Robert Pickton And Murder Of Indigenous Women
Document Type:Research Paper
Subject Area:Criminology
Methods and methodology: ………………………………. • Feminism: …………………………………………………………………………………… 9 • Post-colonial in Canada: ………………………………………………………. …… 10 Results and discussions: ……………………………………………………………. Conclusion: …………………………………………………………………………………………. Abstract: ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 18 References: ……………………………………………………………………………………………. This research paper aims to answer the following questions: 1. Why women were maimed and murdered for three decades before those incidents appear newsworthy. Did media pay more attention to these crime after the arrest of Robert pickton, and if so, to what extent? 3. What does the attention of media in terms of content and coverage tells about sexism, racism and post-colonial ideology in Canada? The research paper begins by tracing the recent history of DTES, specifically drawn from the study of media narratives of the missing women’s cases conducted by jiwani and young (2006). Important events that also took place after Jiwani and Young study that arguably impact how the missing women and murdered women cases were framed in the media are also investigated.
Ethical issues: Race, gender and prostitution: Much research done on the subject of gendered media discourses explores an existing dichotomy of the women as either “Madonna” or the “Whore”. There is a belief that a woman is either innocent, pure, passive and suitable for marriage and child bearing or a whore who is seen as immoral, lacking feminity and not of any worthy and dignity. Balfour argues further that the “lady-like” qualities of the middle to upper class female population define what is considered to be inherently feminine. Relating to the sexual dimension of this dichotomy, sexual promiscuity is especially seen as a sign of immorality for women whereas it is a normalized activity for men. McLaughlin’s complements this approach and further add that respect is given to women deemed “virtuous” (i.
Lowman argues that these mediated narratives were consistent despite the fact that other journalists did find that “many of the women did have close family ties and well-established social habits”. Down Eastside and the Media: Research conducted on the Downtown Eastside itself includes historical studies that emphasize the growing dynamics of the sex trade in Vancouver, along with research recently conducted on the cases of the missing women. Among the foremost of historical writers and researchers on the topic of the sex-trade history of the DTES is Daniel Francis (2006). He argues that in early, twentieth-century Vancouver, much of the business of selling sex was conducted behind closed doors on the dangerous streets of the inner city. The Downtown Eastside became famously known as the “poorest postal code in Canada” riddled with poverty, drug use and survival sex.
Mata’s also maintains that police discovered the body parts of some of the missing women by accident while they were checking a bad smell coming from a freezer during a power outage. Forensic experts searched for DNA evidence and the details of their discoveries flooded onto television reports across Canada. Body parts found in jars in freezers and media theories that Pickton killed these women and then fed them to his pigs resulted in a narrative which focused exclusively on the “gore” of the case. The missing women soon became merely objects in this story. After a three-year long study of the missing women’s investigation, the case against Robert Pickton and the subject of Pickton himself, investigative journalist, Stevie Cameron claims that it was after the raid of the Pickton farm that the public and media became “fascinated” with the idea that we may have witnessed the work of Canada’s most prolific serial killer.
Further, forms of violence against women, including the feminization of poverty and prostitution, can thus be viewed as manifestations of male supremacy. Most of the women missing and murdered in DTES were Aboriginal. With respect to the Aboriginal victims, race is a significant factor intersecting both with gender and social class that renders them particularly disadvantaged materially and socially within Canadian society. Post-colonial theory, as an extension of post-modernist thought is not focused on locating truths but rather on how forms of knowledge claim to speak the truth and thus exercise power over certain peoples. By deconstructing the ways in which society at large, the law, and the media view women living and working on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, definitions of “the good versus the bad woman” and concepts of social invisibility and neglect become apparent.
Canada's colonial past therefore lives on in the dismal social and material conditions of Vancouver's DTES in ways that especially shape Aboriginal women's experiences there. A post-colonial feminist perspective therefore emerges as offering the best analytical tools and concepts for examining the media discourse pertaining to the missing women's cases. As a form of feminist philosophy, post-colonial feminist theory argues that racism, colonialism, and the long lasting effects (economic, political, and cultural) of colonialism shape the present gendered realities of non-white and non-Western women. Many view the Downtown Eastside as an “Urban Reserve” where the triple forces of race, gender and class place Aboriginal women at the bottom of the social hierarchy, and as the victims of fierce brutality and neglect. It is by the sexual exploitation of Aboriginal girls through prostitution that racism, sexism and poverty collide as a lived history of colonization.
In their research, Jiwani and Young also identify what they describe as a “news hole”, referring to the publication ban that was in place concerning the missing and murdered women's cases at the time they completed their project (Jiwani and Young, 2006). They argue that the publication ban created a pathway for more critical coverage of the cases as well as intensified discussion of root social causes of the tragedies of the missing women. This critical coverage can be identified as a counter frame which advocated a position against what was previously presented as dominant truths, thus challenging the dominant frames legitimacy. Emerging during their research, these counter-frames had the potential to be a step in the right direction by challenging readers to look past the stereotypical and racialized ideologies presented. But this potential was lost as reports attempting to paint these women as the “mothers, sisters, daughters, etc.
These themes include the rise and development of grassroots organizations, which took up the cause of the missing and murdered women, the development of the human-interest stories involving individual victims and coverage of the public’s reactions to the emerging court coverage. What follows is a chronological listing of the overarching media frames identified from 2006-11, with some indication of the how each frame corresponds (or not) to the findings of Jiwani and Young. The research was inspired by a desire to understand why the women of the DTES were maimed and murdered for over 3 decades before these devastating cases were deemed newsworthy. The approach through critical discourse analysis (CDA) of identifying and analyzing media framing arguably goes some way toward making intelligible current thinking with regard to racism, sexism and post-colonial ideology in Canada.
This research undertaking begins from the ontological position that public discourses are significant in that they constitute the dominant body of knowledge and therefore have the power to shape opinions held by the general public, and also the content and direction of public policy. By the time an Inquiry into the crimes against the missing women was requested and granted, media emphasis quickly shifted to criminal legal matters, police inefficiency, and ways in which society could “control” the Downtown Eastside and mitigate the violence against women. Strategies included the outlawing of hitchhiking and funding to police and community groups for improved reporting and victim services. There was little discussion as to why a large, disproportionate number of Aboriginal women fell victim to these crimes. In sum, critical analyses of the structural causes of violence against women were lacking and although racism was mentioned in Vancouver Sun media coverage, no connection was made to it as a legacy of Canada’s colonial past.
Conclusion: Clearly, these findings show that post-colonial attitudes are alive and well in Canada. In this research, feminist and post-colonial theoretical concepts such as “lived history” and “intergenerational trauma” are convincing explanatory devices for understanding the Vancouver missing and murdered women’s cases. So too are theoretical perspectives that underscore the tendency for the poor to be cast as criminals who choose to live beyond the margins of respectability. Abstract: This research paper identifies and analyzes media narratives pertaining to the cases of missing and murdered women of Vancouver, published in the Vancouver Sun from 2006-11. Feminist and postcolonial feminist theories are drawn upon to explain the origin and persistence of the dominant narratives as expressions of long-standing societal ideologies concerning marginalized and Aboriginal women in Canada. Employing a frame analysis method associated with critical discourse analysis (CDA), the research accomplishes three related objectives.
Combating violence against women: Documentary tells the story of Dawn Crey, one of the 60 women who went missing from the Downtown Eastside. Vancouver Sun, Final p. D18 Hall, N. February 1). News Summary: The Pickton Trial. Violence Against Women, 6(9), 987-1011. Matas, R. October 29). Robert Pickton could face six new murder charges. Globe & Mail Retrieved from http://www.
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