Eleanore Koller

Title: Statistics and Stolen Sisters: Challenging the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Epidemic Through Indigenous Research Methodology

Abstract: This project evaluates the 2018 study Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls: A Snapshot of Data from 71 Urban Cities in the United States by Annita Lucchesi and Abigail Echo-Hawk through the lens of Indigenous research methodology. As one of the first large-scale, Indigenous-led analyses of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic in urban areas, the study represents a critical intervention into longstanding gaps in federal and local data collection and the jurisdictional challenges which accompany them. Echo-Hawk’s work challenges the structural invisibility of Indigenous women, who, as she notes, “disappear not once, but three times: in life, in the media, and in the data.”

Building on Echo-Hawk and Lucchesi’s foundation, this project demonstrates that Indigenous epistemology reshapes data collection and exposes colonial research framework limitations. While the Urban Indian Health Institute study provides unparalleled insight into urban experiences, its findings underscore the urgent need for expanded, community-driven research that includes rural and reservation communities.

This project proposes the development of a comprehensive, national study guided by Indigenous methodology actualized by Echo-Hawk and Lucchesi. Such a framework would require accurate racial classification, collaboration with the law enforcement of Native nations, and standardized protocols that address jurisdictional barriers in the cases of Indigenous relatives. Drawing primarily from Kovach’s Indigenous Methodologies and from Cunneen and Tauri's Indigenous Criminology, this proposal contends that Indigenous epistemology can transform fragmented data systems into visible, transformative, systemic change in addressing the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic.