INDG101 Quiz 2

Indigenous worldview: what is it founded on?

Relationality. Knowledge is relational, cooperation is valued, in relationship with nature, honours diversity

Western worldview: what is it founded on?

Hierarchies. Knowledge is objective, individuality is important, nature is conquerable, seeks homogeneity

Indigenous vs Western worldview: knowledge

Indigenous: knowledge is relational. Western: knowledge is objective

Indigenous vs Western worldview: nature

Indigenous: in relationship with nature. Western: nature is conquerable

Indigenous vs Western worldview: values

Indigenous: cooperation, honours diversity. Western: individuality, hierarchies, homogeneity

Blaut (1993), The Colonizer's Model of the World

Explains why the West justifies dominating Indigenous knowledge

Features of Indigenous knowledge systems

Traditional, ecological, peripheral; adults are responsible for teaching children how to live a good life; practical & local; self-reliance valued; holistic approach; everyone knows their roles & responsibilities

Essentials of learning in Indigenous knowledge systems

Listening, observing, practicing

Western scientific knowledge (lecture)

Privileged and Western-centred; tied to colonization & myths

The White Man's Burden (Kipling, 1899)

Re-enforces white superiority, imperialism & colonization; ties to Manifest Destiny; Philippines origin

Assimilation

The absorption and integration of people, ideas, or culture

Duncan Campbell Scott (1920)

Recommended changes to the Indian Act (1876) making attendance at residential schools mandatory

Colonel Pratt

Architect of boarding schools

Residential school system: purpose

Isolated environments; children separated and kept away from their customs -> genocide

Churches that ran residential schools (lecture)

Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Moravian

RS teaching staff

Priests, pastors, missionaries (children called them "Father")

RS teachers

Nuns, missionary & military wives, with no instructional training

What was taught in residential schools

English only, proper behaviour, educational structure, basic skills -> free child labour

Share of FN children in residential schools (CHECK THE DECADE ON YOUR SLIDE)

70%

Campbell Scott (1913)

Blamed the high deaths on First Nations

Shutting down the system: 1940s

Government decides to close schools

Shutting down the system: 1950s

FN children go to public schools -> assimilate

Shutting down the system: 1960s/70s

Push to close schools; child welfare

Shutting down the system: 1980s

Recognition of the impact of residential schools on FN

Shutting down the system: 1996

Last residential school closed

Why can't Canada be prosecuted for genocide over residential schools?

Canada excluded "forcible transfer of children" from the genocide definition

True or false: Canada can be prosecuted for genocide because forcible transfer of children is in the definition

False. Canada excluded it from the definition, so it can't be prosecuted

Resistance to residential schools: parents

Wrote letters to the government and hid kids

Resistance to residential schools: children

Secretly communicated, avoided work, ran away, and stole

60s Scoop (lecture)

1961 to 1980s: Indigenous children taken from families and put into foster care/adopted by mid-class Euro-Canadians

Child, Family & Community Service Act (1980)

Requires social workers to notify the FN band council when kids are taken

Millennium Scoop (1990s+)

50% of youth in care are First Nations

Effects of the Scoop

Culture loss, lost contact, barred access to health records, loss of Indian "status"

Indian hospitals (lecture)

Segregated healthcare, underfunded, poorly managed, experimentation

Indian hospitals and TB

FN with TB were brought south (Edmonton, Hamilton); a big issue for Inuit specifically

Government of Canada 2008

Formal apology; Harper missed the opportunity to take responsibility for the cultural genocide

TRC Calls to Action: how many?

94; they extend across all sectors of Canada

Apology to residential school students: who delivered it?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on behalf of the Government of Canada

Apology: how many children attended residential schools?

150,000+

Apology: when did residential schools begin?

1870s

Apology: 132 federally supported schools were located where?

Every province and territory except NL, NB, and PEI

Apology: who ran the schools jointly with the government?

Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian, or United churches (joint ventures)

Apology: how many survivors were living in 2008?

About 80,000

Apology: the two objectives of residential schools

1) Remove & isolate children from the influence of family and culture. 2) Assimilate them (Aboriginal culture was considered inferior)

Apology: infamous phrase about the schools

"To kill the Indian in the child"

Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (Sept 19, 2007)

Contains the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to educate Canadians on the schools & build new relationships

Settlement Agreement vs the apology: which came first?

The Settlement Agreement (2007) came before the apology (2008). The TRC is part of the Agreement, not separate

True or false: the TRC is separate from the Settlement Agreement

False. It is the cornerstone of (contained in) the Settlement Agreement

Harper's stance in the apology

The policy was wrong, the burden is the government's, and the lack of an apology blocked healing

Ch. 13 "Resilience as Resistance": source

Independent Special Interlocutor, Upholding Sacred Obligations (Vol. 2)

Ch. 13: main argument

Indigenous-led, resilience-based healing ("resilience as resistance") must be part of an Indigenous-led Reparations Framework governed by Indigenous laws, protocols, and ceremonies. It does NOT let Canada off the hook for health-related reparations

Dian Million

Survivors reframe "victimhood" as healing & political resistance

The 5 UN types of reparation (2005)

Restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, guarantees of non-repetition

AFN's Breaking the Silence (1994)

Survivors frame their own narrative, and communities choose Indigenous or Western healing

TRC on healing and self-determination

Self-determination is foundational; healing only comes through Indigenous self-government

UN Declaration Articles 21, 23, 24

Health rights. The right to health is holistic and goes beyond access to care

Trauma (Ch. 13)

Personal, collective, intergenerational, and interconnected; passed through generations; search and recovery work can retraumatize Survivors

Epigenetics

Trauma may change gene expression (Chief Cook; Thunderbird Partnership Foundation)

Retraumatization

Search work reopens trauma; hospitals can trigger it

Secondary/vicarious trauma

Indirect trauma from witnessing

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)

Raise chronic disease risk

Trauma-informed care

A systems strategy to avoid further harm; BC Cultural Safety and Humility Standard (2022)

Grief over unmarked graves

Called a public health emergency

Silencing

James and Gingell described silence as central to abuse; truth can heal

Historical trauma

The product of genocide and settler colonialism; includes land dispossession, the Indian Act, and forced child removal

Sinclair (Ch. 13)

Reconciliation requires accepting it was genocide

Disenfranchised grief

Grief that society doesn't acknowledge as legitimate. Families weren't told about children's deaths or burial places, and children weren't allowed to attend funerals. An empathetic, political, and ethical failure of the State

Ambiguous loss (Boss)

No information on the person's fate; grieving freezes; an unresolved loss

Disenfranchised grief vs ambiguous loss

Disenfranchised: society won't recognize the grief. Ambiguous: no answers about what happened to the person

Kahentinetha c. SQI

Mohawk Mothers won an injunction protecting possible graves (Royal Victoria Hospital)

Qikiqtani Truth Commission

Inuit sent south to TB sanatoria; families not told of deaths

Nanilavut Initiative ("let's find them")

Traces TB-era transfers, 1940s to 60s

Elder Osborne: 4 disconnections

From land, self, community, and spirit

Spiritual violence (TRC)

Churches perpetrated spiritual violence

Subica and Link

Cultural trauma destroys a community's core health-protective assets (cultural modes, institutions, and lands); the state suppresses access through stigma & restricted resources

Residential schools and youth

Broke Elder-youth connections

Edmund Metatawabin

Elders' teaching house -> adopted by the Senate

"Culture fractured, not broken"

MMIWG

Steele's 7 Haudenosaunee principles

Seven Generations, Hiawatha Belt, One Dish One Spoon, Tadodaho, Six Nations Belt, George Washington Belt, Two Row Wampum

Seven Generations (Steele)

Long view

Hiawatha Belt (Steele)

Kinship

One Dish One Spoon (Steele)

Sharing

Tadodaho (Steele)

Care for the vulnerable

Six Nations Belt (Steele)

Growth through alliance

George Washington Belt (Steele)

Adaptive transformation; 1794 Canandaigua Treaty

Two Row Wampum (Steele)

Cooperative sovereignty

The 8 healing principles

Courage, kindness, choice, balance, belonging, safety, joy, love

Balance (healing principle)

Balancing Traditional Healers and Knowledge Keepers with Western-trained clinicians

Dr. Chisan

"Our ceremonies, that's our psych"

Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and Healers

Need care & pay

Anderson's buffalo circle

Take turns being supported

Blue Quills University

Ceremony at every step; sacred fire, beading, quilting, healing garden, full moon walk

Kaatagoging (St. Mary's)

6,114+ children attended (1897 to 1972); 36 deaths recorded

Kaatagoging's 4 principles for graves

Weweni (take our time), Bebekaa (do it right), Biiziindun (listen), Gego Gotachiken (don't be afraid)

Critical hope

Hope as action, not wishful thinking

Haudenosaunee Condolence Ceremony

The first 10 days matter; spirits visit for a year

Health Calls: TRC Calls to Action

18 to 24

Health Calls: MMIWG Calls for Justice

3.1 to 3.7 and 7.1 to 7.8

Joyce's Principle (2021)

Equitable access to health & social services without discrimination; created by the Atikamekw Nation for Joyce Echaquan

Jordan's Principle (2007)

Child-first approach: care first, jurisdiction later (Jordan River Anderson)