In 2004, Amnesty International characterized Canadian society as "indifferent" to high rates of violence against Indigenous women and girls. When the Canadian government took another twelve years to launch a national inquiry, that indictment seemed true.

Invested Indifference offers a divergent perspective by examining practices during three different periods in the place we now call Edmonton, juxtaposing early settler texts, documents concerning the former Charles Camsell Indian Hospital, and contemporary online police materials. Kara Granzow reaches a startling conclusion: that what we see as societal indifference doesn't come from an absence of feeling but from a deep-rooted and affective investment in framing specific lives as disposable.

Granzow demonstrates that through mechanisms such as the law, medicine, and control of land and space, violence against Indigenous peoples has become symbolically and politically ensconced in the social construction of Canadian nationhood.

About the Author
Kara Granzow is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta.

Reviews

Granzow has produced a must-read book on Canada's murdered and disappeared indigenous women... This book is highly recommended, as it will surely lead to excellent discussions and insights into issues of continued colonization.

-- L.L. Lovern, Valdosta State University * CHOICE *



Book Information
ISBN 9780774837439
Author Kara Granzow
Format Hardback
Page Count 284
Imprint University of British Columbia Press
Publisher University of British Columbia Press
Weight(grams) 500g