Unsettling the Settler Within

Unsettling the Settler Within
Author: Paulette Regan
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2010-12-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0774859644

In 2008 the Canadian government apologized to the victims of the notorious Indian residential school system, and established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose goal was to mend the deep rifts between Aboriginal peoples and the settler society that engineered the system. Unsettling the Settler Within argues that in order to truly participate in the transformative possibilities of reconciliation, non-Aboriginal Canadians must undergo their own process of decolonization. They must relinquish the persistent myth of themselves as peacemakers and acknowledge the destructive legacy of a society that has stubbornly ignored and devalued Indigenous experience. Today’s truth and reconciliation processes must make space for an Indigenous historical counter-narrative in order to avoid perpetuating a colonial relationship between Aboriginal and settler peoples. A compassionate call to action, this powerful book offers all Canadians – both Indigenous and not – a new way of approaching the critical task of healing the wounds left by the residential school system.

Unsettling Settler Societies

Unsettling Settler Societies
Author: Daiva Stasiulis
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 358
Release: 1995-08-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780803986947

`Settler societies' are those in which Europeans have settled and become politically dominant over indigenous people, and where a heterogenous society has developed in class, ethnic and racial terms. They offer a unique prism for understanding the complex relations of gender, race, ethnicity and class in contemporary societies. Unsettling Settler Societies brings together a distinguished cast of contributors to explore these relations in both material and discursive terms. They look at the relation between indigenous and settler//immigrant populations, focusing in particular on women's conditions and politics. The book examines how the process of development of settler societies, and the positions of indigenous and

Pathways of Reconciliation

Pathways of Reconciliation
Author: Aimée Craft
Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2020-05-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0887558550

Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its Calls to Action in June 2015, governments, churches, non-profit, professional and community organizations, corporations, schools and universities, clubs and individuals have asked: “How can I/we participate in reconciliation?" Recognizing that reconciliation is not only an ultimate goal, but a decolonizing process of journeying in ways that embody everyday acts of resistance, resurgence, and solidarity, coupled with renewed commitments to justice, dialogue, and relationship-building, Pathways of Reconciliation helps readers find their way forward. The essays in Pathways of Reconciliation address the themes of reframing, learning and healing, researching, and living. They engage with different approaches to reconciliation (within a variety of reconciliation frameworks, either explicit or implicit) and illustrate the complexities of the reconciliation process itself. They canvass multiple and varied pathways of reconciliation, from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives, reflecting a diversity of approaches to the mandate given to all Canadians by the TRC with its Calls to Action. Together the authors—academics, practitioners, students and ordinary citizens—demonstrate the importance of trying and learning from new and creative approaches to thinking about and practicing reconciliation and reflect on what they have learned from their attempts (both successful and less successful) in the process.

Unsettling Spirit

Unsettling Spirit
Author: Denise M. Nadeau
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2020-04-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0228002907

What does it mean to be a white settler on land taken from peoples who have lived there since time immemorial? In the context of reconciliation and Indigenous resurgence, Unsettling Spirit provides a personal perspective on decolonization, informed by Indigenous traditions and lifeways, and the need to examine one's complicity with colonial structures. Applying autoethnography grounded in Indigenous and feminist methodologies, Denise Nadeau weaves together stories and reflections on how to live with integrity on stolen and occupied land. The author chronicles her early and brief experience of "Native mission" in the late 1980s and early 1990s in northern Canada and Chiapas, Mexico, and the gradual recognition that she had internalized colonialist concepts of the "good Christian" and the Great White Helper. Drawing on somatic psychotherapy, Nadeau addresses contemporary manifestations of helping and the politics of trauma. She uncovers her ancestors' settler background and the responsibilities that come with facing this history. Caught between two traditions – born and raised Catholic but challenged by Indigenous ways of life – the author traces her engagement with Indigenous values and how relationships inform her ongoing journey. A foreword by Cree-Métis author Deanna Reder places the work in a broader context of Indigenous scholarship. Incorporating insights from Indigenous ethical and legal frameworks, Unsettling Spirit offers an accessible reflection on possibilities for settler decolonization as well as for decolonizing Christian and interfaith practice.

Settler

Settler
Author: Emma Battell Lowman
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2015-12-01T00:00:00Z
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1552667790

Canada has never had an “Indian problem”— but it does have a Settler problem. But what does it mean to be Settler? And why does it matter? Through an engaging, and sometimes enraging, look at the relationships between Canada and Indigenous nations, Settler: Identity and Colonialism in 21st Century Canada explains what it means to be Settler and argues that accepting this identity is an important first step towards changing those relationships. Being Settler means understanding that Canada is deeply entangled in the violence of colonialism, and that this colonialism and pervasive violence continue to define contemporary political, economic and cultural life in Canada. It also means accepting our responsibility to struggle for change. Settler offers important ways forward — ways to decolonize relationships between Settler Canadians and Indigenous peoples — so that we can find new ways of being on the land, together. This book presents a serious challenge. It offers no easy road, and lets no one off the hook. It will unsettle, but only to help Settler people find a pathway for transformative change, one that prepares us to imagine and move towards just and beneficial relationships with Indigenous nations. And this way forward may mean leaving much of what we know as Canada behind.

The Sleeping Giant Awakens

The Sleeping Giant Awakens
Author: David B. MacDonald
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2019-05-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1487518056

Confronting the truths of Canada’s Indian residential school system has been likened to waking a sleeping giant. In The Sleeping Giant Awakens, David B. MacDonald uses genocide as an analytical tool to better understand Canada’s past and present relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples. Starting with a discussion of how genocide is defined in domestic and international law, the book applies the concept to the forced transfer of Indigenous children to residential schools and the "Sixties Scoop," in which Indigenous children were taken from their communities and placed in foster homes or adopted. Based on archival research, extensive interviews with residential school Survivors, and officials at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, among others, The Sleeping Giant Awakens offers a unique and timely perspective on the prospects for conciliation after genocide, exploring the difficulties in moving forward in a context where many settlers know little of the residential schools and ongoing legacies of colonization and need to have a better conception of Indigenous rights. It provides a detailed analysis of how the TRC approached genocide in its deliberations and in its Final Report. Crucially, MacDonald engages critics who argue that the term genocide impedes understanding of the IRS system and imperils prospects for conciliation. By contrast, this book sees genocide recognition as an important basis for meaningful discussions of how to engage Indigenous-settler relations in respectful and proactive ways.

Unsettling Canada

Unsettling Canada
Author: Arthur Manuel
Publisher: Between the Lines
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2021-11-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1771135573

A Canadian bestseller and winner of the 2016 Canadian Historical Association Aboriginal History Book Prize, Unsettling Canada is a landmark text built on a unique collaboration between two First Nations leaders. Arthur Manuel (1951–2017) was one of the most forceful advocates for Indigenous title and rights in Canada; Grand Chief Ron Derrickson, one of the most successful Indigenous businessmen in the country. Together, they bring a fresh perspective and bold new ideas to Canada’s most glaring piece of unfinished business: the place of Indigenous peoples within the country’s political and economic space. This vital second edition features a foreword by award-winning activist Naomi Klein and an all-new chapter co-authored by Law professor Nicole Schabus and Manuel’s daughter, Kanahus, honouring the multi-generational legacy of the Manuel family’s work.

Living in Indigenous Sovereignty

Living in Indigenous Sovereignty
Author: Elizabeth Carlson-Manathara
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2021-04-15T00:00:00Z
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1773632639

In the last decade, the relationship between settler Canadians and Indigenous Peoples has been highlighted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, the Idle No More movement, the Wet’suwet’en struggle against pipeline development and other Indigenous-led struggles for Indigenous sovereignty and decolonization. Increasing numbers of Canadians are beginning to recognize how settler colonialism continues to shape relationships on these lands. With this recognition comes the question many settler Canadians are now asking, what can I do? Living in Indigenous Sovereignty lifts up the wisdom of Indigenous scholars, activists and knowledge keepers who speak pointedly to what they are asking of non-Indigenous people. It also shares the experiences of thirteen white settler Canadians who are deeply engaged in solidarity work with Indigenous Peoples. Together, these stories offer inspiration and guidance for settler Canadians who wish to live honourably in relationship with Indigenous Peoples, laws and lands. If Canadians truly want to achieve this goal, Carlson and Rowe argue, they will pursue a reorientation of their lives toward “living in Indigenous sovereignty” — living in an awareness that these are Indigenous lands, containing relationships, laws, protocols, stories, obligations and opportunities that have been understood and practised by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. Collectively, these stories will help settler Canadians understand what transformations we must undertake if we are to fundamentally shift our current relations and find a new way forward, together. Visit for more details: https://www.storiesofdecolonization.org Watch the book launch video here:

Unsettling Stories

Unsettling Stories
Author: Victoria Kuttainen
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2009-12-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1443818127

The first study of the synergies between postcolonialism and the genre of the short story composite, Unsettling Stories considers how the form of the interconnected short story collection is well suited to expressing thematic aspects of postcolonial writing on settler terrain. Unique for its comparative considerations of American, Canadian, and Australian literature within the purview of postcolonial studies, this is also a considered study of the difficult place of the postcolonial settler subject within academic debates and literature. Close readings of work by Tim Winton, Margaret Laurence, William Faulkner, Stephen Leacock, Sherwood Anderson, Olga Masters, Scott R. Sanders, Thea Astley, Tim O’Brien and Sandra Birdsell are positioned alongside critical discussions of postcolonial theory to show how awkward affiliations of individuals to place, home, nation, culture, and history expressed in short story composites can be usefully positioned within the broader context of settler colonialism and its aftermath.

Making and Breaking Settler Space

Making and Breaking Settler Space
Author: Adam J. Barker
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2021-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0774865431

Five hundred years. A vast geography. Making and Breaking Settler Space explores how settler spaces have developed and diversified from contact to the present. Adam Barker traces the trajectory of settler colonialism, drawing out details of its operation that are embedded not only in imperialism but also in contemporary contexts that include problematic activist practices by would-be settler allies. Unflinchingly engaging with the systemic weaknesses of this process, he proposes an innovative, unified spatial theory of settler colonization in Canada and the United States that offers a framework within which settlers can pursue decolonial actions in solidarity with Indigenous communities.