Library Guides: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives: Home

Photo courtesy of Lorie Shaull, CC BY-SA 2.0

Related Subject Guides

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the librarians at the University of New Mexico and the X̱wi7x̱wa Library at the University of British Columbia whose outstanding research guides on the MMIWGT2S crisis provided a model and inspiration for this guide.

Land Acknowledgement

We would like to recognize that the University of Denver and the greater city of Denver reside within the traditional territories of Hinonoeino (Arapaho), Tsitsista (Cheyenne), and Nunt'zi (Ute). We recognize the descendant communities of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of Montana, the Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming, the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. We also acknowledge that over 40 different Indigenous nations continue to be in relation with the lands currently called Colorado (https://morgridge.du.edu/about/diversity-equity-inclusion/land-acknowledgement).

Featured Books

As We Have Always Done by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Call Number: E99.C6 S659 2017
ISBN: 9781517903862
Publication Date: 2017-10-17
Across North America, Indigenous acts of resistance have in recent years opposed the removal of federal protections for forests and waterways in Indigenous lands, halted the expansion of tar sands extraction and the pipeline construction at Standing Rock, and demanded justice for murdered and missing Indigenous women. In As We Have Always Done, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson locates Indigenous political resurgence as a practice rooted in uniquely Indigenous theorizing, writing, organizing, and thinking. Indigenous resistance is a radical rejection of contemporary colonialism focused around refusing the dispossession of Indigenous bodies and land.
The Beginning and End of Rape by Sarah Deer
ISBN: 1452945748
Publication Date: 2015-11-01
Winner of the Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award Despite what major media sources say, violence against Native women is not an epidemic. An epidemic is biological and blameless. Violence against Native women is historical and political, bounded by oppression and colonial violence. This book, like all of Sarah Deer's work, is aimed at engaging the problem head-on--and ending it. The Beginning and End of Rape collects and expands the powerful writings in which Deer, who played a crucial role in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013, has advocated for cultural and legal reforms to protect Native women from endemic sexual violence and abuse. Deer provides a clear historical overview of rape and sex trafficking in North America, paying particular attention to the gendered legacy of colonialism in tribal nations--a truth largely overlooked or minimized by Native and non-Native observers. She faces this legacy directly, articulating strategies for Native communities and tribal nations seeking redress. In a damning critique of federal law that has accommodated rape by destroying tribal legal systems, she describes how tribal self-determination efforts of the twenty-first century can be leveraged to eradicate violence against women.
Conquest by Andrea Smith
Call Number: E98.W8 S62 2015
ISBN: 9780822360384
Publication Date: 2015-04-24
In this revolutionary text, prominent Native American studies scholar and activist Andrea Smith reveals the connections between different forms of violence--perpetrated by the state and by society at large--and documents their impact on Native women.
Critically Sovereign by Joanne Barker (Editor)
ISBN: 0822373165
Publication Date: 2017-03-30
Critically Sovereign traces the ways in which gender is inextricably a part of Indigenous politics and U.S. and Canadian imperialism and colonialism. The contributors show how gender, sexuality, and feminism work as co-productive forces of Native American and Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, and epistemology. Several essays use a range of literary and legal texts to analyze the production of colonial space, the biopolitics of "Indianness," and the collisions and collusions between queer theory and colonialism within Indigenous studies.
Forever loved : exposing the hidden crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada by D. Memee Lavell-Harvard and Jennifer Brant
ISBN: 1772580678
Publication Date: 2016
The hidden crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada is both a national tragedy and a national shame. In this ground-breaking new volume, as part of their larger efforts to draw attention to the shockingly high rates of violence against our sisters, Jennifer Brant and D. Memee Lavell-Harvard have pulled together a variety of voices from the academic realms to the grassroots and front-lines to speak on what has been identified by both the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations as a grave violation of the basic human rights of Aboriginal women and girls. Linking colonial practices with genocide, through their exploration of the current statistics, root causes and structural components of the issue, including conversations on policing, media and education, the contributing authors illustrate the resilience, strength, courage, and spirit of Indigenous women and girls as they struggle to survive in a society shaped by racism and sexism, patriarchy and misogyny.
Highway of Tears by Jessica McDiarmid
ISBN: 9781501160301
Publication Date: 2019-11-12
"These murder cases expose systemic problems... By examining each murder within the context of Indigenous identity and regional hardships, McDiarmid addresses these very issues, finding reasons to look for the deeper roots of each act of violence." --The New York Times Book Review In the vein of the bestsellers I'll Be Gone in the Dark and The Line Becomes a River, a penetrating, deeply moving account of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls of Highway 16, and a searing indictment of the society that failed them. For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The corridor is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis. Journalist Jessica McDiarmid meticulously investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate in which Indigenous women and girls are overpoliced yet underprotected.
How We Go Home : Voices from Indigenous North America by Sara Sinclair
ISBN: 9781642593907
Publication Date: 2020
How We Go Home shares contemporary first-person stories in the long and ongoing fight to protect Native land, rights, and life. Each of the twelve narrators’ experiences are shaped by loss, injustice, resilience, and the struggle to share space with settler nations.
Indigenous Nationhood by Pamela Palmater; Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair (Foreword by)
Call Number: E78.C2 P353 2015
ISBN: 9781552667958
Publication Date: 2015-10-01
Indigenous Nationhood is a selection of blog posts by well-known lawyer, activist and academic Pamela Palmater. Palmater offers critical legal and political commentary and analysis on legislation, Aboriginal rights, Canadian politics, First Nations politics and social issues such as murdered and missing Indigenous women, poverty, economics, identity and culture. Palmater's writing tackles myths and stereotypes about Indigenous peoples head-on, discusses Indigenous nationhood and nation building, examines treaty rights and provides an accessible, critical analysis of laws and government policies being imposed on Indigenous peoples. Fiercely anti-racist and anti-colonial, this book is intended to help rebuild the connections between Indigenous citizens and their home communities, local governments and Indigenous Nations for the benefit of future generations.
In Good Relation by Sarah Nickel (Editor); Amanda Fehr (Editor)
ISBN: 9780887558535
Publication Date: 2020-05-01
Over the past thirty years, a strong canon of Indigenous feminist literature has addressed how Indigenous women are uniquely and dually affected by colonialism and patriarchy. Indigenous women have long recognized that their intersectional realities were not represented in mainstream feminism, which was principally white, middle-class, and often ignored realities of colonialism. As Indigenous feminist ideals grew, Indigenous women became increasingly multi-vocal, with multiple and oppositional understandings of what constituted Indigenous feminism and whether or not it was a useful concept. Emerging from these dialogues are conversations from a new generation of scholars, activists, artists, and storytellers who accept the usefulness of Indigenous feminism and seek to broaden the concept. In Good Relation captures this transition and makes sense of Indigenous feminist voices that are not necessarily represented in existing scholarship. There is a need to further Indigenize our understandings of feminism and to take the scholarship beyond a focus on motherhood, life history, or legal status (in Canada) to consider the connections between Indigenous feminisms, Indigenous philosophies, the environment, kinship, violence, and Indigenous Queer Studies. Organized around the notion of "generations," this collection brings into conversation new voices of Indigenous feminist theory, knowledge, and experience. Taking a broad and critical interpretation of Indigenous feminism, it depicts how an emerging generation of artists, activists, and scholars are envisioning and invigorating the strength and power of Indigenous women.
In My Own Moccasins by Helen Knott
ISBN: 9780889777316
Publication Date: 2020-03-21
An unflinching memoir of addiction, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds of sexual assault from a resilient, emerging Indigenous voice.
Keetsahnak / Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters by Kim Anderson (Editor); Maria Campbell (Editor); Christi Belcourt (Editor); Stella August
Call Number: E98.W8 K448 2018
ISBN: 9781772123678
Publication Date: 2021-11-12
In Keetsahnak / Our Murdered and Missing Indigenous Sisters, the tension between personal, political, and public action is brought home starkly as the contributors look at the roots of violence and how it diminishes life for all. Together, they create a model for anti-violence work from an Indigenous perspective. They acknowledge the destruction wrought by colonial violence, and also look at controversial topics such as lateral violence, challenges in working with "tradition," and problematic notions involved in "helping." Through stories of resilience, resistance, and activism, the editors give voice to powerful personal testimony and allow for the creation of knowledge.
Red River Girl: The Life and Death of Tina Fontaine by Joanna Jolly
ISBN: 9780735233942
Publication Date: 2019
Remembering Vancouver's Disappeared Women by Amber Dean
ISBN: 9781442660847
Publication Date: 2018-09-28
Dean interrogates representations that aim to humanize the murdered or missing women, asking how these might inadvertently feed into the presumed dehumanization of sex work, Indigeneity, and living in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.
Violence Against Indigenous Women: Literature, Activism, Resistance by Allison Hargreaves
ISBN: 1771122498
Publication Date: 2017-08-24
Violence against Indigenous women in Canada is an ongoing crisis, with roots deep in the nation's colonial history. Despite numerous policies and programs developed to address the issue, Indigenous women continue to be targeted for violence at disproportionate rates. What insights can literature contribute where dominant anti-violence initiatives have failed? Centring the voices of contemporary Indigenous women writers, this book argues for the important role that literature and storytelling can play in response to gendered colonial violence. Indigenous communities have been organizing against violence since newcomers first arrived, but the cases of missing and murdered women have only recently garnered broad public attention. Violence Against Indigenous Women joins the conversation by analyzing the socially interventionist work of Indigenous women poets, playwrights, filmmakers, and fiction-writers. Organized as a series of case studies that pair literary interventions with recent sites of activism and policy-critique, the book puts literature in dialogue with anti-violence debate to illuminate new pathways toward action. With the advent of provincial and national inquiries into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, a larger public conversation is now underway. Indigenous women's literature is a critical site of knowledge-making and critique. Violence Against Indigenous Women provides a foundation for reading this literature in the context of Indigenous feminist scholarship and activism and the ongoing intellectual history of Indigenous women's resistance.

University of Denver

Native Student Alliance
The Native Student Alliance (NSA) is a DU community consisting of (but not limited to) students and faculty of Indigenous American descent. NSA's goal is to increase awareness and allies on DU’s campus and to provide fellowship and support for members, as well as promoting diversity.
Native Student Alliance Resource Links
Native American and Indigenous Initiatives
Learn about the University of Denver Native American Community Advisory Board (NACAB), The Native Student Alliance (NSA), the Native American Student Scholarship Fund, and much more.
Native American Community Advisory Board
The University of Denver Native American Community Advisory Board (NACAB) was established by the Task Force on Native American Inclusivity (2016). The NACAB’s members provide strategic expertise and valuable advice on how the University can better serve, recognize, and support our Native American students, faculty, and staff, as well as Native American communities more broadly.

Subject Guide

Jenny Bowers

Email Me

Contact:

University Libraries

2150 E. Evans Ave.

Denver, CO 80208

(303) 871-3403

Subjects: Anthropology, Communication Studies, Film Studies, Gender Studies, Journalism / Media Studies, Psychology, Social Work, Sociology / Criminology

University of Denver

University Libraries

Research Guides

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives: Home

Introduction

Photo courtesy of Lorie Shaull, CC BY-SA 2.0

Related Subject Guides

Acknowledgements

Land Acknowledgement

Featured Books

University of Denver

Subject Guide