhood bedroom.

Visiting spaces of adulthood was one of my favorite things growing up. I wanted to help create a nice moment for my sisters now, and also encourage them to think about their future lives. It might have been awkward for them as I eagerly watched them contemplate each piece under a neon glow. I don’t know what they thought. I think they liked it. I. hope they liked it.

What I do know for certain is that Arcand’s exhibit created a space where I could return to my girlhood with a tenderness that didn’t exist then to appreciate the things that mattered most to me; to have compassion for the parts of me that I felt insecure about, knowing the conditions propping those fears and anxieties up; and to remember the relationships with people, animals, land, water, and sky, along with the practices of my people, that sustained me throughout girlhood. When Arcand says “I used to want to be a ballerina,” there is a recognition of the conditions of Indigenous girlhood generating feelings of inadequacy, but it is really about looking back with the understanding that she was enough, that the people and traditions that sustained her were enough. This is why I brought my sisters to this exhibit. I wanted to tell them that they are enough and that even after accounting for everything taken from us, we still have enough.

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Appendix – List of Online Sources

Commission of Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Phoenix Sinclair

Website: http://www.phoenixsinclairinquiry.ca/

Disclosure No. 11535-11538, CRU Intake & AHU Form, pp. 1-4.

Disclosure No. 36999-37008, Winnipeg Child and Family Services: Case Summary, pp. 1-10.

Disclosure No. 37001, Winnipeg Child and Family Services: Case Summary, pp. 3-4.

Disclosure No. 37003, Winnipeg Child and Family Services: Case Summary (cont’d), pp. 5-6.

Disclosure No. 37009-37023, File Recording for Samantha Kematch, pp. 1-8.

Disclosure No. 37025-37030, Case Summary-Samantha Kematch File, pp. 1-6.

Disclosure No. 37365-37378, Intake Opening/Transfer Summary, pp. 1-14.

Disclosure No. 37586, Child in Care Review: Closing, pp. 1-3.

Disclosure No. 37589, Child in Care Review: Closing (cont’d), pp. 4.

Disclosure No. 37590, Child in Care Review: Closing (cont’d), pp. 5-12.

Disclosure No. 37662-37663, Children’s Logs, pp. 1-2.

Disclosure No. 37699-3770, Kematch Assessment [Description], pp. 2-3.

Disclosure No. 37704-37705, Kematch Assessment [Description] (cont’d), pp. 7-8.

218

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