Lessons from the street: Using street art to disrupt misrepresentations and invisibility of indigenous women and girls in Canadian mass media
Keywords:
feminist public pedagogy, street art, Indigenous women and girls, misrepresentation, Canadian mass media, educationAbstract
This article discusses the potential of street art to counter misrepresentations of Indigenous women and girls in Canadian mass media, where common tropes of being incompetent mothers or criminals, amongst others, are pervasive. In this article, I look at examples of street art that showcase Indigenous women as caring, empowered, and knowledgeable individuals. These examples of street art generate not only alternative narratives on Indigenous mothering, agency, and knowledge but also provide visibility, as research shows the stories of Indigenous women and girls are not consistently seen in Canadian mass media. Negative representations of Indigenous women and girls have been connected to the violence they experience in Canada; therefore, disrupting these misrepresentations and stereotypes is of vital importance.
References
Aguilar, B. (2021, March 15). Stretch of murals in north Etobicoke to be demolished as part of Finch West LRT construction. CTV News. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/stretch-of-murals-in-north-etobicoke-to-be-demolished-as-part-of-finch-west-lrt-construction-1.5347288
Anderson, K. (2009). Leading by action: Female chiefs and the political landscape. In G. G. Valaskakis, M. D. Stout, & E. Guimond (Eds.), Restoring the balance: First Nations women, community, and culture (pp. 99–123). University of Manitoba Press.
Anderson, K. (2016). A recognition of being: Reconstructing Native womanhood (2nd ed.). Women’s Press.
Bédard, R. E. M. (2019). Holding and carrying our babies: A gift-giving practice in Anishinaabeg mothering cultural traditions. Canadian Woman Studies, 34(1–2), 67–77. https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/view/37799
Bogerts, L. (2017). Mind the trap: Street art, visual literacy, and visual resistance. Street Art & Urban Creativity, 3(2), 6–10. https://doi.org/10.25765/sauc.v3i2.76
Boscaino, M. (2021). Developing a qualitative approach to the study of the street art world. Street Art & Urban Creativity, 7(2), 8–25. https://doi.org/10.25765/sauc.v7i2.473
Brant, J. (2014). From historical memories to contemporary visions: Honouring Indigenous maternal histories. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative, 5(1), 35–52.
Dentith, A. M., O’Malley, M. P., & Brady, J. F. (2014). Public pedagogy as a historically feminist project. In J. Burdick, J. A. Sandlin, & M. P. O'Malley (Eds.), Problematizing public pedagogy (pp. 26–39). Routledge.
Elliot, C. (2016). You will be punished: Media depictions of missing and murdered Indigenous women (Publication No. 1863) [Master’s thesis, Wilfrid Laurier University]. Scholars Commons @ Laurier. https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/1863
Galloway, G. (2012, December 26). As protests swell, Attawaspiskat chief stands firm on hunger strike. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/as-protests-swell-attawapiskat-chief-stands-firm-on-hunger-strike/article6734968/
Ghani, B. (2021). Culture and conflict: Kabuli art as public pedagogy. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 18(3), 273–294. https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2020.1832002
Green, R. (1975). The Pocahontas perplex: The image of Indian women in American culture. The Massachusetts Review, 16(4), 698–714. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25088595
Gunther, A. (2022). Murals & mother nature: Urban environmental art in Lisbon reveals great concern and appreciation for the environment. Independent Study Project Collection, Article 3443. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/3443
Harding, R. (2006). Historical representations of Aboriginal People in the Canadian news media. Discourse & Society, 17(2), 205–235. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926506058059
Holmes, A. (2014). Street art as public pedagogy & community literacy: What walls can teach us. Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts, 1(1), 34–48. https://ed-ubiquity.gsu.edu/wordpress/holmes-1-1/
Iddings, A. C. D., McCafferty, S. G., & da Silva, M. L. T. (2011). Conscientização through graffiti literacies in the streets of a São Paulo neighborhood: An ecosocial semiotic perspective. Reading Research Quarterly, 46(1), 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.46.1.1
Jiwani, Y. (2009). Symbolic and discursive violence in media representations of Aboriginal missing and murdered women In D. Weir & M. Guggisberg (Eds.), Understanding violence: Contexts and portrayals (pp. 63–74). Inter-Disciplinary Press.
Jiwani, Y., & Young, M. L. (2006). Missing and murdered women: Reproducing marginality in news discourse. Canadian Journal of Communication, 31(4), 895–918. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2006v31n4a1825
Joseph, B. (2018). 21 things you may not know about the Indian Act: Helping Canadians make reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a reality. Indigenous Relations Press.
Journalists for Human Rights. (2020, December 14). MMIWG and the media: Getting it right [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/CfROvGT4UYU
Konnikova, M. (2014, December 17). How headlines change the way we think. The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/headlines-change-way-think
Longstaffe, M. (2017). Indigenous women as newspaper representations: Violence and action in 1960s Vancouver. The Canadian Historical Review, 98(2), 230–260. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/660138
McDiarmid, J. (2019). Highway of tears: A true story of racism, indifference and the pursuit of justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Atria Books.
Moeke-Pickering, T., Cote-Meek, S., & Pegoraro, A. (2018). Understanding the ways missing and murdered Indigenous women are framed and handled by social media users. Media International Australia, 169(1), 54–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X1880373
Monkman, L. (2016, March 26). Behind First Nations headdresses: What you should know. CBC.ca. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/behind-first-nations-headdresses-1.3506224
Nahwegahbow, A. K. (2017). From great-grandmothers to great-granddaughters: “Moving life” in baby carriers and birchbark baskets. RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, 42(2), 100–107. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/racar/2017-v42-n2-racar03379/1042949ar/
National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. (2019a). Reclaiming power and place: The final report of the National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (Vol. 1a). https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Final_Report_Vol_1a-1.pdf
National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. (2019b). Reclaiming power and place: The final report of the National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (Vol. 1b). https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Final_Report_Vol_1b.pdf
Paling, E. (2018, January 31). Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs calls out Globe and Mail for ‘victim blaming headline.’ The Huffington Post. https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/assembly-of-manitoba-chiefs-calls-out-globe-and-mail-for-victim-blaming-headline_a_23349587
Palmater, P. (2016). Shining light on the dark places: Addressing police racism and sexualized violence against Indigenous women and girls in the national inquiry. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 28(2), 253–284. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.28.2.253
Pfliger, A. (2020). The framing of Indigenous Canadian families: A historical discourse analysis. Canadian Journal of Family and Youth, 12(2), 69–83. https://doi.org/10.29173/cjfy29514
Razack, S. H. (2002). Gendered racial violence and spatialized justice: The murder of Pamela George). In S. H. Razack (Ed.), Race, space, and the law: Unmapping a White settler society (pp. 121–156). Between the Lines.
Rodrigues, A. A. (2018). Pop-up pedagogy: Exploring connections between street art, feminist literacy practices and communities [Doctoral dissertation, York University]. YorkSpace. http://hdl.handle.net/10315/34971
Rose, G. (2016). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials (4th ed.). Sage.
Stillman, S. (2007). ‘The missing White girl syndrome’: Disappeared women and media activism. Gender and Development, 15(3), 491–502. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20461232
Sunseri, L. (2008). Sky woman lives on: Contemporary examples of mothering the nation. Canadian Woman Studies, 26(3–4) 21–25. https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/view/22108
Tam, B. Y., Findlay, L. C., & Kohen, D. E. (2017). Indigenous families: Who do you call family? Journal of Family Studies, 23(3), 243–259. https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2015.1093536
Tucker, A. (2016). Media and the perpetuation of Western bias: Deviations of ideality. Mount Royal University Institute for Community Prosperity. https://www.mtroyal.ca/nonprofit/InstituteforCommunity Prosperity/_pdfs/icp_angie_studentreport.pdf
Unceded Voices. (2014, August 31). ITW #4 — Red bandit [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/TPZwOVQK6nY
Viswanath, K., Ramanadhan, S., & Kontos, E. Z. (2007). Mass media. In S. Galea (Ed.), Macrosocial determinants of population health (pp. 275–294). Springer.
Wabie, J.-L. (2019). Kijiikwewin aji: Sweetgrass stories with traditional Indigenous women in Northern Ontario. International Journal of Indigenous Health, 14(2), 54–73. https://doi.org/10.32799/ijih.v14i2.31677
Wall of Femmes. (2010, November 10). Who what why. https://web.archive.org/web/20151013022246/http://www.walloffemmes. org/2010/11/who-what-why.html
Women Paint [@women_paint]. (2020, May 21). @natalielauraking is naturally resilient [Photograph]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CAdC7JmAxBj/
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 McGill Journal of Education / Revue des sciences de l'éducation de McGill
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
