ABSTRACT
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and girls (MMIW) has been a Canadian national issue for decades, with some women and girls remaining missing today. External-influence- related substance abuse, trauma, and discrimination, leads Indigenous women (IW) to face barriers in large institutions such as education or employment markets. This is also seen in their lives when lacking transportation plays a significant role in social inequality. IW living in remote rural reserves on Canadian provinces often face the most barriers and crime because of the lack of accessible healthcare, education, or transportation. Scarce transportation means, such as car ownership or public transport network, both of which are often limited in rural Indigenous communities, leave people to consider, for instance, random hitchhike rides, usually with strangers. Highway 16 in British Columbia is known as the ‘Highway of Tears’ for its history of a disproportionate rate of violent cases targeting IW and positive spatial autocorrelation of abuses in surrounding communities. Our study primarily focuses on mobility access and availability of public amenities along the highway to inquire, and further freely disseminate, informative qualitative-based context online, through interactive maps that are notably honoring and remembering Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada.
INTRODUCTION
The root cause of MMIW is related to historical trauma and systematic racism amongst other social factors. While these factors are critical to solving the problem, the nature of this information limits the spatial analysis we are able to perform and thus, will not be the focus of our study. Instead, we have chosen other factors that we deem are important to this issue and hope to provide insights at the spatial level. Two of the most common factors that researchers identify as explanations to this phenomenon are the poverty within and remoteness of the communities surrounding highway 16 (The Highway of Tears Symposium Recommendations Report). Area remoteness means residents have to travel long distances to get to work, school, stores, and other essential services. Poverty can lead to low car ownership and mobility; coupled with remoteness, hitchhiking is often the only or preferred method of transport to and from their destination, putting themselves in danger (Pelisek, 2011).
This critical cartographic study focuses on exploring the GIScience of the painful Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women situation in Canada. The group seeks to analyze spatial trends which might elucidate some of the sad statistics associated with the ‘Highway of Tears’.
We express our respect and perplexity vis-à-vis oppressing topologies of seemingly higher violent crime rates towards marginalized First Nations communities around the 725km highway. While making information public and interactive, we reflect whether observed violent hot spots are symptoms or consequences of grander issues. We recognize these are human lives, stories, and relationships, not discrete ordered symbols in maps; As the analytical cartographical capacities expressed next have real impacts, we are aware of our responsibilities towards past, current, or derived human geographies and guide our inquiries in that conciliatory direction.
WHAT IS- AND WHY THE HIGHWAY OF TEARS?
British Columbia’s Highway 16 extends from Haida Gwaii Island to the BC - Alberta border. The ‘Highway of Tears’ is a segment of Highway 16 that is specifically located between Prince George and Prince Rupert. Due to the isolation between this portion of the highway, crime is rampant, with its targets being mainly Indigenous women who rely on hitchhiking to travel. Accessibility is a major point to discuss because of the lack of amenities such as healthcare, police stations, and public transit in the surrounding communities around Highway 16. Roadside billboards are built along the highway that discourages hitchhiking and explains the dangers and consequences that may arise from it (Morton 2016).
Morton describes hitchhiking as a form of “contentious mobility”, it gives people less autonomy, as well as attaching a negative stigma since hitchhiking is perceived as dangerous in parts of BC. Thus, transportation and mobility are central to understanding MMIW in BC along Highway 16, primarily because of how isolated the highway is (Morton 2016). By virtue of this remoteness, there is a great deal of insecurity and lack of protection surrounding the area because of how far removed the highway is from urban centres. Efforts to build more infrastructure that supports adequate healthcare and social services are limited (Tallman 2007), this further exacerbates the social disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. Women are primary targets because of their vulnerability, and of the stereotypes often attached to them - namely, being sex workers, being poorly educated, and having little self-control. When Indigenous women are portrayed as “disposable”, it becomes easier for people to detach themselves from empathizing with the crimes committed against them.