Rebelling against discourses of denial and destruction: Mainstream representations of Aboriginal women and violence; resistance through the art of Rebecca Belmore and Shelley Niro By Rachel Deutsch A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work Graduate Department of Social Work University of Toronto © Copyright by Rachel Deutsch (2008) Rachel Deutsch Rebelling against discourses of denial and destruction: Mainstream representations of Aboriginal women and violence; resistance through the art of Rebecca Belmore and Shelley Niro Convocation 2008 Master of Social Work Faculty of Social Work University of Toronto Abstract Violence against Native women in Canada is widespread and has deeply systemic and colonial roots. This paper will attempt to show the role that dominant representations of culture, race, and gender have in allowing this violence to continue by eclipsing many different narratives and ways of expressing cultural and individual identities. Violence in the mainstream media will be explored and analyzed drawing on concepts from critical theories, Aboriginal epistemological frameworks, and anti-racist, disability, and Afro- centric feminisms to build a framework on which to analyze the meanings of the representations. After exploring violent and colonial discourse, the discussion will turn to art. Self and cultural representation and expression by Native women can act as important forms of resistance to the tools of colonial oppression. The artwork of Rebecca Belmore and Shelley Niro are powerful examples of addressing and exploring issues of identity, culture, resistance, and survival for Aboriginal women. ii Rebelling against discourses of denial and destruction: Mainstream representations of Aboriginal women and violence; resistance through the art of Rebecca Belmore and Shelley Niro Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………....... p. iv Chapter 1: Introduction..................................................................................... p. 1 1. Empathy as responsibility, subjectivity, and voice: Approaching the theme of violence against Aboriginal women 2. Not new, not over: Violence against Aboriginal women and Canada’s role 3. Colonialism and The Indian Act: Legacies and consequences for Aboriginal women 4. Approaching the research: Where did I fit? 5. Chapter overview and structure of the thesis Chapter 2: Gender violence, Indigenous knowledge, and a framework for resistance: Approaching the literature............................................................. p. 23 1. Gender violence: Stolen lands and stolen bodies 2. Cultural representation and control 3. Indigenous identity, knowledge, and resistance 4. Summary of chapter and Research Questions Chapter 3: Design and Methodology................................................................ p. 38 1. Case studies 2. Discourse analysis, image and art analysis using a phenomenological approach 3. Risks and benefits Chapter 4: Mainstream violence, discourses of violence and denial ............ p. 46 1. Constructed, invisible, and confusing: Race and absence of race in mainstream media 2. Deviance and (de)sexual violence 3. I’m just a working guy: The normalization of Pickton and violence Chapter 5: Becoming a rebel, reclaiming identities ..................................... p. 65 1. Resisting violence, missing women, and creating space for stories 2. Representing the self: Aboriginal women making art 3. Memory of women and violence in the work of Rebecca Belmore 4. The rebel: Mime, memory, and identity in the work of Shelley Niro Chapter 6: Conclusions ................................................................................... p. 111 1. Changing discourses and lessons learned 2. Social work, discourse, and art References …………………………………………………………………….p. 118 Acknowledgements iii I would like to thank Lee Maracle for her wisdom and guidance, and especially for creating Stacey. Through Stacey, I was able to explore my own processes of responsibility and empathy. The guidance of Njoki Wane and the talks, support, and careful feedback from Adrienne Chambon pushed me to become involved in my work in a way that was emotionally possible and that provoked self-discovery and learning. Thank you Adrienne for opening the door to art. I also need to express my gratitude for the art of Rebecca Belmore and Shelley Niro. Exploring their painful, humourous, insightful, and courageous pieces helped me to move past fear, distancing, and simple anger to see life and resistance. iv Chapter 1: Introduction 1. Empathy as responsibility, subjectivity, and voice: Approaching the theme of violence against Aboriginal women. Wander around [her] insides, feel your way through decades, generations of lostness […] discover her spirit, bent, then broken. Re-invent [her], re-imagine her, hang onto the picture of perfect being letting go, spiraling down into shame. Picture the rootlessness she must feel. (Raven speaking to Stacey in “Ravensong,” Maracle, 1993, p. 39). Empathy is important to understanding and reacting to historical processes and to the lives of others. Often, understanding of empathy is relegated to sympathy and a kind of appreciative sentiment. In this sense, it almost seems necessary to develop a positive attitude and kind feelings toward an individual, event, or situation (Yeager and Foster, 2001). Empathy as taught in mainstream social work education is shown to be an emotional response to the experience of others. Yet, empathy must be more than this. Empathy must combine both an intellectual and emotional response, and must come from active engagement in thinking about people, events, or situations. In thinking about empathy, it is important to think about who are others, assumptions about who we are, and about the separation and “differentness” that we have from others. I first came to approach the theme of violence against Aboriginal women through feelings of sadness, disgust, and almost a sense of panic. I was vaguely convinced that Canada was a falsely and hypocritically formed country and that it was the responsibility of all Canadians to look at issues relating to Aboriginal women. I initially began to think about this topic from the perspective of policy change and structural legal issues that were oppressive and that contributed to the violence that Aboriginal women experienced on personal, group, and cultural levels. However, in looking at my early explorations of this theme, it was clear to me that I was writing for a white, colonial audience that, like me, needed to be convinced that Aboriginal women mattered. In the process of thinking about others, I began to wonder if I was using empathy. If I was, was empathy enough? Lastly, I questioned whether I understood what empathy was. 1 Despite feeling that all Canadians had a responsibility to look at their complicity in the structural and colonial violence against Aboriginal women, I did not feel a greater or more profound connection to these issues as my immediate reaction of anger towards a simplex perpetrator created a distance between myself and the violence. What I experienced was a jumble of emotions that were often so overwhelming that I often needed to put them away and to distance myself from my research. Sometimes, I would stop the research altogether for a few weeks. In looking at my initial drafts, I saw that my written voice was defensive, condescending, and argumentative. I wanted to convince my audience (clearly not an Aboriginal audience) that the topic mattered without needing to look at myself nor to look at the very women I was trying to defend. It was important to consider my own identities and voice in looking at the importance of how these worked for others in both creating violence and in resisting and surviving violence. It was important for me to take a closer look at empathy. It is helpful to look at Lee Maracle’s (1993) Ravensong as an exploration of empathy as connected to responsibility through the valuing of life within a collective culture. In Ravensong, Maracle, an award-winning writer and teacher of Salish and Cree ancestry, explores the role of memory, community, and survival in a story about the flu epidemic in 1950s British Columbia. Reminiscent of the European diseases that tragically killed much of the Aboriginal population during the early part of colonization, the flu causes panic and sadness for the Aboriginal community in the narrative. Stacey, the young protagonist, reflects on the impending loss of lives for her community and the great value of individuals within her collective culture. She thinks, “white people didn’t seem to live this way. No one individual was indispensable. Their parts didn’t seem bonded to their whole” (p. 26). Young Stacey reacts to the neglect that the white medical system paid to her community and the lack of understanding of what losses of one person meant for the whole. Certain people were bearers of cultural knowledge and if they were to die before their time, the culture as a whole would suffer a great loss. All people were important not only for their individual value, but for their role in maintaining cultural wholeness. It is important to consider how the loss of life can be understood. This understanding can help to guide my own approach to loss of life in my own research. When one of Stacey’s white classmates, Polly, commits suicide, Stacey tries to come to grips with 2 her death. Polly has killed herself in response to shame she felt about being publicly identified as having