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Teaching colonialism: lessons on aboriginal children’s resiliency and subjugation from the geographies of British Columbian residential schools

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Membre a labase

Sarah De Leeuw

Résumé de la communication

George Clutesi, a former student of Alberni Indian Residential School and a well respected artist, wrote in a 1967 preface to a collection of short stories that “Indian folklore tales [are] not…just another attempt to portray the past and the sometimes romantic aspects of a nearly forgotten culture of a once carefree, happy, singing people. Instead, [folklore tales are] an attempt to approach from the backdoor, as it were…an apparently rich and cultured society.” Clutesi’s words offer profound insight into Aboriginal peoples’ resistance strategies against colonial projects: protect and keep extant Indigenous cultures through any means possible, including means that might be understood as “backdoor.” As interest in Indigenous issues grows in Canada, and as Indigenous peoples’ become increasingly vocal about research methods which do not account for their voices and strengths, geographers are challenged in how we might respectfully approach the historical record and questions about colonial processes. This paper posits that creative materials, produced by Aboriginal children within the spaces of British Columbian residential schools, provide a unique archival means of visualizing how culture was retained in the face of aggressive colonial efforts to de-Indigenize British Columbia. Although residential schools were material articulations of colonial ideologies, they were also places in which Aboriginal children assertively responded to colonial subjects.

Résumé du colloque

Dialog bénéficie d’une subvention d’infrastructure du Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC) et, suite à l’obtention d’une subvention CRSH dans le cadre du programme « Réseau stratégiques de connaissances » au concours de 2007, le regroupement procède présentement à la mise en œuvre de ce réseau élargi. Le colloque sera l’occasion de rassembler les membres, de souligner l’expansion de l’infrastructure de Dialog et de créer de nouveaux partenariats.

Contexte

host icon Hôte : Institut national de la recherche scientifique

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