scholarly journals Creating New Stories: The Role of Evaluation in Truth and Reconciliation

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Bremner

This paper describes the origins of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, with the focus on how evaluators and their professional associations can contribute to truth and reconciliation. At the professional association level, the actions that the Canadian Evaluation Society has taken in committing itself to incorporating truth and reconciliation into its values, principles, and practices are highlighted. At the individual level, evaluators are challenged to refl ect on their practice. As storytellers, evaluators have been complicit in telling stories that, while highlighting the damaging legacy of residential schools, have had little influence on changing the status quo for Indigenous peoples and communities. The need to reconsider who should be telling the stories and what stories should be told are critical issues upon which evaluators must refl ect. The way forward also needs to include a move toward a more holistic view, incorporating the interaction between human and natural systems, thus better refl ecting an Indigenous, rather than a Western, worldview. The imperative for evaluators, both in Canada and globally, to see Indigenous peoples “as creators of their own destinies and experts in their own realities” is essential if evaluation is to

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Colleen Sheppard

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was mandated to “document the individual and collective harms” of residential schools and to “guide and inspire a process of truth and healing, leading toward reconciliation.”  The stories of survivors revealed the intergenerational and egregious harms of taking children from their families and communities. In seeking to redress the legacy of the residential schools era, the TRC Calls to Action include greater recognition of self-governance of Indigenous Peoples, as well as numerous recommendations for equitable funding of health, educational, and child welfare services.


Author(s):  
JoLee Sasakamoose ◽  
Terrina Bellegarde ◽  
Wilson Sutherland ◽  
Shauneen Pete ◽  
Kim McKay-McNabb

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada calls upon those who can effect change within Canadian systems to recognize the value of Indigenous healing practices and to collaborate with Indigenous healers, Elders, and knowledge keepers where requested by Indigenous Peoples. This article presents the Indigenous Cultural Responsiveness Theory (ICRT) as a decolonized pathway designed to guide research that continuously improves the health, education, governance, and policies of Indigenous Peoples in Saskatchewan. Decolonizing practices include privileging and engaging in Indigenous philosophies, beliefs, practices, and values that counter colonialism and restore well-being. The ICRT supports the development of collaborative relationships between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous allies who seek to improve the status of First Nations health and wellness.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seidali Kurtmollaiev

Despite its immense popularity, the dynamic capabilities framework faces fierce criticism because of the ambiguous and contradictory interpretations of dynamic capabilities. Especially challenging are the aspects related to the nature of dynamic capabilities and the issue of agency. In an attempt to avoid circular and overlapping definitions, I explicate dynamic capabilities as the regular actions of creating, extending, and modifying an organizational resource base. This implies that the individual’s intention to change the status quo in the organization and the individual’s high level of influence in the organization are necessary and sufficient conditions for dynamic capabilities. This approach overcomes challenges associated with current interpretations of dynamic capabilities, necessarily focusing on the actions and interactions of individuals in organizations. Following the micro-foundations movement, I present a multilevel approach for studying the individual-level causes and the firm-level effects of dynamic capabilities.


Author(s):  
Terry Wotherspoon ◽  
Emily Milne

The national Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has challenged governments and school boards across Canada to acknowledge and address the damaging legacies of residential schooling while ensuring that all students gain an adequate understanding of relations between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous peoples. This article explores the dynamics and prospects for effective change associated with reforms in elementary and secondary education systems since the release of the Commission’s Calls to Action, focusing on the policy frameworks employed by provincial and territorial governments to guide these actions. The analysis examines critically the overt and hidden messages conveyed through discourses within policy documents and statements. The key questions we address include: What do current education policy frameworks and actions regarding Indigenous Peoples reveal about government approaches to education and settler–Indigenous relationships in Canada? To what extent is effective reconciliation possible, and how can it be accomplished in the context of institutional structures and discourses within a White settler colonial society? The findings reveal that substantial movement towards greater acknowledgement of Indigenous knowledge systems and incorporation of Indigenous content continues to be subordinated to or embedded within Western assumptions, norms, and standards. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-45
Author(s):  
Jocelyn Sommerfeld ◽  
David Danto ◽  
Russ Walsh

The importance of Indigenous mental health has been highlighted and affirmed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada report (2015), the Canadian Psychological Association and The Psychology Foundation of Canada’s Task Force report responding to the TRC findings (2018), as well as numerous recent studies. Unfortunately, Indigenous Peoples in Canada continue to suffer from a lack of appropriate mental health care. Land-based interventions have been cited as one culturally appropriate approach to wellness; nevertheless, given the diversity of nature-oriented wellness programs, confusion exists over the qualities unique to and common across each program. As such, this paper will discuss the qualities of nature-oriented wellness programs currently in use by Indigenous communities (e.g. landbased interventions) with land-based approaches outside of Indigenous communities such as forest bathing, Outward Bound programs, and green or blue space research. The authors will then explore what sets Indigenous land-based interventions apart from these other wellness programs and discuss why land-based interventions hold a deeper meaning for Indigenous Peoples.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 111-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti ◽  
Lexy Seedhouse

A study informed by long-term fieldwork with Amazonian and Andean indigenous peoples examines their experiences of Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Law of Prior Consultation. It engages with these efforts, which sought to address injustice by creating a new pact between the state and its indigenous citizens, their various failures, and the unintended opportunities that they have created for the political participation of indigenous peoples and their representatives.Un estudio basado en el trabajo de campo a largo plazo con los pueblos indígenas amazónicas y andinos examine sus experiencias de la Comisión de Verdad y Reconciliación y la Ley de Consulta Previa de Perú, que buscaba abordar la injusticia creando un nuevo pacto entre el estado y sus ciudadanos indígenas. Aborda sus diversos fracasos y las oportunidades no previstas que han creado para la participación políticas de los pueblos indígenas y sus representantes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. D. R. Evans ◽  
Jonathan Kelley ◽  
Sarah Kelley

The protracted COVID-19 crisis provides a new social niche in which new inequalities can emerge. We provide predictions about one such new inequality using the logic of Status Construction Theory (SCT). SCT, rooted in Expectations State Theory and from there developed by Ridgeway and colleagues, proposes general hypotheses about how new inequalities arise through process of interaction at the individual level: an unordered categorical difference becomes attached to a cultural value that gives one category more value than the other; social scripts concerning it emerge; small elements of assertion and deference creep into more and more encounters that an individual participates in, hears about through networks, and learns about via social and conventional media. The categorical difference begins to morph into a hierarchical status distinction. Through these mechanisms, individuals develop “status beliefs” that most people in their communities endorse the status distinction. Although they may or may not endorse the distinction personally, they believe that most people do so and they find that the path of least resistance socially is to enact the scripts that affirm the higher status/prestige of the favored group. We apply Status Construction Theory to the categorical difference between Antibody Positives (who have been tested for IgG antibodies) and Others (everybody else). Using the general logic of SCT and specifically developing applications of its key propositions, we predict that the categorical difference between Antibody Positives and Others will transition to a status distinction and propose testable, falsifiable hypotheses about each step of the process.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-110
Author(s):  
Bernice Downey

Health equity is defined in ways that espouse values of social justice and benevolence and is held up as an ideal state achievable by all. However, there remains a troubling gap in health outcomes between Indigenous Peoples and other Canadians. Public health stakeholders aspire to ‘close the gap’ and ‘level the gradient’ to reduce inequities though the implementation of various health equity focused strategies. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada echoes this objective and calls for self-determining structural reform to address health inequity for Indigenous Peoples. This paper proposes an IND-equity model as a reconciliation inspired response that upholds Indigenous self-determination and is informed by diverse Indigenous ways of knowing.  When adopting this model, the goal is to complete the circle and foster wholistic balance. Further development and implementation of an IND-equity model requires advocacy by all health practitioners. Nurses hold potential to lead and engage in structural reform through an Indigenous health ally role.


Author(s):  
Sharon Farnel ◽  
Denise Koufogiannakis ◽  
Sheila Laroque ◽  
Ian Bigelow ◽  
Anne Carr-Wiggin ◽  
...  

Appropriate subject access and descriptive practices within library and information science are social justice issues. Standards that are well established and commonly used in academic libraries in Canada and elsewhere, including Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and Library of Congress Classification (LCC), continue to perpetuate colonial biases toward Indigenous peoples. In the fall of 2016, the University of Alberta Libraries (UAL) established a Decolonizing Description Working Group (DDWG) to investigate, define, and propose a plan of action for how descriptive metadata practices could more accurately, appropriately, and respectfully represent Indigenous peoples and contexts. The DDWG is currently beginning the implementation of recommendations approved by UAL’s strategic leadership team. In this paper we describe the genesis of the DDWG within the broader context of the libraries’ and the university’s responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action; outline the group’s activities and recommendations; and describe initial steps toward the implementation of those recommendations, with a focus on engaging local Indigenous communities. We reflect on the potential impact of revised descriptive practices in removing many of the barriers that Indigenous communities and individuals face in finding and accessing library materials relevant to their cultures and histories.


Author(s):  
Dorene Bernard

There has been more talk but not enough action on reconciliation since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its final report in 2015 containing ninety-four calls to action (Truth and Reconciliation Canada 2015). Indigenous people have not experienced the reconciliation intended in the actions that Canada has agreed to implement. Indigenous people and all Canadians need to hold Canada accountable to these actions for true reconciliation to manifest in Canadian society. The TRC calls to action and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) hold particular meaning and hope for me, as a survivor of Indian Residential Schools (IRS), and many other survivors who have gone through the TRC process. Truth is the first step toward reconciliation; understanding is the second step, and remediation is the third. Water is sacred. Protecting the water and asserting our rights in the Peace and Friendship Treaties are my responsibilities as a Mi’kmaw woman and rights holder. They are also an integral aspect of my healing journey. When I acknowledge Canadians’ habitation on the unceded lands of the Mi’kmaq, I mean that acknowledgment from the core of my spirit, the spirit of my ancestors, and my future generations. I am living that acknowledgment.


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