Abstract
Taking as its starting point intimate colonial geographies lived by First Nations peoples in northern British Columbia, Canada, this chapter argues that theories of resistance do not allow for adequate theorizing of the ways in which Indigenous subjects navigate powerful forces, especially educational ones, that are intent on assimilating and de-Indigenizing them. Schools, classrooms, and the curricula taught within them are conceptualized in this contribution as tense political sites where conflicting modes of knowledge clash and where, ultimately, Indigenous children grapple with (as opposed to simply resist) expressions of (neo)colonial power. This chapter examines historical and contemporary education systems designed with Indigenous peoples in mind and is informed by discussions among human geographers about the discipline’s ontological turn and the need to reinvigorate social justice considerations within research.
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Notes
- 1.
The term Indian is problematic, highly dated, and offensive because it legitimizes and formalizes the conflation and homogenization of peoples on the basis of exclusion from the category European and/or White. Nomenclature, however, continues to confound many who write about Indigenous issues in Canada. This confusion is evidence of colonialism’s ongoing influence in twenty-first-century geographies. Since 1982, the terms Aboriginal and Indigenous are used in Section 35 of Canada’s Constitution Act to inclusively denote First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people and to reflect the ongoing research and contemporary shifts in colonial languages toward more accurate and respectful descriptors of the territory’s First Peoples. The term First Nations replaces the term. I use the term “Indian” in this chapter to denote historical conceptualizing of First Nations; wherever I am able, I use the specific names of peoples and Nations to whom I am referring (e.g., the Sekani peoples).
- 2.
Although residential schooling in Canada is now clearly considered a deeply problematic and often violent practice, and although a national apology to all Indigenous peoples in the country has been offered (Waterstone & de Leeuw, 2010), it cannot fairly be asserted that all people at the helm of the residential schooling project were monstrous or behaving with malevolent intent. Nor can it fairly be asserted that all Indigenous peoples uniformly experienced residential schooling as a bad thing. Indeed, some former residential school students have attested to enjoying and benefiting from their time in the schools. For further discussion, see Edwards (2009) and Raibmon (1996).
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de Leeuw, S. (2015). Tau(gh)t Subjects: Geographies of Residential Schooling, Colonial Power, and the Failures of Resistance Theory. In: Meusburger, P., Gregory, D., Suarsana, L. (eds) Geographies of Knowledge and Power. Knowledge and Space, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9960-7_15
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