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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Unsettling the Settler Within

Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada

In 2008, Canada established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to mend the deep rifts between Aboriginal peoples and the settler society that created Canada’s notorious residential school system. Unsettling the Settler Within argues that non-Aboriginal Canadians must undergo their own process of decolonization in order to truly participate in the transformative possibilities of reconciliation. Settlers 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. A compassionate call to action, this powerful book offers a new and hopeful path toward healing the wounds of the past.

316 pages | © 2011

Sociology: Race, Ethnic, and Minority Relations


Table of Contents

Foreword by Taiaiake Alfred

Acknowledgments

Introduction: A Settler’s Call to Action

1 An Unsettling Pedagogy of History and Hope

2 Rethinking Reconciliation: Truth Telling, Restorying History, Commemoration

3 Deconstructing Canada’s Peacemaker Myth

4 The Alternative Dispute Resolution Program: Reconciliation as Regifting

5 Indigenous Diplomats: Counter-Narratives of Peacemaking

6 The Power of Apology and Testimony: Settlers as Ethical Witnesses

7 An Apology Feast in Hazelton: A Settler’s “Unsettling”
Experience

8 Peace Warriors and Settler Allies

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

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