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“They deserve a future,” said Associate Professor Jennifer Brant, as she recited Alyssa General’s poem Accomplice at a gathering of mothers, sisters, daughters, aunties, and friends in the �������� Library on Feb. 24. The “they” refers to many Indigenous women, girls, sisters, and victims of colonized, racialized and sexualized violence.

The Indigenous Literatures Lab, directed by Professor Jennifer Brant, invited a panel of select colleagues to the �������� Library stage – those who co-edited and contributed to the collection Rematriating Justice: Honouring the Lives of Our Sisters in Spirit — to explore its themes. Gayatri Thakor, Project Coordinator for the Indigenous Literatures Lab and a doctoral student at ��������, worked closely with Toronto-based Another Story bookshop to organize the event.

Co-editor Dr. Dawn Lavell-Harvard, director of First Peoples House of Learning at Trent University, and co-author Sana Shah, a doctoral candidate at the University of Waterloo, joined Dr. Brant on stage as panelists. Dr. Kai Recollet, an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto Women and Gender Studies Institute, moderated the conversation.

Rematriating Justice is a follow up to the release of the edited collection Forever Loved: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada (2016) and reflects on six years since the publication of the 231 Calls to Justice in The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The book — a collection of essays, testimonies, and poems – directly contributes to these Calls for Justice by demanding accountability and policy change. The book centres the voices of Indigenous women, families and communities by offering insights that honour collective calls to rematriate justice for Indigenous sisters.

A Gathering Practice

With a smudging ceremony, an interactive board for art and reflection, local beadwork vendors and refreshments from a local Indigenous caterer, the event organizers curated a gathering practice which sought to foster a welcoming environment for discussion, awareness and action to strongly call for justice for Indigenous families and communities.

The justice in question is specific. As highlighted in a CBC report card, there has been little movement on the 231 Calls to Justice since their release. Among these calls are those aimed at educational institutions, particularly 11.1 and 11.2, which call on all levels of education to provide lessons and promote awareness about racialized, sexualized and gender-based violences against Indigenous peoples and ensure these lessons unpack the historical and contemporary realities of these violences by examining legislated policies and colonial practices that continue to affect Indigenous peoples in Canada today. 

Lamenting the recent passing of Senator Murray Sinclair, Dr. Recollet, an urban Cree scholar, artist, and writer, recalled his teachings on the importance of spiritual work. “Spiritual work is a huge responsibility,” she said, referencing Sinclair’s belief that it is incumbent upon everyone to “raise that consciousness” and provide ongoing support to Indigenous women and girls.

Dr. Lavell-Harvard, whose mother, , brought her case against gender-based discrimination in the Indian Act of Canada to the Supreme Court in 1973,  shared a story about traveling with her family from Northern Ontario to a Premier’s summit in Charlottetown. During a radio interview about justice for Indigenous women and girls, Dr. Lavell-Harvard recalled telling her listeners, “our girls are in danger.”

When she finished, her 4-year-old, who had been quietly listening, and had some questions.

“Am I in danger?” 

“’No, no you’re not in danger!’” Lavell-Harvard was near tears. She calmed her daughter’s fears, but knew that there much work ahead to make it a reality.

Dr. Recollet asked the panel about the book’s themes and each contributor’s connection to advancing the 231 Calls to Justice. She was especially curious about how Sana Shah came to her doctoral work. Shah, whose research examines how mainstream media shapes how Indigenous women and girls are perceived, first began engaging with Indigenous families as an undergraduate at Brock University under the tutelage of Robyn Bourgeois, an Associate Professor in the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies.

As she learned more about these families’ experiences, Shah’s attention quickly turned to mainstream media and how stories from Indigenous women and girls were explored and produced compared to those in white communities.

Today, Shah is seeking a more granular understanding if this dynamic, and her doctoral research has broadened to include both provincial and national contexts.

“What about the systems in place?” Shah asks.

It is a sentiment that goes to heart of these proceedings. As Dr. Brant remarked, this book and these conversations are part of a continued effort to uncover “layered and textured findings” – ones that strengthen the case for the kind of justice reflected in the very title of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report,