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Decolonizing Performative Reenactments of History
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SSHRC Awarded IDG 2019: In August 2018, a statue of Canada's first prime minister, John A. McDonald was unceremoniously hoisted from Victoria, BC's city hall steps, wrapped in foam and trucked away to a storage facility. City council was responding to concerns from Indigenous community members who had to pass by the representation honouring the man who oversaw the creation of the Indian Act and the Indian Residential School system as they entered the building for meetings on the city's reconciliation process ("John A."). This event was only one of a number of controversies over historical figures that have occurred increasingly often since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission filed its final report. The frequency of these issues in Canada, and other nations grappling with commemorations and historical narratives that the erase violence on which a nation has been built, is indicative of an ongoing problem of how to build a more equitable society on a crumbling foundation of unpaid debts. This research project is focused on developing intercultural ways of working together to performatively represent the past. It will help residents of the lands now known as Canada make the necessary reparations for continuing wrongs and build respectful relations across difference. In order to develop these methods, we will focus on a case study of unceded Nlaka’pamux territories /Lytton BC. This rural area is a place where ongoing Indigenous protection and cultural expression has resulted in complex relationships such as the comanagement of Stein Valley Nlaka’pamux Heritage Park by the Lytton First Nation and the provincial government as well as the “Songs of the Land” theatre project led by Nlaka’pamux theatre artist Kevin Loring in collaboration with the New Pathways to Gold Society. Knowledge created from this work will be able to inform similar efforts in municipalities across Canada as well as arts and culture organizations that are involved in constructing public historical narratives.
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- Date created
- 2019-02-01
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- Type of Item
- Research Material
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- © Couture, Selena. All rights reserved other than by permission. This document embargoed to those without UAlberta CCID until 2025.