Intersectionality is a theory and practice that challenges reductive ways of framing difference. It “refers to both a normative theoret ical argument and an approach to conducting empirical research that emphasizes the interaction of categories of dif-ference (including but not limited to race, gender, class, and sexual orientation)”
(Hancock, 2007, p. 63).
Critical approaches to intersectionality seek social justice by revealing and re-sponding to the ways that people can be both oppressed and privileged when their identities or social positions intersect with each other, and within social structures.
Intersectionality assumes that peoples’ experiences are deeply affected by social and political systems that are largely created by dominant groups. The IAP is no excep-tion. Although Indigenous people were considered stakeholders in developing the model, the dominant ideologies of the State and legal frameworks were held sacro-sanct.
The contribution of intersectionality to public policy is helpful for thinking about the structural effects of colonization. The construction of the Independent Assess-ment Process, unlike other parts of the Indian Residential School SettleAssess-ment Agree-ment or other examples of reconciliation (for example, Rwanda, South Africa, Chile), relied on individual law and personal/individual compensation (that is, Western knowledge and values and common law). If intersectional and Indigenous approach-es had been used, it is more likely that communitiapproach-es would have been the focus. As a former Indigenous friend and scholar pointed out, “The impact of individualization of our legal relations moves Aboriginal nations further away from our traditions,
which are kinship-based and collective. That women are the focus of these trends cannot escape our attention” (Monture, 2014, p. 77).
An intersectional lens points out other problems with the IAP model – that is, for example, in the design of the model the stakeholders used a unitary definition of survivor – that is, the model did not recognize gender, class, ethnicity (nationhood);
class, traditional lands, communities, languages, etc. Thus when the IAP hearings compensated for harms or acts of abuse the categories in the model privileged the male body (Hanson, 2016), heterosexual relations, the English language, individual versus collective harms and so on. The impacts of this in policy and legal practices are best summed up in the words of the women who experienced the IAP as survivors of the Indian Residential Schools or as adjudicators (judges) in the process. As a scholar concerned with the way Canada continues to implement the IAP as a model for compensating survivors of abuses suffered at the Residential Schools, I worked with an Indigenous community organization to implement a gender and diversity analysis of the IAP. The study demonstrated how women’s lives and experiences were excluded from compensation and how hetero-normative, male bodies were privi-leged (Hanson, 2016). Emphasizing compensation models that taken into account the many ways that discriminatory factors such as race, sex and class can combine to create inequality and exclusion is one way to build policies and programs that more truly reflect a spirit of reconciliation and healing.
The quotes that follow came from participants in my first IAP study, they demon-strated how the absence of an intersectional lens created a model that privileged male bodies and heterosexuality, that valued only paid work, and that ignored differences between the over 50 Indigenous nations in Canada. The sources of the quotes were interviews with adjudicators in the process– they are all women; both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. In particular, the categories of compensation (and harms) in the model and the way it was developed was criticized by feminist adjudicators.
This process is really based on what the common law is. Traditional work such as hunting, trapping is recognized … that’s easier to recognize because there is a proven history, but women’s work is not. It’s not different from other cases, where women’s work is not valued (adjudicator, interview).
The other problem is that some of the model comes out of our understanding of abuse by male pedophiles which is about sexual gratification. … I don’t think female pedo-philes or women who abuse sexually are well understood and haven’t been incorporat-ed into the model (adjudicator, interview).
One or more incidents of attempted anal or vaginal penetration – excluded digital penetration – the thing is when is an attempt proven? How close do you have to be to prove? You can have a narrow interpretation i.e. pants down; might be attempted rape but penetration is the emphasis on that section. There is something missing. Penetra-tion, not the pre-cursor, is the emphasis (adjudicator, interview).
The acts were not defined in a sexual abuse model. Sexual abuse model is about power – power and control over a child. I think what they’ve tried to do in the model is say,
“This is sexual assault”, … and what could be sexual assault – so they’ve plugged in the male model. But some the acts should have been defined in their own terms not using terms like fondling. Fondling can’t just mean a caress, right? (adjudicator, interview) A Northern Cree woman and a Mohawk woman have a very different way of explain-ing sexual assault. In Cree I don’t think there is a word for it, they have to describe it.
Meanwhile the adjudicator is looking for credibility and the speaker [Survivor] may think their description in English is making sense when it’s not (adjudicator, inter-view).
They (policy-makers) chose steps because they had to make a chart that differentiated different acts. The law doesn’t do that. Here they chose a chart and that’s to find uni-formity. … but by doing that you’re creating something that doesn’t exist in the law and then I think you needed more thought and conversation about sexual acts. The construction of the steps was made very narrowly and sexual assault doesn’t happen like that (adjudicator, interview).
To encourage a public understanding of how the model discriminated, I wrote an opinion piece for a daily newspaper. In particular it explains how the model, by ig-noring a gender analysis had discriminated against women because it failed to rec-ognize and value unpaid work. Here is a quote from that op-ed which illustrates this point:
The government states the goals of the IAP are “healing and reconciliation.” It is hard to imagine that recalling serious physical or sexual abuse from childhood memories, which are then judged and assessed a level of compensation under the IAP model, is a form of healing or reconciliation. What’s more, the model discriminates by not valuing care-giving or unpaid work — work done mainly by women. A prairie-based [Cana-dian], community-university gender analysis of the IAP demonstrates several ways the model discriminates. One finding was the irreparable cost, frequently born by the indigenous mothers, of losing their children — a cost the model did not acknowledge or support. For example, the IAP compensates former residential school students for loss of income or opportunity if the abuse they suffered at the schools can be linked to their inability to hold or function in paid employment or in succeeding with educa-tional pursuits. But the model fails to compensate survivors if the abuse they suffered at Indian Residential Schools led to substance use or social dysfunction that disrupted family functioning, leading to a child welfare system’s apprehension of their children.
… It is ironic that although Indian Residential Schools trained indigenous women to be domestics and caretakers, the removal of children by child welfare authorities is not compensable. This omission of valuing unpaid work is not unique to the IAP model as other Canadian legislation also fails to value unpaid work traditionally done by wom-en (Hanson, March 2, 2017).
Using a framework that brings together Indigenous and Western knowledge might have contributed to building a policy model that would have more closely modeled the complexities of people lives and priorities. Instead, as several survivors in the study noted, the IAP re-traumatized survivors and provided little or no healing or reconciliation (Hanson, 2016).