Mapping Meaning, the Journal (Issue No. 2)

Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
The Marches
On January 21, 2017, over seven million
people marched in the global Women’s
March, in protest of the violent policies of the
newly inaugurated Trump administration,
and the myriad social and environmental
injustices plaguing the world today.
In Washington, D.C., it was the largest
political demonstration on record, with
estimates of anywhere between 500,000 and
1,000,000 participants; and, over 5 million
of the participants located elsewhere in the
United States. To commemorate the march
and build on its momentum, a second march
was planned for January 20, 2018.
In the 2017 Women’s March, Native American
and indigenous women did participate—
many traveled from remote locations to
Washington, D.C. to do so.
However, the 2018 Women’s March in Seattle
reflected a turn to address the racial and
colonial dynamics of mainstream feminism,
by shifting leadership to local Native women,
and including a call for justice for missing and
murdered indigenous women (MMIW).
be missing from the march as well, and how
we might honor them.
In 2015, I started a database of cases of
MMIW in the US and Canada. By the time
of the 2018 Women’s March, there were
over 2,500 cases logged. So, I made a
Facebook post offering march participants
an opportunity to bring the database to the
streets: anyone who agreed to carry a sign
honoring a missing or murdered indigenous
women from their city, area, or tribe would
be sent a name that they alone would be
responsible for carrying.
By the time the march started, approximately
120 names were disseminated across the US
and Canada. Many of the people who asked
to carry signs sent me photos of their signs,
or of them carrying them.
One of the signs, in honor of Nikita Wilson,
a Choctaw woman who was murdered, is
prominent in one of the now iconic photos of
the Seattle Women’s March.
I believe the spirits of these women would
have been there, whether a sign was carried
in their honor or not.
At the time, I was living in Canada, and
chronically ill. As an indigenous woman,
an advocate for MMIW, and a community
member, I wanted to contribute to the march
in a meaningful way, but knew I could not
physically be there. In feeling that sadness,
that my body just was not able to be there in
that moment, I began to think of all the other
Native women and girls whose bodies would
However, I also believe that the signs
helped them to be strong in their presence,
grounded the march participants in the work
the march aimed to do, and served as a
powerful reminder of the ways in which the
loss of indigenous women pervades each
community.
There are women and girls whose voices
Issue N o 2
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