On this week’s episode of Talking Radical Radio, Audrey Huntley of the No More Silence network and Krysta Williams of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network speak about organizing against the violence experienced by indigenous women and about a new project in which they are partnered that will contribute to building that movement.
Violence directed at indigenous women has been integral to the settler domination of this continent since the time of contact. To this day, state violence and state-enabled interpersonal violence against indigenous women is massive and devastating. But it is also — again, as it has been since contact — the site of brilliant and inspiring resistance. In one of the most recent chapters of the Canadian state abetting this violence, the federal government decided to cut its funding to a non-governmental project that maintained a database of the many missing and murdered indigenous women in this country, and to turn the whole thing over to the RCMP. In response, indigenous women and their allies are building a new database, one that exists beyond the reach of settler institutions, and that is envisioned as part of building a larger movement not only against gendered colonial violence but for decolonization. Huntley and Williams talk with me about the broader context of violence against indigenous women, about the larger movement into which their own work fits, and about the database project in which both are partners.
To learn more about No More Silence, click here. To learn more about the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, click here.
In the course of the interview, Hunltey and Williams also mention several other important initiatives and resources, including Walking With Our Sisters, Hunltey’s films The Heart Has Its Own Memory and Go Home, Baby Girl, and a talk by Andrea Smith at the No More Silence event in early 2013.
Talking Radical Radio brings you grassroots voices from across Canada through in-depth interviews that concentrate not on current events or the crisis of the moment, but on giving people involved in a broad range of social change work a chance to take a longer view as they talk about what they do, how they do it, and why they do it. To learn more about the show in general, click here.
You can also learn more about ways to listen or go to the show’s page on rabble.ca. To learn more about suggesting grassroots groups and organizations for future shows, click here. For details on the show’s theme music, click here.
Talking Radical Radio is brought to you by Scott Neigh, a writer, media producer, and activist based in Sudbury, Ontario, and the author of two books examining Canadian history through the stories of activists.
