Indigenous Reconciliation and Decolonization

Narratives of Social Justice and Community Engagement

Ranjan Datta, Ranjan Datta

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000336030
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Droit
• Subtopic: Droit civil

This book addresses the ethical and practical issues at stake in the reconciliation of Indigenous and non-indigenous communities.

An increasing number of researchers, educators, and social and environmental activists are eager to find ways to effectively support ongoing attempts to recognize, integrate and promote Indigenous perspectives and communities. Taking Canada as its focus, this book offers a multidisciplinary consideration of a range of reconciliation policies, practices and initiatives that are relevant in all settler states. Set against its increasing neoliberal appropriation, the book resituates reconciliation in the everyday contexts of community interaction and engagement, as well as in the important areas of Indigenous knowledge, resource management and social and environmental justice. Reconciliation is not just the responsibility of law and government. And, attuned to the different perspectives of settlers, migrants and refugee communities, the book examines areas of opportunity, as well as obstacles to progress, in the forging of a truly decolonizing framework for reconciliation.

As the challenges of reconciliation cross numerous academic and substantial areas, this book will appeal to a range of scholars and practitioners working in law, politics, education, environmental studies, anthropology and Indigenous studies.

1

Introduction

This edited collection, Indigenous Reconciliation and Decolonization: Narratives of Social Justice and Community Engagement, investigates whether and how reconciliation in Canada and other settler colonial societies can address the attitudes of non-Indigenous people in ways that promote a deeper engagement with Indigenous needs and aspirations. It presents a vision of successful reconciliation initiatives from and within transnational communities, particularly for Indigenous, settler, immigrant, and refugee communities. The collection displays thoughts, reflections, and poems that represent serious attempts to understand and take responsibility for the meaningful implementation of reconciliation in everyday practice. It explores concepts and practices of reconciliation, considering the structural and attitudinal challenges to such efforts in settler colonial countries.

The concept of reconciliation has become ubiquitous in the popular discourse around Indigenous people in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the USA, and beyond. Yet there is a lack of agreement as to what the term means, what symbolic and substantive possibilities it allows, and what its limitations are. This book presents a vision of successful reconciliation initiatives in transnational communities through both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities’ practices. Although a great number of academic researchers introduce reconciliation in their work, they have not explained: How can taking responsibility for reconciliation bring empowerment to Indigenous, settlers, immigrant, and refugee communities? Why should immigrant and refugee communities learn and practice Indigenous land-based education, decolonization, and critical anti-racist education as a framework for creating belonging? Inspired by Indigenous scholars Drs. Marie Battiste (2017, 2013, 2000), Eve Tuck and K. W. Yang (2014; 2012), Alexandra Wilson (2016), Shawn Wilson (2008), Verna St. Denis (2007), Margaret Kovach (2010), and Linda Smith (2012) on decolonizing our ways of knowing and taking responsibility for our action, this book is a fundamental shift in thinking and taking responsibility for our land and reconciliation as a continuous process that belongs to everyone. As such, it has huge implications and potential for re-imagining reconciliation in terms of reciprocal relationships and responsible acts of reconciliation on the part of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

This collection explores concepts and practices of reconciliation from Indigenous perspectives, considering the structural and attitudinal limits to such efforts in settler colonial countries. Bringing together contributions by Indigenous experts on settler colonialism and the politics of reconciliation, it complements current research approaches to the issues of responsibility and engagement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. The main aim of this collection is to develop a transdisciplinary framework (i.e., led by Indigenous scholars) that can build on and respect relationships with Indigenous people and Indigenous ways of knowing and that endorses responsible action to protect Indigenous people, their culture, and their land–water rights.

This book shares the ongoing challenges to reconciliation from Indigenous perspectives. A number of Indigenous studies have suggested that the concept of reconciliation has become increasingly confused by neoliberal policies and practices in the last 15 years (Battiste, 2013; Simson, 2014; Wilson et al., 2019). In neoliberal reconciliation initiatives, a state’s needs are prioritized over Indigenous communities’ practices and problems and reflect hierarchical models of education (Battiste, 2000) where competition, individualism, and scientific research dominate academic thinking (Battiste, 2013). Reconciliation represents a new form of capital under neoliberalism (Morgan, 2018) and, as a target of neoliberal reform, has become multifaceted, complex, and adapted for capital accumulation (Bazzul, 2012). In neoliberal governing processes, the socio-environmental crisis has proven to be an integral mechanism for elite profit accumulation (Harvey 2010), political and social reform (Peters, 2011), as well as the revitalization of conservative cultural politics (Giroux 2010). As such, many Indigenous scholars, educators, and activists challenge the neoliberal concept of reconciliation (Battiste, 2013; Simson, 2014; Wilson et al., 2019). For instance, an Indigenous activist from Saskatchewan, Canada, says:

In the reconciliation era, many built careers and names for themselves. Many were groomed by Canada to protect colonial policy and law. Canada will depend on them to toe the line on reconciliation and silence the voices of Indigenous peoples in times like this.

North American Indigenous activist, scholar, and educator Leanne Simpson (2014), in Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back, critically unpacks some of the implications that a narrow neoliberal notion of reconciliation holds for Indigenous people. Simpson cautions that reconciliation can be a form of neo-colonialism when it becomes an opportunity for all to turn the page on, or silence, Indigenous peoples’ ongoing resistance to colonialism. As Simpson suggests, the risk of applying Canada’s narrow version of reconciliation to broader issues is that Indigenous peoples’ ongoing arguments with the state will be criminalized because, in the minds of settlers and according to the state, there will be no reason to challenge settler colonialism—everything will be reconciled and therefore beyond critique. This book takes a significant step in challenging neo-colonial notions of reconciliation and redefining the concept of reconciliation from an Indigenous perspective.

This collection is an invitation for all of us to work together as Indigenists, to build relational networks for the important task of intercultural bridging, moving beyond cultural awareness and inclusion and challenging racist ideology as we rethink and re-imagine our relationships with one another in a sharing place—a mother land (Battiste, 2013; Wilson, 2013). It is my hope that non-Indigenous people, particularly new immigrants and refugees, will join in solidarity with Indigenous communities and engage in a process of determining what reconciliation in practice means to them and to their collective communities. As Indigenous scholar Simpson (2014) argues, “Reconciliation is a process of regeneration that will take many years to accomplish” (p. 22); solidarity and responsible action may show us the path forward. Reconciliation involves rebuilding relationships; everyone is part of it and must practice it through responsible actions.

Reconciliation as responsibilities

Why is responsibility important for reconciliation? The term responsibility is important for all Canada and other settler colonial societies engaging in the reconciliation process because it is the basis for how we treat each other as fellow human beings and the kind of relationships and communities we want to build for the future. A number of studies have suggested that many settler colonial societies do not know much about the ongoing impact of colonial settler history on Indigenous people and the ongoing impact of Indian residential schools, how they continue to be felt throughout generations and contribute to social problems (Abu-Laban, 2017, 2014; Datta, 2017; Marom, 2016; Simpson, 2014). Connections with culture and family, land, parenting skills, and intergenerational relationships have been damaged or lost in many Indigenous communities in settler colonial societies. These gaps have led to many misconceptions about Indigenous communities, Indigenous history, and transnational responsibility for reconciliation (Battiste, 2019; Datta, 2018; Marom, 2016; Simpson, 2014; Yu, 2011). It is high time for all societies to acknowledge and understand the past and find a responsible way to move forward. For instance, an Indigenous blogger from Canada said, “I believe Canada has moved to a point at which we no longer ask whether reconciliation is possible but how is reconciliation possible. And from that position, increasingly non-Indigenous Canadians are asking What can I do?” (emphases are in original) (Ontario Nature Blog, 2019, p. 1). Therefore, this book initiates discussion of a significant question: How can we all responsibly work together for meaningful implementation of reconciliation? I hope this discussion will not only be helpful to challenge traditional science and social science mindsets but to enlarge the concept of reconciliation to include building respectful relationships with Indigenous people, respecting Indigenous treaties, taking action to decolonize our ways of knowing and acting, understanding the role of colonized educational processes, reclaiming Indigenous land rights, creating an intercultural space for social interactions, and developing transnational empowerment.

What would education look like if it focused on the issue of taking responsibility for Indigenous decolonization and reconciliation? In this collection, we see taking responsibility as challenging multiple power structures. Indigenous decolonizing must address the historical legacy of colonialism, post-colonialism, and more recently, reconciliation. For instance, Indigenous, community-engaged historian Keith Thor Carlson explains Canadian commitment to building reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people by saying,

Reconciliation between Indigenous people and settler Canadians can never be about merely “starting fresh” unless it also involves making right. What exactly reconciliation will look like, I can’t say. It will be up to Indigenous people, as the ones who have been injured, to determine when Canadian society and the Canadian state have made sufficient restitution.

(Carlson, 2018 p. 1)

Being concerned with taking responsibility for reconciliation indicates a keen interest in the question of how far, and under what conditions, the concept of reconciliation, which can be considered one of the key concepts of current social sciences, has the potential to change in alignment with the rapidly changing lives and lifestyles of Indigenous peoples across the world. And, by extension, how these changes might reshape or at least modify our perspectives on established theories about social, political, and economic dynamics and their underlying factors.

For responsible research methods, we (contributors) share our personal journey and stories of inspiration, resistance, unlearning, relearning, and transformation along with the personal, theoretical, philosophical, and global influences which have shaped our thinking and being. For example, we practice responsible narrative research: when working with a community, we tell a story together and we share ownership of the story with the community. We share how our personal narratives have many implications in our personal lives. The scholarship that comes out of this research also looks very different—and its audience isn’t restricted to scholars. For instance, through our responsible narrative stories we discuss why we need to understand settler colonialism when discussing reconciliation. Settler colonialism is one of the major challenges to reconciliation as it empowers certain groups and disempowers others; it provides control of resources to some people and economically marginalizes others; it enables some to negotiate pathways to educational success and it discourages others from even participating.

Our responsible personal narrative stories are significant as they bring together community engagement, activism, research, and scholarship to advocate for socio-environmental justice and trans-systemic reconciliation of cross-cultural knowledge. Collaborators are from various disciplines, including science, social science, arts, and interdisciplinary. Through our stories we share how we have applied our disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary expertise in a social entrepreneurship approach, working to build community through sustainable, responsible, critical, anti-racist discovery and application.

Commissions and reconciliation

The two Canadian commissions, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP), have central roles in this collection. Both of these commissions provided the meanings of reconciliation in Canada and beyond.

After the RCAP was established in 1991, the commission examined the relationships between the government and Indigenous Canadians and between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians and advised the government on its findings. Its report in 1996 addressed reconciliation and the future relationship between the government of Canada and Indigenous people. The RCAP was created in order to help “restore justice to the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada and to propose practical solutions to stubborn problems” (RCAP, 1996, p. 2).

The TRC was established in 2008, and concluded its 7-year mandate of healing, witnessing, investigation, and public education in 2015. The TRC’s 94 “calls to action” urge all levels of government—federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal—to work together to change policies and programs in a concerted effort to repair the harm caused by residential schools and move forward with reconciliation. The TRC also suggests that it is time for a nation-to-nation relationship between Aboriginals and the Crown in Canada that respects the promises of historical treaties. The TRC promotes three critical perspectives in building meaningful implications of reconciliation:

1.All Canadians must take ownership of this history and the legacy of residential schools and what that entails.

2.All people must assess where their own biases come from and question their ongoing legitimacy.

3.All Canadians must recognize that the way Canada has been doing business will likely have to change.

The TRC believed that, in order for all of us in Canada to flourish in the twenty-first century, reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canada must be based on ten principles. The TRC suggests that the ten guiding principles of truth and reconciliation will assist Canadians moving forward. Within the ten principles, numbers 1 and 6 directly address non-Indigenous communities’ collective responsibility for meaningful reconciliation:

•The United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the framework for reconciliation at all levels and across all sectors of Canadian society.

•All Canadians, as Treaty peoples, share responsibility for establishing and maintaining mutually respectful relationships.

Reconciliation is not an event; instead, it is an ongoing individual and collective process. It asks all of us (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) to make our commitment to all those affected, including First Nations, Inuit and Métis former Indian Residential School (IRS) students, their families, communities, religious entities, former...