A Life of Death: Necropolitics and Indigenous Women in Canada

William Hollingshead, M.A in Sociology at Queen’s University

Abstract

This article mobilizes Achilles Mbembé’s concept of necropolitics in the context of the Canadian settler-colonial state and its treatment of Indigenous women. Extending the sovereign’s right over life, this article makes evident the Canadian state’s manufacturing of, and apparent right over, death. An indictment of the colonial state, it is demonstrated that an existence preoccupied with violence and death is produced through colonial-patriarchal legislation and language meant to dehumanize the already excluded.