Disavowing Colonialism

The Master's thesis, "Disavowing Colonialism: The Canadian Federal Government on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women," conducts a critical discourse analysis of 15 reports produced by the Canadian Federal Government regarding the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). The thesis argues that while Indigenous groups and human rights organizations attribute the violence to historical and ongoing colonization, the government reports systematically disavow this link by positioning colonization as a historical event that has since concluded. This enables the reports to elide the colonial settler-state's responsibility and accountability for the violence, instead framing it as a sociological problem of Indigenous dysfunction. By focusing on symptoms like poverty, drug abuse, and domestic violence as the "root causes", and by creating a false dichotomy that favors "action" (like enhanced criminal justice powers) over further research or inquiry, the government effectively reproduces colonial narratives, ultimately preventing the development of comprehensive and specific policies needed to address the crisis