Diamond mines in the Northwest Territories are not a girl’s best friend – by Rebecca Hall (The Conversation – April 21, 2022)

https://theconversation.com/

Almost three years ago, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) released its final report and among its findings, the report identified resource extraction as a site of gender violence.

The relationship between extraction and gender violence has been observed in extractive sites around the globe. And in Canada, this gender violence is shaped by extraction and settler colonial dispossession of Indigenous lands and livelihoods. What is it about extractive projects that creates the conditions for gender violence?

In Refracted Economies: Diamond Mining and Social Reproduction in the North, I analyze the gender impact of Canadian diamond mines. As a settler researcher who grew up in southern Canada, I partnered with the Native Women’s Association of the Northwest Territories and spoke with Dene, Métis, Inuit and non-Indigenous northern women about their experiences with the mines.

In Canada, the first diamond mine opened in the Northwest Territories on Dene land in 1998. Since then, three other diamond mines have opened there, and Canada has become the third largest diamond producer in the world.

For the rest of this article: https://theconversation.com/diamond-mines-in-the-northwest-territories-are-not-a-girls-best-friend-179343