The Possibilities for Reconciliation Through Difficult Dialogues: Treaty Education as Peacebuilding

Abstract

This article discusses the ongoing effects of colonialism on Aboriginal peoples in Canada and how these might be revealed and disrupted through particular curricular initiatives, informed by understandings of critical peacebuilding education. One such initiative, treaty education, has the potential to disturb dominant national narratives in classrooms, and to invite students to think differently about the history of Canada as it seeks to acknowledge and challenge epistemologies of ignorance that often shape relationships with Aboriginal peoples. Throughout the discussion, it is argued that ignorance is produced and maintained through dominant narratives of the nation which reinforce colonial dispositions that are inherently anti-democratic and that (re)produce structural and symbolic forms of violence, undermining the possibilities for (just) peacebuilding education. Treaty education may bring to the surface conflict for students in terms of their prior knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal–Canadian relations: such conflict creates productive sites of possibility for disrupting ignorance. Specifically, the article describes a high school–university student inquiry into residential schools undertaken in fall 2012 as one example of how treaty education might be used to foster the difficult dialogues necessary for critical peacebuilding education.

Notes

Notes

1. Throughout this discussion, I use Aboriginal as an encompassing term to refer to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples of Canada. When I use the term First Nations, it is in the context of specific communities/groups of Aboriginal peoples, many of whom signed treaties with the federal government, and are neither Inuit nor Métis.

2. Following Regan (), settler in this discussion refers to both the descendents of Euro-Canadians who arrived in Canada during the colonial period, and the more recent arrival of diverse immigrants who constitute part of contemporary settler society.

3. Numbers varied with anywhere between 13–22 student participants during any given visit.