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Article

English

ID: <

10670/1.jkev6o

>

·

DOI: <

10.29173/cjs28261

>

Where these data come from
Hitchhiking and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Billboards on the Highway of Tears

Abstract

whether too much or the wrong kind, constraining Indigenous mobility is a preoccupation of the province of British Columbia. The province focal points on controlling Indigenous mobility and constructing forms of Contentious mobility, such as hitchhiking, as bad or risky. In Northwestern British Columbia hitchhiking is particularly common among Indigenous women. Hitchhiking as a mode of Contentious mobility is classified as “bad mobility” and is frequently explained away as risky behaviour. Mobility of Indigenous women, including hitchhiking is Deeply gendered and racial. The frequent description of missing and renovated Indigenous women as hitchhikers or drifters fosters a sense that “taking” a bad mode of mobility alone is the reason that these women disappear. This paper will identify how hitchhiking, framed as Contentious mobility supports the construction of missing and murdered Indigenous women as willing, available and blame-worthy victims. Morality is tangled up with mobility in the provincial’s responses to Indigenous women who hitchhike. This paper engages in a critical discourse analysis of billboards posted by the province of British Columbia along the Highway of Tears that attempts to prevent women from hitchhiking. This paper will identify the point of convergence between Contentious mobility, violence against Indigenous women and wider questions of colonialism and the negotiation of racial and gendered power balances through the provincial’s training of Indigenous mobility. Excessive or poorly targeted summary, attempts to restrict the mobility of Autochtones in the province of British Columbia are a cause of concern. The province strives to monitor the mobility of Autochtones and to present controversial forms of mobility, such as self-stop, as undesirable or risky practices. In the north-west of British Columbia, self-stop is a particularly common practice among indigenous women. Self-stop as a controversial mode of mobility is referred to as ‘undesirable mobility’ and is often considered a risky behaviour. The mobility of indigenous women, including the practice of self-stop, has a deeply sexualised and ethnic dimension. The frequent description of indigenous women abducted or murdered as self-stoppses or fugitives feeds a perception that the “choice” of a risky mode of transport is the only reason why these women have disappeared. This article discusses how presenting the practice of self-stop as a high-risk means of transport encourages the perception of indigenous women abducted or murdered as consenting victims responsible for their fate. The province’s response to autostop indigenous women is a discourse on mobility in a moralising tone. This article provides a critical analysis of the speeches of the signs displayed by the province of British Columbia along the road of peers trying to deter women from self-stopping. This article identifies the point of convergence between controversial mobility, violence against indigenous women and broader issues on colonialism and the negotiation of the imbalance of power linked to ethnicity and gender through the province’s constraint on the mobility of indigenous people.

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