Based on Prime Minister Harper’s 2008 Apology for the Indian Residential School (IRS) system, this thesis addresses the need to confront the intergenerational legacy of this system on non-Indigenous Canadians in order to challenge our ability to actually ‘journey together’ with Indigenous Survivors. Aiming to break the silence that has surrounded this legacy, the voices of non-Indigenous descendents of former staff, as well as my own as a non-Indigenous Canadian, expose personal experiences of the lived reality of the IRS legacy. Working from a narrative methodology from within a decolonizing framework, this research includes interviews with two descendents of former staff, as well as an auto-ethnography of myself, as researcher, to capture the lived experiences with relation to this legacy. Results from this introductory work illustrate a variety of themes needing to be acknowledged, and deals with notions of opening dialogue, violence, guilt and responsibility within the context of the IRS system. / Graduate / 0334 / 0626 / 0630 / khaiste@gmail.com

During the Indian Residential School period (1867-1960) in the Mackenzie River area of the Northwest Territories, Indigenous students at several schools administered by the Order of the Grey Nuns produced crafts and art items that were then exported to the Order’s motherhouse in Montréal. This collection of 275 pieces, ranging from garments and footwear to paintings and drawings, was repatriated at the request of the Fort Providence Métis Council to the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC), in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories in 2001. While locationally repatriated, the Grey Nuns collection has to date remained in storage at the PWNHC until 2015 when, in cooperation of PWNHC staff, I was able to carry out a preliminary examination of the collection. The objective of this examination was to: (1) temporally and spatially trace the movement of the pieces across Canada, situating the PWNHC collection within the residential school history in Canada; (2) to explore if the making of these pieces by the children who attended residential schools in the Mackenzie River Valley perpetuated Indigenous artistic traditions; (3) to determine whether the materiality of the collection exposes the complex interrelations between children’s crafting knowledge and the colonial structure; (4) to explore the potential and challenges of reconnecting this collection now at the PWNHC with its source communities today. This thesis reports on the analysis of a small subset of the collection’s contents. This sample, consisting of two pairs of moccasins, one pair of mittens and a single souvenir object, was analyzed for information pertinent to my main objectives, and especially what they indicate about hybridity and materiality regarding the different cultural influences, Métis, Dene and Euro-Canadian, that met in the Indian Residential school setting. The objects, made at the behest of the Grey Nuns in order to meet the demands of the Canadian tourism industry, and provide badly needed income to support their Northwest Territories schools, exhibit a combination of two, and even three, of these influences, notably in the items’ styles, decorative motifs and the materials employed in their creation. Of particular note, these sample objects portray distinct Métis and Dene artistic knowledge and traits. Their making speaks to the continuance of important Indigenous women’s traditions, knowledge that did not disappear despite the often hostile institutional environment around their creators. The collections offers another window on student-colonizer relations within some Indian Residential schools in the Lower Mackenzie region in the early twentieth century. / Graduate / 0326 / abra.wenzel@gmail.com

Private schools have frequently provided innovative, experimental, and creative program unavailable to students in the public system. The most successful have survived and expanded by offering an educational experience widely perceived to be not just as good as that available in the public system, but better. In Canada, private schools are enjoying an unprecedented popularity and while most are day-only, over sixty sustain boarding programs, as do two off-shore Canadian schools. The Handbook of Canadian Boarding Schools presents information on the educational environment of each province,then offers comparative information on each boarding school. The information on each school includes: basic data, location, history, philosophy, the campus, boarding facilities, health and safety, administration and faculty, student body and student conduct, academic calendar and program, information technology, student activities and student conduct, admission and costs. The Handbook also supplies several appendices outlining important programs often available through boarding schools, such as Advanced Placement courses and the International Baccalaureate. For parents in Canada and abroad about to commit substantial sums to their children''s education, the Handbook of Canadian Boarding Schools is an essential tool to help them make the right decision. It is also an indispensable resource for supporters of the public system looking for ideas that have worked elsewhere. / Ashley Thomson, a faculty member in the J.N. Desmarais Library at Laurentian University of Sudbury, is the author/editor of the Directory of Canadian Private Residential Schools (1986), of which this is a major revision. Sylvie Lafortune is a faculty member in the J.N. Desmarais Library at Laurentian University of Sudbury. / Laurentian University subsidized the research for this project.

Residential schools for Aboriginal children were a primary site of negotiations between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous subjects. These schools, and the records of peoples who occupied them, provide opportunities to better understand colonialism in British Columbia. Residential schools were places created to transform Aboriginal children, through assimilation, into a modernizing and colonial society. They are simultaneously places that offer access to Indigenous articulations of self and Indigeneity, expressions of resistance, and exertions of agency. Cultural products created by children in residential schools, particularly creative art products, allow us to visualize and understand Indigenous response to and evasions of colonial education. When taken together with Aboriginal peoples’ testimonies about the residential school experience, and with colonial records of the schools’ intents, children’s creative materials and expressions allow some access to the complex places that constituted the cultural geography of colonialism in British Columbia. / Thesis (Ph.D, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-28 12:31:18.229

The purpose of this research was to examine how non-Aboriginal Canadians might respond if the label genocide is used to describe the historical mistreatment of the Aboriginal Peoples’ of Canada. In two studies, I manipulated the perception of Residential Schools as genocide by informing (or not informing) undergraduate student participants that some people believe what happened should be labeled genocide. I also assessed the potential moderating role of knowledge by either measuring participants’ pre-existing knowledge of Residential Schools or manipulating how much participants learned about Residential Schools through a passage. Overall, participants’ reactions to the label depended on what they knew about Residential Schools such that participants with a superficial level of knowledge responded defensively to a description of Residential Schools as genocide, while participants with no knowledge or high levels of knowledge responded positively. Findings provide theoretical insight into how knowledge affects perpetrator group members’ reactions to historical harms.

The purpose of this research was to examine how non-Aboriginal Canadians might respond if the label genocide is used to describe the historical mistreatment of the Aboriginal Peoples’ of Canada. In two studies, I manipulated the perception of Residential Schools as genocide by informing (or not informing) undergraduate student participants that some people believe what happened should be labeled genocide. I also assessed the potential moderating role of knowledge by either measuring participants’ pre-existing knowledge of Residential Schools or manipulating how much participants learned about Residential Schools through a passage. Overall, participants’ reactions to the label depended on what they knew about Residential Schools such that participants with a superficial level of knowledge responded defensively to a description of Residential Schools as genocide, while participants with no knowledge or high levels of knowledge responded positively. Findings provide theoretical insight into how knowledge affects perpetrator group members’ reactions to historical harms.

Community archives have developed in response to gaps in the documentary record and the real and perceived limitations of state-funded archives. These communities, whether defined by location, shared identity, or common interests, recognize the vital role of records in building collective memory and the importance of having access to their history. Informed by postmodern and postcolonial intellectual concerns, archivists have explored such themes and taken a greater interest in community archives as models of archiving that offer new opportunities and tools for capturing diversity and multiple perspectives on the past. This thesis traces the history of archival thought in relation to community by examining the dichotomy between community and mainstream archives. It explores the breakdown of the dichotomy, as exemplified in recent models of independent community archives and participatory archives. Case studies of the Boissevain Community Archives and Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre test the hypothesis that archivists stand to benefit from a historical perspective on community archives, one that takes into account the ongoing production of community and the role of archives, archivists, and community members in that production. Throughout, this thesis reaffirms the value of historical analysis in archival studies, arguing that it enriches understandings of the provenance of records created, maintained, and preserved by community. / October 2016

This study explored the impact of the residential school for the deaf experience on deaf identity development. The researcher utilized qualitative methodology, constant comparative analysis, and semi-structured interviews with 5 current students and 5 alumni from the Oregon School for the Deaf. The triangulation of participant interviews collectively yielded 67 textural codes and 8 structural categories in response to the four research questions: 1. Were there experiential factors that contributed to current students and alumni making the decision to attend the residential school for the deaf? 2. What, if any, is the impact of the residential school for the deaf on the identities of those who experience it? 3. How do the participants perceive their experience at the residential school for the deaf as preparation for life after graduation? 4. Based on participants' experiences with helping professionals, are there competencies, from their perspective, that helping professionals need in order to best serve individuals who are deaf? The data in the form of participant responses revealed that the immersive nature of the residential school for the deaf experience led to unfettered communication and comfort through sign language, thus making their educational experience more comfortable; increased personal and social Deaf cultural identification; and perceived readiness for life after graduation. In reference to helping professional competencies, participants reported professionals need to know the language and culture of the individuals who are being served.

This thesis examines the current relationship between Aboriginal and EuroCanadian Anglicans in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon as they seek to move beyond past hurts into a more positive future. After three field trips to Canada's North, visiting seven communities and interviewing seventy-nine individuals, complemented by archival research, I realized the dominant narrative based on a colonialism process linking residential schools, Christian Churches and federal government in a concerted effort to deliberately destroy Aboriginal peoples, cultures, and nations was not adequate to explain what happened in the North or the relationship that exists today. Two other narratives finally emerged from my research. The dominant narrative on its own represents a simplistic, one-dimensional caricature of Northern history and relationships. The second narrative reveals a more complex and nuanced history of relationships in Canada's North with missionaries and residential school officials sometimes operating out of their ethnocentric and colonialistic worldview to assimilate Aboriginal peoples to the dominant society and sometimes acting to preserve Aboriginal ways, including Aboriginal languages and cultures, and sometimes protesting and challenging colonialist policies geared to destroying Aboriginal self-sufficiency and seizing Aboriginal lands. The third narrative is more subtle but also reflects the most devastating process. It builds on what has already been acknowledged by so many: loss of culture. Instead of seeing culture as only tangible components and traditional ways of living, however, the third narrative focuses on a more deep-seated understanding of culture as the process informing how one organizes and understands the world in which one lives. Even when physical and sexual abuse did not occur, and even when traditional skills were affirmed, the cultural collisions that occurred in Anglican residential schools in Canada's North shattered children's understanding of reality itself. While the Anglican Church is moving beyond colonialism in many ways - affirming Aboriginal values and empowering Aboriginal people within the Anglican community, it nevertheless has yet to deal with the cultural divide that continues to be found in their congregations and continues to affect their relationship in Northern communities where Aboriginal and EuroCanadian people worship together yet remain separate.

The work of mid-twentieth century psychoanalyst Melanie Klein stresses the importance of the phantasy world and its role within the human psyche. For Klein innate human destructive phantasies coexist with feelings of love, guilt, and reparation. Love and hate exist in tension with one another and one must cope with balancing these feelings. I will use the psychoanalytic concept of reparation as understood by Klein to explore the performance of apology and reparation. Reparation, for Klein, refers to the psychological need to make things good, that is to say, to mend and repair relationships with others. Using this concept this work will examine the United Church of Canada's 1986 and 1998 apologies to First Nations peoples for its involvement in the residential school system, as well as the Canadian government's “Statement of Reconciliation” and 2008 apology for residential schools. This work asks the question: are these apologies effective in their attempts to make amends for past injustices or are they examples of what Klein calls “manic reparation”, which works to conceal, hide, or preserve phantasies of aggression? Klein's theories will provide a new and evaluative theoretical lens to discuss apology. The academic study of apology currently seeks to find “categorical elements”, which are then used to decide if the apology is a “success.” But this approach is missing the important component of the implied reparative concept within an apology. An apology is not only a written text but also an act that can work to conceal or reveal the perpetrators’ view of their transgressions. Exploring the manifest and latent content of apologies will provide a richer insight into the apology process.