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Abstract
The author suggests that educators’ responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada cannot be reduced or reducible to practice without also considering the theories that are enfolded into reconciliatory initiatives and actions. She is guided by the central questions: How do I understand prevailing constructions of reconciliation in circulation? and How might I theorize a philosophy of truth and reconciliation education that responds to and upholds my de/colonizing commitments? The author develops a de/colonizing theory that includes four interrelated components. They include: (a) the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s notion of reconciliation and education for reconciliation, (b) Indigenous land-based traditions for establishing and maintaining respectful relationships, (c) the central role of Indigenous counter-stories in truth and reconciliation education, and (d) critiques of the construction and enactment of reconciliation. Together, these components provide orientations, challenges, and possibilities for consideration when engaging theory building, community involvement, research design, policy development, and practice for truth and reconciliation education.
Notes
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Dr. Brooke Madden is an Assistant Professor within the Aboriginal Teacher Education Program and the Department of Secondary Education at the University of Alberta. Brooke's research focuses on the relationship between teacher identity and teacher education on the topics of Indigenous education and truth and reconciliation education. Brooke has also published whiteness and decolonizing processes, school-based Indigenous education reform, and Indigenous and decolonizing research methodologies.
Notes
1 Indigenous is the term I prefer to use. Within Canada, Aboriginal is the legal term applied by the Canadian state to the people who, under the Constitution Act, are recognized to hold distinct rights as First Nations, Métis, or Inuit. When making reference to particular scholars/scholarship, I retain the authors’ original discursive practice. I acknowledge critiques of both terms (e.g., Chartrand, 2012; Flowers, 2015) that include: collapsing of diversity and disregard for the ways in which language and land shape peoples and Nations (Indigenous and Aboriginal), state imposition of identity vs. self-identification (Aboriginal), and the possibility that those who do not hold legal status do not feel as though they can claim Aboriginal as a marker of identity (Aboriginal).
2 How I understand and employ this term is explored in greater detail in an upcoming section. In brief, it signals the permeability of anti-oppressive discourse, space, and initiatives to colonial logics.
3 Decolonizing is used instead of de/colonizing as I’m referencing scholarship that does not make this distinction.
4 Flowers (Citation2015) explains that, “settler colonialism is invested in gaining certainty to lands and resources and will achieve access through the [physical occupation of land and] dispossession of Indigenous peoples, violently or legislatively…Dispossession is the removal of bodies from the land, but also the disappearance of Indigenous peoples as free peoples” (p. 34). Drawing on the scholarship of Patrick Wolfe, Denis (as cited in Adams & St. John, Citation2017) adds, “colonialism is a structure and not an event. It is an ongoing process. It is something that we produce everyday through our actions…What is distinctive about settler-colonialism as opposed to other forms of colonialism is that the settlers come to stay. They make [Canada] their home on Native land” (3:40–15:00). “Settler” is a critical term that “denaturalizes and politicizes the presence of non-Indigenous people on Indigenous lands” (Flowers, Citation2015, p. 33).
5 Review of privileged scholarship that theorizes Indigenous − non-Indigenous relations in the Canadian context in general and reconciliation specifically, as well as endeavours towards the de/colonizing commitments detailed.
6 “In addition to these national denominations, a local Baptist mission ran a residence for Aboriginal students in Whitehorse in the 1940s and 1950s, and a Mennonite ministry operated three schools in northwestern Ontario in the 1970s and 1980s” (TRC, 2015b, p. 56).
7 This term circulated widely in the media in reference to an event that occurred, “[i]n the summer of 1990, at Oka, Québec, [where] the Mohawks of Kanesatake, the government of Québec, the Québec provincial police, and the Canadian military became embroiled in a violent confrontation over the town’s plan to develop a golf course on Mohawk burial grounds located in a forested area known as ‘The Pines.’ The Mohawks’ claim to that land and demands for the recognition of their traditional territory had gone unheeded for years by the federal government” (TRC, 2015b, pp. 185–186).
8 Corntassel and Holder (Citation2008) elaborate, “At a lunchtime ceremony held in a government meeting room in Ottawa, Jane Stewart [then Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs] read a short ‘Statement of Reconciliation’ to indigenous leaders and other government workers…Using very nondescript and guarded language, the statement laid out what it considered to be historic harms to indigenous peoples while failing to account for ongoing effects of residential schools on the survivors and their families…Indigenous reactions to the statement were mixed, with several leaders immediately dismissing the statement as insincere. For most indigenous peoples reacting to the statement, nothing short of a full apology by the Prime Minister of Canada was adequate. Additionally, the Statement of Reconciliation did not form part of Canada’s official parliamentary or legal record – it was merely posted on the Indian and Northern Affairs website” (p. 9).
9 An additional 40 million dollars was granted to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation by way of the 2005 federal budget.
10 The Alternative Dispute Resolution was replaced by the Independent Assessment Process (IRSSS, n.d.-a).
11 This proportion does not include those former students who died prior to May 2005.
12 A legal misstep resulted in the release of the Catholic entities from some of their financial obligations determined under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (Galloway, 2016).
13 Wildcat et al. (2014) trace the intellectual origin of what they refer to as “one of the most robust scholarly paradigms to study Indigenous politics from” to Alfred’s (2009) work in Wasase: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom. Indigenous resurgence emphasizes “regeneration of Indigenous knowledges and ways of being in the world, as well as their necessary contestation with settler colonial power” (Wildcat et al., Citation2014, p. iv). While it certainly can inform and may be/become part of institutional education, some resurgence scholarship and efforts may never come within the bounds of such programs.
14 Scholars argue that race-based misconceptions and exclusion of Indigenous priorities (e.g., regeneration of Indigenous knowledges, repatriation of land) persist in antiracism work (Lawrence & Dua, Citation2011; St Denis, 2007).
15 At least 33 students died after escaping from a residential school, most often due to exposure (TRC, 2015b).
16 Established in 1994 as a working committee of the First Nations Summit, the Indian Residential School Survivor Society (IRSSS) “is a provincial [British Columbia] organization with a twenty year history of providing services to Indian Residential School Survivors” (IRSSS, n.d., ¶1).