{"id":5060,"date":"2014-09-06T09:54:48","date_gmt":"2014-09-06T14:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/?p=5060"},"modified":"2015-10-13T13:30:02","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T18:30:02","slug":"now-is-the-time-for-canada-to-commit-sociology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2014\/09\/06\/now-is-the-time-for-canada-to-commit-sociology\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada: \u201cCommit Sociology,\u201d Protect Indigenous Women"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cover<\/a>
Photo from “Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview” by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Read the full report here<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the wake of last year\u2019s Boston Marathon bombing and a foiled plot to attack a Via Rail train, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told citizens<\/a> now is not the time to \u201ccommit sociology.” Rather than look for the underlying causes of problems like homegrown terrorism, he stressed the power of law enforcement agencies to express the government\u2019s condemnation of violence. While his position was contentious at the time, its efficacy has recently come under fire again, this time from members of Canada\u2019s large Aboriginal community.<\/p>\n

After the body of Tina Fontaine, a 15-year-old indigenous woman, was pulled from the Red River in early August, a vigil was held in Winnipeg in her memory. More than a thousand people gathered at the vigil, renewing calls for a national public inquiry into the cases of nearly 1,200 Aboriginal women and girls who have been reported<\/a> missing or murdered since 1980. According to the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network<\/a>, the vigil\u2019s guide, Wab Kinew, directly addressed the Canadian federal government\u2019s refusal to address the alarming pattern. \u201cIs now the time to make that change?\u201d he asked. \u201cIs now the time we say no more stolen sisters? We say that violence against women must stop. And if we go home and do nothing about this it\u2019s a missed opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Harper\u2019s response<\/a>, delivered in a speech at Yukon College, reiterated the stance he took last year on terrorism. He urged Canadians not to\u00a0understand missing and murdered aboriginal women as a \u201csociological phenomenon\u201d and instead, to \u201cview it as a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0problem with this view, explain<\/a> sociologist Julie Kaye and public policy scholar\u00a0Daniel B\u00e9land in\u00a0the Toronto Star<\/em>, is this:<\/p>\n

If the prime minister would take the time to consult even the most rudimentary criminology textbook, he would find that crime is a social phenomenon shaped by powerful historical and social forces. Inequality among different populations in society is one of these forces. In Canada, it is a well-established fact that aboriginal peoples, who face much more poverty and unemployment than the national average, are more likely to be victims of violent crimes than other Canadians\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Harper\u2019s downplaying of \u201cthe undeniable and well-documented reality that social inequality and violent victimization are closely linked\u201d takes the focus off differences in perception of state power, as Kaye and B\u00e9land note. But, they stress, it is necessary for him to “at the very least, consider that aboriginal women do not want their murders to be solved, they want to live.” We must remember,<\/p>\n

Violence against aboriginal women is a crime but a crime rooted in a particular social context, a context the prime minister suggests Canadians should disregard. He does so at the expense of the lives and safety of aboriginal women.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, Aboriginal Canadians are not the only minority group with a high victimization rate.\u00a0To learn more about the “homocide divide” in the United States, see this piece<\/a>. Also, check out this Citings & Sightings article<\/a>\u00a0about\u00a0press coverage of a study with similar findings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of last year\u2019s Boston Marathon bombing and a foiled plot to attack a Via Rail train, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told citizens now is not the time to \u201ccommit sociology.” Rather than look for the underlying causes of problems like homegrown terrorism, he stressed the power of law enforcement agencies to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1952,"featured_media":5062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,55],"tags":[27524,356,39116,3658,190],"class_list":["post-5060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-gender","tag-aboriginal","tag-canada","tag-crime","tag-victimization","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2014\/09\/Screen-Shot-2014-09-06-at-9.17.52-AM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1952"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5060"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5071,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5060\/revisions\/5071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}