What is She Hiding? Gender, Anti-blackness and the Strip-Searching of Black Women and Girls in Canada

This dissertation analyzes the legal and media archives of three cases of the strip-searching of Black women and girls in Canada. Through an extensive analysis of dominant legal and media discourses, this dissertation explores the ways in which Black women and girls are discursively constituted within the archives of the cases. The research examines the ways in which the strip- search encounter is a site of gendered and sexualized state violence that ultimately reveals the relation between the Canadian nation-state and Black women and girls. This study aims to explore but also intervene in Canada’s project of disavowing gendered anti-Black violence and asserts that this violence is not aberrational but instead, is foundational and constitutive of the Canadian nation-state. I situate these cases as part of a long and ongoing legacy of state violence and I illuminate the logics, narratives and discursive practices that naturalize the violence of the strip-search and obscure gendered anti-Black racism.

Department dc:contributor.department

Social Justice Education

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Latty, Stephanie Kayla

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Razack, Sherene

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1807/130820

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/130820