Cultural Genocide and Gender: The Impact of Canada's Residential Schools on Indigenous Women

Ellemers, Mirjam

Cultural Genocide and Gender: The Impact of Canada's Residential Schools on Indigenous Women

Thesis / Dissertation

2026

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Political Studies

Abstract

This thesis analyses the gendered impact of Canada's cultural genocide by examining the effects of the residential school system (1828-1997) on Indigenous women. By situating cultural genocide within other components of genocidal features, namely gender, genocide by attrition, and social death, gendered social roles and cultural identity in the context of forced child removal in Canada is fully contextualized. While much of the existing literature focuses on physical and biological violence as the origin of social harm, this thesis highlights how indirect forms of violence, enacted through social and cultural mechanisms, facilitated the destruction of Indigenous communities. Placing survivor stories and testimonies gathered through Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in conversation with theories of genocidal harm, this study reveals the deeply gendered nature of the harm perpetrated by residential schools. I demonstrate how the separation of women from their children eroded their role as carriers of culture and agents of continuity from three perspectives—community, mothering, and the natural environment—an impact that continues to this day. By foregrounding Indigenous women's experiences within the broader narrative of cultural genocide, this research contributes to an expanded understanding of genocide that centres gender and reaffirms the importance of Indigenous-led scholarship, storytelling, and knowledge in shaping conceptions of genocide from a culturally informed perspective.