Representations of security and insecurity in the highway of tears: A critical discourse analysis.

The Highway of Tears is a local term that refers to a stretch of highway in northern British Columbia where an estimated 18 to 35 women and girls have disappeared or have been found murdered since the 1960s (Culbert and Hall 2009). Drawing on feminist approaches to security and International Relations, this thesis explores the concepts of security and insecurity in the case of the Highway of Tears. I use critical discourse analysis to answer the following question: How are the concepts of security and insecurity represented in the discourse of select media related to the Highway of Tears? It was seen that each narrator framed and located security and insecurity differently. Despite varying individual assumptions, the concepts of security and insecurity were represented by two broad shared understandings of security in the context of the Highway of Tears. These shared understandings uncovered a tension in the discourse between traditional conceptions of security and critical, feminist and Indigenous approaches to security. Ultimately, this research has disrupted mainstream assumptions of International Relations and security. Therefore, it provides new insights into research and advocacy for murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls in northern British Columbia and across Canada. --Leaf ii.