| dc.description.abstract | Indigenous people of Canada have been relocating from their home communities, and
moving into larger urban city centers at unprecedented rates (Norris, Clatworthy, & Peters
2013). The population shift of Indigenous-based mobility from their respective home
communities, and into larger metropolitan areas has been well discussed throughout the
literature. Specifically, this social pattern has been transpiring in Thunder Bay, which has
brought awareness to the new challenges and barriers that many Indigenous peoples
experience when migrating to Canada’s larger urban cities (Peters 2009). The young
Indigenous female population in Thunder Bay are at a larger disadvantage (NIMMIWG,
2017), in terms of safe spaces, which consequently highlights that there is a gender
differential that ought to be researched further.
Urban Indigenous women are at a disadvantage within society in terms of
accessing culturally appropriate safe spaces (Ontario Native Women’s Association n.d.;
Latimer, Sylliboy, MacLeod, Rudderham, Francis, Hutt-MacLeod, Harman, & Finley
2018:1). This master’s thesis is a case study of Indigenous women aged 18-29 in Thunder
Bay and surrounding areas. This paper seeks to address the relationship between safety
and individualized notions of how identity is developed amongst the Indigenous youth
population. Therefore, I pose the question, how do notions of Indigeneity or cultural
identity impact visions of what is necessary to create a safe space in an urban context?
Furthermore, how do young Indigenous women conceptualize notions of safe space in
Thunder Bay, in terms of their hopes, dreams and wishes of achieving their version of
Mino-Bimaadiziwin – the good life? | en_US |
