Library and Academic Services: Anti-Racism Learning Toolkit: Colonialism and Colonization

Featured Titles

The Colonial Problem: An Indigenous Perspective on Crime and Injustice in Canada by Lisa Monchalin
Location: E 78 .C2 M59 2016 Ebook or in print (Notre Dame Campus)
In the Canadian criminal justice system, Aboriginal peoples are overrepresented as both victims and offenders. The Aboriginal incarcerated population in Canada is rising each year and Aboriginal people are twice as likely to become victims of assaults when compared to non-Aboriginal people. In response, the Canadian state has framed the disproportionate victimization and criminalization of Aboriginal peoples as being an "Indian problem."
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People of North American by Thomas King
Location: E 77 .K566 2017 (Notre Dame Campus)
This book has launched a national conversation about what it means to be "Indian" in North America, and the relationship between Natives and non-Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. Through the inclusion of hundreds of images, from art and logos to archival images and monuments, The Inconvenient Indian reveals the evolution of how Native peoples have been seen, understood, represented and propagandized in North America.
Language, Capitalism, Colonialism: Toward a Critical History by Monica Heller and Bonnie S. McElhinny
Location: P 40 .H45 2017 Ebook or print (Notre Dame Campus)
A critical history of how language serves as a terrain for producing and reproducing social inequalities. The book, organized chronologically, and beginning in the period of colonial expansion in the sixteenth century, covers the development of the modern nation state and then the fascist, communist, and universalist responses to the inequities such nations created.
The Medicine of Peace: Indigenous Youth Decolonizing Healing and Resisting Violence by Jeffrey Paul Ansloos
Location: E 98 .Y68 A57 2017 (Notre Dame Campus)
Explores the complex intersections of colonial violence, the current status of Indigenous youth in Canada in regards to violence and the possibilities of critical-Indigenous psychologies of nonviolence. Indigenous youth are disproportionately at risk for violent victimization and incarceration within the justice system. They are also marginalized and oppressed within our systems of academia, mental health and social work.
Racism, Colonialism, and Indigeneity in Canada by Martin J. Cannon (Editor); Lina Sunseri (Editor)
Location: E 78 .C2 N68 2011 (Notre Dame Campus)
This unique new collection of works by Indigenous scholars explores how the interplay of racism and colonialism has shaped the lives of Indigenous people in areas such as family relations, criminal justice, territorial rights, identity, citizenship, and relations with settler colonialists.
Settler: Identity and Colonialism in 21st Century Canada by Emma Battell Lowman; Adam J. Barker
Location: E 78 .C2 B38 2015 (Notre Dame Campus)
Canada has never had an Indian problem but it does have a Settler problem. But what does it mean to be Settler? And why does it matter? Through an engaging, and sometimes enraging, look at the relationships between Canada and Indigenous nations, Settler: Identity and Colonialism in 21st Century Canada explains what it means to be Settler and argues that accepting this identity is an important first step towards changing those relationships. Being Settler means understanding that Canada is deeply entangled in the violence of colonialism, and that this colonialism and pervasive violence continue to define contemporary political, economic and cultural life in Canada.
Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada by Paulette Regan; Foreword by Taiaiake Alfred
Location: E 96.5 .R44 2010 (Notre Dame Campus)
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.
Surviving Canada by Myra Tait and Kiera Ladner (Editors)
Location: E 78 .C2 S89 2017 (Notre Dame Campus)
Surviving Canada: Indigenous Peoples Celebrate 150 Years of Betrayal is a collection of elegant, thoughtful, and powerful reflections about Indigenous Peoples' complicated, and often frustrating, relationship with Canada, and how--even 150 years after Confederation--the fight for recognition of their treaty and Aboriginal rights continues.
Words Have a Past: The English Language, Colonialism, and the Newspapers of Indian Boarding Schools by Jane Griffith
Location: PN 4883 .G75 2019 (Notre Dame Campus)
For nearly 100 years, Indian boarding schools in Canada and the US produced newspapers read by white settlers, government officials, and Indigenous parents. These newspapers were used as a settler colonial tool, yet within these tightly controlled narratives there also existed sites of resistance. This book traces colonial narratives of language, time, and place from the nineteenth-century to the present day, post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Open Educational Resources

Pulling Together: A guide for Indigenization of post-secondary institutions
In Canada, colonization occurred when a new group of people migrated to North America, took over and began to control Indigenous Peoples. Colonizers impose their own cultural values, religions, and laws, make policies that do not favour the Indigenous Peoples. They seize land and control the access to resources and trade

Cinematic Journeys

Red River College Library Services has compiled three “cinematic journeys” that address topics central to this annual event. The first two collections (“cinemas”) portray residential school experiences and stories of violence against Indigenous women — serious and sensitive topics that may disturb some viewers. The third cinema is a tribute to Indigenous women, revealing the strength, honour, and respect they bring to families and society as a whole. Through real-life stories and perspectives, these films are intended to encourage understanding and participation in the healing process of Truth and Reconciliation.

Cinema 1: Residential Schools

We Were Children by Tim Wolochatiuk
The profound impact of the Canadian government’s residential school system is conveyed through the eyes of two children who were forced to face hardships beyond their years. We Were Children gives voice to a national tragedy and demonstrates the incredible resilience of the human spirit.
Holy Angels by Jay Cardinal Villeneuve
A powerful portrayal of Canada’s colonialist history using impressionistic images and the fragmented language of a child. Filmed with a fierce determination to not only uncover history but move past it, Holy Angels speaks of the resilience of a people who have found ways of healing—and of coming home again.
Stories are in Our Bones by Janine Windolph
Filmmaker Janine Windolph takes her young sons fishing with their kokum (grandmother), a residential school survivor who retains a deep knowledge and memory of the land. Reconnecting with their homeland is a cultural and familial healing journey for the boys, who are growing up in the city. It’s also a powerful form of resistance for the women.
Second Stories – It Had to Be Done by Tessa Desnomie
Explores the legacy of residential schools through the eyes of two extraordinary women who not only lived it, but who, as adults, made the surprising decision to return to the school that had affected their lives so profoundly. This intimate and moving film affirms their strength and dignity in standing up and making a difference on their own terms.
The secret path
This powerful animated film tells the story of Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old Ojibwa boy who died of exposure in 1966 while running away from Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ontario. The story is told through music by Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie and illustrations by graphic novelist Jeff Lemire. The Secret Path acknowledges a dark part of Canada’s history — the long-suppressed mistreatment of Indigenous children and families by the residential school system — with the hope of engaging all Canadians in the reconciliation process.

Cinema 2: Violence Against Indigenous Women (MMIWG)

Finding Dawn by Christine Welsh
Acclaimed Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh brings us a compelling documentary that puts a human face on a national tragedy – the epidemic of missing or murdered Indigenous women in Canada.
Stolen Sisters
Stolen Sisters takes viewers inside this contentious issue, from the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan to the haunting depths of the dark alleys in Vancouver’s dangerous Hastings district. You will hear the stories of the missing and witness one family’s desperate search for their loved one.

Cinema 3: Honouring Indigenous Women

Mother of Many Children by Alanis Obomsawin
Alanis Obomsawin honours the central place of women and mothers within Indigenous cultures. An album of Indigenous womanhood, the film portrays proud matriarchal cultures that for centuries have been pressured to adopt the standards and customs of the dominant society.
Our Dear Sisters by Kathleen Shannon
Alanis Obomsawin, a North American Indian who earns her living by singing and making films, is the mother of an adopted child. She talks about her life, her people, and her responsibilities as a single parent. Her observations shake some of our cultural assumptions.
Martha of the North by Marquise Lepage
In the mid-1950s, lured by false promises of a better life, Inuit families were displaced by the Canadian government and left to their own devices in the Far North. In this icy desert realm, Martha Flaherty and her family lived through one of Canadian history’s most sombre and little-known episodes.

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