Considering the high prevalence of cases of missing and murdered indigenous women in Canadian history, there remains an underwhelming amount of mapping on the subject. In our research, we could only find public domain maps that represented smaller populations, or could not provide specific information about women. In recent months, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has devoted more attention to the issue than it has in the past, launching a visual database of cases of missing and murdered indigenous women in early April 2015. We have mapped the cases that they examined onto a comprehensive map of Canada in order to visually express the numbers and the spread of the sociological phenomenon.
It should be noted that there were problems that arose in utilizing the CBC database. The database included a number of data errors, such as conflicting narratives, names, dates and locations. We feel this is part of the larger issue in how missing and murdered indigenous women are presented in the media in that little care and attention is put toward the factual details of their stories. Nonetheless, we did our best to overcome these discrepancies and acknowledge that our work can be built on.
Some of the locations represent multiple cases. Click on the coloured plot-points to see how many cases there are for each location, and use the arrows at the bottom of the text box to scroll through them. Adjust the map using the grey box on the left to view the plot points according to the woman's age, the year she went missing, or her home community.
It should be noted that there were problems that arose in utilizing the CBC database. The database included a number of data errors, such as conflicting narratives, names, dates and locations. We feel this is part of the larger issue in how missing and murdered indigenous women are presented in the media in that little care and attention is put toward the factual details of their stories. Nonetheless, we did our best to overcome these discrepancies and acknowledge that our work can be built on.
Some of the locations represent multiple cases. Click on the coloured plot-points to see how many cases there are for each location, and use the arrows at the bottom of the text box to scroll through them. Adjust the map using the grey box on the left to view the plot points according to the woman's age, the year she went missing, or her home community.
View Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women in CBC Archi in a full screen map