An Era of Violence Against Native Women: Uncovering Colonial Violence in the U.S. Violence Against Women Act

在2021年重新授权《对妇女的暴力行为法》（VAWA）时，美国总统乔·拜登（Joe Biden）将性侵犯率称为“无数面临虐待风险的[土著]妇女的大流行病中的大流行病”，并得出结论，“这是一场紧迫的危机”（2021年）。1994年首次颁布的《暴力侵害妇女法案》代表了一个立法时代，该法案将暴力侵害美洲土著妇女的“危机”视为一个“问题”，需要利用美国联邦法律来“解决”。27年后，暴力行为有增无减，近85%的土著妇女报告说，她们一生中遭受过性暴力。虽然VAWA包括加强刑事管辖权和为部落提供资金的“解决方案”，但很少有人注意VAWA“解决”的“问题”。我的项目挑战了“问题”显而易见的假设。避免讨论的意图或“有效性”，我显示的方式VAWA创建，构成，并塑造它声称要解决的暴力。通过部署土著女权主义和非殖民化的框架，我介入评估政策研究，探讨如何非常真实的暴力土著妇女面临的是（重新）生产的联邦政策话语。由于拜登政府优先考虑《VAWA》，因此有必要批判性地评估其在（重新）制造针对原住民妇女的暴力行为方面的作用。通过询问《VAWA》中提出的问题化或将问题表示为问题的方式，我回答了首要问题：《暴力侵害妇女行为法》中关于原住民妇女的问题是什么？使用Bacchi的（2009）“问题代表什么？”（WPR）的话语政策分析工具，我解决的问题化的文本，潜在的逻辑，沉默和抗议，以及生活和话语的影响。我也认为：1。VAWA内部的问题化如何依赖于殖民话语的理所当然的“真理地位”？2.在VAWA时代，这些问题化是如何改变或稳定的？3. VAWA援引了什么形式的治理和生物政治？4. VAWA的土著倡导者如何复制或质疑这些问题化？我的研究提供了三个贡献历史法律的研究和定居者的殖民地研究纳入交叉，非殖民化的方法。首先，我打破传统的评估政策分析，揭示潜在的殖民逻辑。现有的关于VAWA的研究主要是“有效性驱动”，使用法律的框架来解释立法的历史和漏洞（Crepelle，2020; Reed，2018），而土著学者也将VAWA置于土著法律的体系中（Agtuca，2014; Allison，2019; Deer，2015）。尽管现有的话语分析讨论了与非土著妇女有关的VAWA（Meisel，2016），我的研究独特地将话语分析与历史和性别方法相结合，以使法律中根深蒂固的殖民真理变性，创造空间来想象土著妇女安全的替代路径。第二，我的分析介绍了WPR方法去殖民化和政策和法律的研究在美国这项研究建立在我的2020年论文从伦敦经济学院，没有“安全印度妇女”：在2013年重新授权对妇女的暴力行为法，其中只侧重于一个迭代的VAWA的殖民主义的逻辑问题。这种方法为这两个领域提供了一个新的解释框架，以了解殖民暴力在U.S. law.Finally，通过定位作为一个有意义的时代，在联邦印第安人法的VAWA，我发现殖民主义作为一个暴力的，正在进行的项目，专门针对土著妇女。虽然有些人将VAWA评估为广泛的反暴力政策时期（Gover &摩尔，2021），但没有人认为长达数十年的立法是一种复杂的，但有凝聚力的方法来管理原住民。

Speaking on the 2021 Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), U.S. President Joe Biden referred to the rate of sexual assault as 'a pandemic within a pandemic for countless [Native] women at risk for abuse,' concluding, 'this is an urgent crisis' (2021). The VAWA-first enacted in 1994-represents an era of legislation that presents the 'crisis' of violence against Native American women as a 'problem' to 'solve' using U.S. federal law.After 27 years, the violence continues unabated, as nearly 85 percent of Native women report experiencing sexual violence in their lifetime. While the VAWA includes 'solutions' that enhanced criminal jurisdiction and funding for tribes, little attention has been paid to the 'problem' the VAWA 'addresses'. My project challenges the assumption that the 'problem' is obvious. Eschewing discussions of intent or 'effectiveness', I show the ways the VAWA creates, constitutes, and shapes the very violence it claims to solve. By deploying Indigenous feminist and decolonising frameworks, I intervene in evaluative policy research to explore how the very real violence Native women face is (re)produced by federal policy discourse. As the Biden administration prioritises the VAWA, it is essential to critically appraise its role in (re)creating violence against Indigenous women.By interrogating the problematizations-or ways in which issues are represented as problems-offered in the VAWA, I answer the overarching question: What is the problem represented to be in the Violence Against Women Act regarding Native women?Using Bacchi's (2009) 'What's the Problem Represented to Be?' (WPR) discursive policy analysis tool, I address the problematizations in the text, the underlying logics, the silences and contestations, and the lived and discursive effects. I also consider:1. How do the problematizations within the VAWA rely on the taken-for-granted 'truth status' of colonial discourses?2. How have these problematizations changed or stabilised over the era of the VAWA?3. What forms of governmentality and biopolitics are invoked by the VAWA?4. How are these problematizations reproduced or contested by Native advocates of the VAWA?My research offers three contributions toward historical legal studies and settler colonial studies by incorporating an intersectional, decolonising approach. First, I break from traditional evaluative policy analysis to uncover underlying coloniallogics. Existing research on the VAWA is largely 'effectiveness-driven', using legal frameworks to explain the history and loopholes of the legislation (Crepelle, 2020; Reed, 2018), while Native scholars have also situated the VAWA within Indigenous legal systems (Agtuca, 2014; Allison, 2019; Deer, 2015). Although existing discursive analyses discuss the VAWA in relation to non-Native women (Meisel, 2016), my research uniquely combines discursive analysis with historical and gendered approaches to denaturalise the ingrained colonial truths in the law, creating space to imagine alternative paths to safety for Indigenous women. Second, my analysis introduces the WPR methodology to decolonising and policy and legal studies in the U.S. This research builds on my 2020 thesis from the LSE, No 'Safety for Indian Women': Problematizing Logics of Colonialism in the 2013 Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which focused on just one iteration of the VAWA. This approach offers both fields a new interpretative framework to understand colonial violence in U.S. law.Finally, by positioning the VAWA as a meaningful era in Federal Indian Law, I uncover colonialism as a violent, ongoing project specifically targeting Native women. While some have evaluated the VAWA as a period of broad anti-violence policy (Gover & Moore, 2021), none have considered the decades-long legislation as a complex, but cohesive approach to governing Native peoples.