‘I don’t need any more education’: Senator Lynn Beyak, residential school denialism, and attacks on truth and reconciliation in Canada

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Sean Carleton
Keyword(s):  
Residential School ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation

scholarly journals Truth and reconciliation cinema: an ethico-political study of residential school imagery in contemporary Indigenous film

2021 ◽  
pp. 117718012110124
Author(s):  
Tyson Stewart
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
School System ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Unanswered Question ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Historical Archive ◽  
The Way

This article explores an important facet of the New Wave of Indigenous filmmaking in Canada: residential school system history and imagery, its place in the historical archive, and the way it is being retold and reclaimed in films like Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013), Savage (2009), Sisters & Brothers (2015), Indian Horse (2017), and The Grizzlies (2018). While researching this topic, one unanswered question has left me feeling sometimes frustrated and often troubled: Is there a risk of producing pan-Indigenous readings, or worse, repeating the original propagandistic intentions of the original residential school photographs when they are used in new media?

scholarly journals Reconciliation and Conflict: A Review of Practice

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 831
Author(s):  
Emily Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Race Relations ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Indian Residential Schools ◽  
Ongoing Dialogue ◽  
Concurrent Events

In this article I provide a review of two connected events.  The first is the conference "Prairie Perspectives on Indian Residential Schools, Truth and Reconciliation," which was held in June 2010 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  This conference was just one of many concurrent events taking place at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's first national event.  Specific themes and aspects of the conference are covered here.  Secondly, I parallel my discussion of the conference to my experiences with the national event - experiences can be complex and do not happen in isolation from the broader context around them. Overall, I argue that while the conference and the national event made some meaningful contributions to ongoing dialogue about reconciliation in Canada, it is clear that understanding how to deal with and discuss the conflict that arises from discussions of residential school, "race relations," and reconciliation more broadly is an ongoing learning experience.  I offer some recommendations concerning how conflict could be better dealt with at future conferences and national events.  Reconciliation processes can be more effective if there is not only space for dissent but, most importantly, that mechanisms are in place for encouraging productive discussions about the conflict that arises and that will continue to arise.

scholarly journals The Inuit presence at the first Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission national event

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Pierre Gadoua
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
School System ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Residential Schooling

This paper addresses various forms of healing and reconciliation among Canadian Inuit and First Nations, in regards to the Indian residential school system and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Stemming from fieldwork at the TRC’s first national event in Winnipeg (June 2010), I present observations that are supplemented by previous studies on Aboriginal healing methods in Canada. Although Inuit and First Nations healing and reconciliation strategies are based on common themes—tradition and community—in practice they diverge notably, both in their principles and in their applications. First Nations seek healing by activating a sense of community that often transcends their specific cultural group or nation, using pan-Indian spiritual traditions and ceremonies. In contrast, the Inuit most commonly seek to preserve and promote specific Inuit traditions and identity as tools in their healing practices. This divergence could be seen in Inuit and First Nations’ participation in the TRC. The creation of the Inuit sub-commission within the TRC in March 2010, resulting from intense lobbying by Inuit leaders, was a first sign of the group’s distinctive approach to healing. But the unfolding of the TRC’s first national event in Winnipeg showed again how these differences materialise in practice and contribute to a better understanding of Inuit responses to the repercussions of their colonial past and strategies for healing from the legacy of residential schooling.

scholarly journals Land and storytelling: Indigenous pathways towards healing, spiritual regeneration and resurgence

2021 ◽  
pp. 002198942110317
Author(s):  
Francesca Mussi
Keyword(s):  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Land Dispossession ◽  
History Of ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Indigenous Perspective ◽  
Deep Sense

This article aims to contribute to discourses of healing, Indigenous resurgence and spiritual regeneration within the context of the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission that took place in Canada between 2008 and 2015. First, it considers to what extent the TRC’s restorative justice process can relate to Indigenous ways of conceptualising healing. Secondly, it reflects on the Commission’s exclusive focus on the Indian Residential School system and its legacies, which, according to many Indigenous scholars, overlooks a much broader and more complex history of colonisation, political domination, and land dispossession still ongoing. I underline that, from an Indigenous perspective, land plays a fundamental role to achieve healing, spiritual regeneration, and resurgence. In the last section, I move the discussion to the literary dimension as I explore Richard Wagamese’s 2012 novel Indian Horse. In particular, I argue that fiction, especially that fiction produced during the years of the Commission’s work, can be a crucial site for challenging the TRC’s restorative process and for bringing out the significance of storytelling and of an Indigenous deep sense of connection to the land as a source of learning, spiritual reclaiming, and healing.

scholarly journals Recognizing Settler Ignorance in the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Cook
Keyword(s):  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Politics Of Recognition ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
White Ignorance

The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been mandated to collect testimonies from survivors of the Indian Residential Schools system. The TRC demands survivors of the residential school system to share their personal narratives under the assumption that the sharing of narratives will inform the Canadian public of the residential school legacy and will motivate a transformation of settler identity. I contend, however, that the TRC provides a concrete example of how a politics of recognition fails to transform relationships between Native and settler Canadians not only because it enacts an internalization of colonial recognition, but because it fails to account for what I call “settler ignorance.” Work in epistemologies of ignorance and epistemic oppression gives language to explain sustained denial and provide tools to further understand how settler denial is sustained, and how it can be made visible, and so challenged. For this task, Mills’s articulation of white ignorance should be expanded to a consideration of white settler ignorance. Over and above an account of white ignorance, such an account will have to consider the underlying logics of settler colonialism. This characterization of settler ignorance will show that the denial of past and ongoing violence against Indigenous peoples, through the reconstruction of the past to assert the primacy of settlers, is not explainable in terms of a lack of recognition but is rather structural ignorance.

scholarly journals Pushing the Academy: The Need for Decolonizing Research

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Antoine
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Decolonizing Methodologies ◽  
Justice Sociale ◽  
Ample Opportunity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Speak Up ◽  
Peuples Autochtones

With renewed interest for research involving Indigenous peoples, nations, and communities following the height of the Idle No More movement and, more recently, the release of the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, this research in brief argues that there is a need for researchers to recognize the history of the Western academy’s relationship with Indigenous peoples and its legacy of contributing to colonization. As a result, communication scholarship should seek to embrace and even privilege Indigenous knowledges in research, when appropriate, and accept research goals of Indigenous social justice based on decolonizing methodologies. The collaborative nature of research means that there is ample opportunity to speak up when research fails to include Indigenous ways of knowing.À la suite du mouvement Idle No More et, plus récemment, de la publication du rapport final de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada sur les écoles résidentielles autochtones, on remarque un intérêt renouvelé pour la recherche sur les peuples, nations et communautés autochtones. Dans ce contexte, ce Coup d’œil sur la recherche soutient que les chercheurs ont besoin de mieux reconnaître l’histoire de la relation entre les peuples autochtones et l’université occidentale et la participation de celle-ci à leur colonisation. Dans les circonstances, la recherche en communication devrait chercher à inclure et même privilégier les savoirs autochtones quand il est pertinent de le faire, et accepter les objectifs visés par la justice sociale autochtone fondée sur des méthodologies décolonisatrices. La nature collaborative de la recherche est telle qu’il y a maintes occasions où l’on pourrait intervenir aux moments où celle-ci oublie les modes d’apprentissage autochtones.

scholarly journals “I’m not really healed … I’m just bandaged up”: Perceptions of healing among former students of Indian residential schools

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Tracey Carr ◽  
Brian Chartier ◽  
Tina Dadgostari
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
School Attendance ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
School Students ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Indian Residential Schools ◽  
Settlement Agreement

<p>Attempts at resolution between former students of Indian residential schools and the non-Aboriginal Canadian population began with the signing of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement in 2006. The Settlement Agreement outlined provisions for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document the stories of former students and for the Resolution Health Support Program to offer emotional and cultural support to former students and their families. Although former students have catalogued their stories through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, experiences of healing from the events of Indian residential schools remain relatively unknown. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of healing among former Indian residential school students. In partnership with an Aboriginal support agency in a small Saskatchewan city, we interviewed 10 Aboriginal people affected by residential schools. The focus of the interviews was to generate participants’ conceptions and experiences of healing regarding their residential school experiences. We found all participants continued to experience physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual impacts of residential school attendance. Disclosure of their experiences was an important turning point for some participants. Their efforts to move on varied from attempting to “forget” about their experience to reconnecting with their culture and/or following their spiritual, religious, or faith practices. Participants also noted the profound intergenerational effects of residential schools and the need for communities to promote healing. The findings will be used to guide an assessment of the healing needs among this population in Saskatchewan.</p>

Balancing Reconciliation at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet

2021 ◽  
pp. 298-317
Author(s):  
Bridget Cauthery ◽  
Shawn Newman
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
School System ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Indigenous Representation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Histories

As part of efforts across Canada to address and reconcile the nation-state’s violent colonial histories, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) premiered Mark Godden’s newest work, Going Home Star: Truth and Reconciliation, in 2014. The work narrates one element of settler colonialism in Canada: the Indian Residential School System. With no Indigenous dancers in the company, and few Indigenous people involved in the production overall, the project has received criticism as yet another non-Indigenous endeavor speaking for Indigenous peoples. In this chapter, we approach Going Home Star in ways that question the appropriateness of contemporary ballet as a medium for negotiating contemporaneous reconciliation between Indigenous and settler peoples in Canada and its checkered history of Indigenous representation.

scholarly journals The Validity of Self-Report Measures in Assessing Historical Knowledge: The Case of Canada’s Residential Schools

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg D. B. Boese ◽  
Katelin H. S. Neufeld ◽  
Katherine B. Starzyk
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Baseline Measure ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
School Knowledge ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) strives to increase public education regarding residential schools. A baseline measure of the public’s residential school knowledge could be useful to evaluate the progress of the TRC. The National Benchmark Survey, Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study, and Canadian Public Opinion on Aboriginal Peoples Report are three existing surveys that provide such a baseline, though each use only self-report measures. We measured residential school knowledge of 2,250 non-Indigenous Canadian undergraduate students through self-report (subjective) and multiple-choice (objective) measures. Analyses revealed a statistically significant correlation between self-reported and objective knowledge of residential schools.

scholarly journals Off to School: Filmic False Equivalence and Indian Residential School Scholarship

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Comme Point ◽  
National Film Board ◽  
Residential Schooling

This article uses two short, mid-twentieth century documentaries produced by the National Film Board of Canada as an entry point into charting popular and scholarly representations of Indian residential schools. The article begins with a close reading of one 1958 film followed by an overview of how scholarship has changed over the last fifty years, particularly alongside and sometimes because of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The article advocates centring survivor testimony and provides major turns in considering as well as teaching about residential schooling and settler colonialism in Canada as well as ways of how to teach about and learn from it. The article concludes with a close reading of a second film, produced in 1971 by Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, which offers a decidedly different perspective from the film discussed at the beginning of the article.RésuméCet article utilise deux courts documentaires produits par l’Office national du film à l’époque du centenaire de la Confédération comme point de départ permettant d’étudier les représentations populaires et universitaires des pensionnats indiens. L’article s’amorce sur une lecture attentive d’un film de 1958, puis propose un aperçu des changements survenus dans la littérature académique au cours des cinquante dernières années, en particulier grâce à la Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada. Il met l’accent sur le témoignage des survivants et propose des changements importants, à la fois dans la façon de comprendre le système des pensionnats et le colonialisme canadien, de même que sur les façons de l’enseigner et les leçons à en tirer. L’article se termine par l’analyse d’un second film produit en 1971par la cinéaste Abénaquis Alanis Obomsawin, qui offre une perspective très différente de celui tourné en 1958.

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