Life on the Line: Indigenous Women Cannery Workers' Experiences of Precarious Work

This dissertation examines the experiences of Indigenous women engaged in precarious and seasonal salmon cannery work. The dissertation argues that to grasp the nature of the women's work, which is exceedingly precarious, it is necessary to consider how it is shaped by a host of social, political, environmental and economic forces. In particular, the dissertation illustrates how provincial and Canadian neoliberal policies that developed during the past few decades have amplified the vulnerable status of Indigenous women cannery workers. Neoliberal discourses of active (worthy) and passive (unworthy) citizens embedded in social policies powerfully shape qualification requirements to programs such as Employment Insurance and Income Assistance while individualizing social inequalities experienced by Indigenous women. The dissertation employs both decolonizing and feminist methodologies to examine the everyday experiences of Indigenous women and to map out the social relations that shape their experience as precarious workers. Overall the dissertation contributes to making Indigenous women worker's lives more visible, to showing their significance in the salmon canning industry, to highlighting how their precarious labour undermines their well being and that of their families, and to demonstrating their resilience in the face of major obstacles.

DOI: 10.14288/1.0166803