Indigenous Battered Women Who Kill: A Qualitative Thematic Analysis

Abstract

This thesis explores the topic of Canadian-Indigenous battered women who killed their intimate abusers and seeks to better understand these women’s experiences, their treatment within the Canadian criminal justice system, and how BWS was used in their cases. A theoretical framework comprised of Indigenous Feminisms and Intersectionality was used to guide this research study and to shed light on the lived experiences of Indigenous battered women who killed their abusers. Various important Indigenous Feminist theorists such as Dian Million (2013) and Patricia Monture-Angus (1998) were drawn upon as well as advocates for Intersectionality such as Patricia Hill-Collins (2019). A qualitative thematic analysis was performed to create four overarching themes from eight cases where Indigenous battered women killed their intimate abusers.