Location: PSH (Professor Stuart Hall Building) - LG01,
Goldsmiths, University of London, Building 2
Campus Map Contributor: Mylynn Felt, University of Calgary, Canada
Indigenous peoples of Canada have been expressing concern over the high rate of murdered and missing women in their communities for a decade. Following the RCMP report which confirmed that Indigenous women are four times more likely to be murdered or kidnapped than other Canadians, these claims intensified into a broad social media campaign calling for a national inquiry into the matter. This campaign uses several hashtags, but primarily one representing murdered and missing Indigenous women (#MMIW). As a result of 2016 federal election campaign promises, Canada’s new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has begun the process of the requested national inquiry. This research examines election-related tweets containing #MMIW. This article seeks to interrogate this social media campaign through the lens of affect theory. What role does affect play in collective action claims making? What are the triggers generating affective responses from MMIW advocates during the 2015 Canadian federal election? A mixed-method content analysis reveals that anger, hope, and disgust are the most prominent affects conveyed in this campaign. Emotional triggers focus on incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper as an enemy to the cause and on memorial practices and events remembering those lost. Social networks develop cohesion through affective solidarity. The anger, hope, and disgust shared through this political frame convey the movement of activists who realized their hopes for change.
