“Folks Don’t Understand What It’s Like to Be a Native Woman”: Framing Trauma via #MMIW

Abstract

Indigenous people are often part of the “fourth world”—a subaltern community whose members experience poor social outcomes despite living in a first world context. In North American, fourth world status has resulted in a “crisis” of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. Activists have successfully garnered attention to the issue of “MMIW,” pressuring Canada to launch a National Inquiry and prompting US policymakers to introduce legislation. This study considered how Twitter has facilitated MMIW (cyber)activism by cultivating a collective indigenous identity. It considered how participants in #MMIW framed the nature of indigenous trauma in contrast to mass media framings of indigenous issues. The researchers conducted a thematic analysis of 481 tweets sampled from May-July of 2019. They found that hashtag participants framed indigenous trauma as (a) personal and pervasive, (b) systemic and structural, and (c) continued injustice, mobilizing a nation-building discourse.

Keywords:

• Framing
• Native American studies
• social media
• trauma

Notes

1 See https://womensmemorialmarch.wordpress.com/

2 See https://newjourneys.ca/en/articles/13th-annual-sisters-in-spirit-vigils

3 See http://www.theredressproject.org/

4 See http://etfovoice.ca/feature/faceless-doll-project-commemorating-missing-and-murdered-aboriginal-women-and-girls

5 See http://walkingwithoursisters.ca/

Additional information

Funding

This research was completed with funding provided by Rollins College's Student-Faculty Collaborative Scholarship.