Residential Schools and Reconciliation is a unique, timely, and provocative work that tackles and explains the institutional responses to Canada's residential school legacy.

Between 1867 and 2000, the Canadian government sent over 150,000 Aboriginal children to residential schools across the country. Government officials and missionaries agreed that in order to “civilize and Christianize” Aboriginal children, it was necessary to separate them from their parents and their home communities. For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. Education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers. Legal action by the schools’ former students led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2008. The product of over six years of research, the Commission’s final report outlines the history and legacy of the schools, and charts a pathway towards reconciliation. Canada’s Residential Schools: Reconciliation documents the complexities, challenges, and possibilities of reconciliation by presenting the findings of public testimonies from residential school Survivors and others who participated in the TRC’s national events and community hearings. For many Aboriginal people, reconciliation is foremost about healing families and communities, and revitalizing Indigenous cultures, languages, spirituality, laws, and governance systems. For governments, building a respectful relationship involves dismantling a centuries-old political and bureaucratic culture in which, all too often, policies and programs are still based on failed notions of assimilation. For churches, demonstrating long-term commitment to reconciliation requires atoning for harmful actions in the residential schools, respecting Indigenous spirituality, and supporting Indigenous peoples’ struggles for justice and equity. Schools must teach Canadian history in ways that foster mutual respect, empathy, and engagement. All Canadian children and youth deserve to know what happened in the residential schools and to appreciate the rich history and collective knowledge of Indigenous peoples. This volume also emphasizes the important role of public memory in the reconciliation process, as well as the role of Canadian society, including the corporate and non-profit sectors, the media, and the sports community in reconciliation. The Commission urges Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a framework for reconciliation. While Aboriginal peoples are victims of violence and discrimination, they are also holders of Treaty, Aboriginal, and human rights and have a critical role to play in reconciliation. All Canadians must understand how traditional First Nations, Inuit, and Métis approaches to resolving conflict, repairing harm, and restoring relationships can inform the reconciliation process. The TRC’s calls to action identify the concrete steps that must be taken to ensure that our children and grandchildren can live together in dignity, peace, and prosperity on these lands we now share.

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.

Cybercartography in a Reconciliation Community: Engaging Intersecting Perspectives, Volume Eight gathers perspectives on issues related to reconciliation—primarily in a residential / boarding school context—and demonstrates the unifying power of Cybercartography by identifying intersections among different knowledge perspectives. Concerned with understanding approaches toward reconciliation and education, preference is given to reflexivity in research and knowledge dissemination. The positionality aspect of reflexivity is reflected in the chapter contributions concerning various aspects of cybercartographic atlas design and development research, and related activities. In this regard, the book offers theoretical and practical knowledge of collaborative transdisciplinary research through its reflexive assessment of the relationships, processes and knowledge involved in cybercartographic research. Using, most specifically, the Residential Schools Land Memory Mapping Project for context, Cybercartography in a Reconciliation Community provides a high speed tour through the project's innovative collaborative approach to mapping institutional material and volunteered geographic information. Exploring Cybercartography through the lens of this atlas project provides for a comprehensive understanding of both Cybercartography and transdisciplinary research, while informing the reader of education and reconciliation initiatives in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Italy. - Includes a variety of examples of reconciliation work, especially related to residential / boarding schools, and examines common themes in the issues discussed - Offers both conceptual and applied dimensions, and provides a good example of a reflexive approach to both research and knowledge dissemination - Addresses a modern application for Cybercartography that is of considerable societal importance - Provides historiographical accounts of atlas-making processes, multidisciplinary perspectives on research issues and conceptual explorations

Further Developments in the Theory and Practice of Cybercartography, Third Edition, Volume Nine, presents a substantively updated edition of a classic text on cybercartography, presenting new and returning readers alike with the latest advances in the field. The book examines the major elements of cybercartography and embraces an interactive, dynamic, multisensory format with the use of multimedia and multimodal interfaces. Material covering the major elements, key ideas and definitions of cybercartography is newly supplemented by several chapters on two emerging areas of study, including international dimensions and language mapping. This new edition delves deep into Mexico, Brazil, Denmark, Iran and Kyrgyzstan, demonstrating how insights emerge when cybercartography is applied in different cultural contexts. Meanwhile, other chapters contain case studies by a talented group of linguists who are breaking new ground by applying cybercartography to language mapping, a breakthrough that will provide new ways of understanding the distribution and movement of language and culture. - Highlights the relationship between cybercartography and critical geography - Incorporates the latest developments in the field of cybercartography, including International Dimensions and Language Mapping - Showcases the legal, ethical and policy implications of mapping local and traditional knowledge

Although Indigenous peoples had their own systems of law based on their social, political, and spiritual traditions, under colonialism their legal systems have often been ignored or overruled by non-Indigenous laws. Today, however, these legal traditions are being reinvigorated and recognized as vital for the preservation of the political autonomy of Aboriginal nations and the development of healthy communities. The essays in this book present important perspectives on the role of Indigenous legal traditions in reclaiming and preserving the autonomy of Aboriginal communities and in reconciling the relationship between these communities and Canadian governments. Contributors include Andrée Lajoie, Minnawaanagogiizhigook (Dawnis Kennedy), Ghislain Otis, Ted Palys and Wenona Victor, Paulette Regan, and Perry Shawana. Common threads linking the essays include the relationship between Indigenous and Canadian legal orders, the importance of Indigenous legal traditions for Aboriginal communities’ autonomy, and the ways in which these traditions might be recognized and given space in the Canadian legal landscape. In its examination of different aspects of and models for the recognition of Indigenous legal orders, this book addresses important issues relating to legal pluralism. It will be of interest to a wide audience including lawyers and legal academics, teachers, students, policy makers, and members of Aboriginal communities.

In the making of the modern Nordic states in the first half of the twentieth century, elementary education was paramount in creating a notion of citizenship that was universal and equal for all citizens. Yet these elementary education policies ignored, in most cases, the language, culture, wishes, and needs of minorities such as the indigenous Sámi. Presenting the Sámi as an active, transnational population in early twentieth-century northern Europe, Otso Kortekangas examines how educational policies affected the Sámi people residing in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. In this detailed study, Kortekangas explores what the arguments were for the lack of Sámi language in schools, how Sámi teachers have promoted the use of their mother tongue within the school systems, and how the history of the Sámi compares to other indigenous and minority populations globally. Timely in its focus on educational policies in multiethnic societies, and ambitious in its scope, the book provides essential information for educators, policy-makers, and academics, as well as anyone interested in the history of education, and the relationship between large-scale government policies and indigenous peoples.

Educating the Body presents a history of physical education in Canada, shedding light on its major advocates, innovators, and institutions. The book traces the major developments in physical education from the early nineteenth century to the present day – both within and beyond schools – and concludes with a vision for the future. It examines the realities of Canada’s classed, gendered, and racialized society and reveals the rich history of Indigenous teachings and practices that were marginalized and erased by the residential school system. Today, with the worrying decline in physical activity levels across the population, Educating the Body is indispensable to understanding our policy options moving ahead.

In the words of Cayuga Elder Gae Ho Hwako Norma Jacobs: “We have forgotten about that sacred meeting space between the Settler ship and the Indigenous canoe, odagahodhes, where we originally agreed on the Two Row, and where today we need to return to talk about the impacts of its violation.” Odagahodhes highlights the Indigenous values that brought us to the sacred meeting place in the original treaties of Turtle Island, particularly the Two Row Wampum, and the sharing process that was meant to foster good relations from the beginning of the colonial era. The book follows a series of Indigenous sharing circles, relaying teachings by Gae Ho Hwako and the responses of participants – scholars, authors, and community activists – who bring their diverse experiences and knowledge into reflective relation with the teachings. Through this practice, the book itself resembles a teaching circle and illustrates the important ways tradition and culture are passed down by Elders and Knowledge Keepers. The aim of this process is to bring clarity to the challenges of truth and reconciliation. Each circle ends by inviting the reader into this sacred space of Odagahodhes to reflect on personal experiences, stories, knowledge, gifts, and responsibilities. By renewing our place in the network of spiritual obligations of these lands, Odagahodhes invites transformations in how we live to enrich our communities, nations, planet, and future generations.

For millennia, plants and their habitats have been fundamental to the lives of Indigenous Peoples - as sources of food and nutrition, medicines, and technological materials - and central to ceremonial traditions, spiritual beliefs, narratives, and language. While the First Peoples of Canada and other parts of the world have developed deep cultural understandings of plants and their environments, this knowledge is often underrecognized in debates about land rights and title, reconciliation, treaty negotiations, and traditional territories. Plants, People, and Places argues that the time is long past due to recognize and accommodate Indigenous Peoples' relationships with plants and their ecosystems. Essays in this volume, by leading voices in philosophy, Indigenous law, and environmental sustainability, consider the critical importance of botanical and ecological knowledge to land rights and related legal and government policy, planning, and decision making in Canada, the United States, Sweden, and New Zealand. Analyzing specific cases in which Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights to the environment have been denied or restricted, this collection promotes future prosperity through more effective and just recognition of the historical use of and care for plants in Indigenous cultures. A timely book featuring Indigenous perspectives on reconciliation, environmental sustainability, and pathways toward ethnoecological restoration, Plants, People, and Places reveals how much there is to learn from the history of human relationships with nature.