North Americans listing the world’s genocides often forget to include their own. Over three days this week, experts from around the world will gather at the University of Manitoba to explore the suppressed stories of Colonial Genocide and Indigenous North America.
The workshop starts with a powerful triple keynote presentation that is open to the public: Justice Murray Sinclair on genocide and residential schools; school survivor Theodore Fontaine; and Mi’kmaq author Daniel Paul arguing that First Nations people were not the savages.
When: Thursday, September 20, 2012, 2:30 p.m.
Where: Marshall McLuhan Hall, University Centre, Fort Garry campus, University of Manitoba
Reporters are invited to drop into provocative workshop sessions Friday, September 21 and Saturday, September 22, that will rip apart the popular view of Canadian and American history and culture. Friday’s 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. sessions will be in 307 Tier Building at the Fort Garry Campus of the University of Manitoba, but Saturday’s 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. sessions will be in Salon C in the Fort Garry Hotel in downtown Winnipeg. The workshops are also open to University of Manitoba faculty members and graduate students, but advance registration is required.
North American genocides entail far more than residential schools, argues sociologist and workshop organizer Andrew Woolford. He says that massacres, land appropriation, the collapse of the buffalo and other species, disease spread, forced sterilization and forced political restructuring can all be examined through the lens of genocide.
“What impact did these events, individually or combined, have on the ability of Indigenous groups to survive as groups?” Woolford asks. “And what can be done today to redress and educate non-Indigenous North Americans about these harms?”
Speakers from a variety of disciplines will cover topics such as how resistance to genocide has been used to justify it and how women missionaries were non-violent participants. However, they will also question whether naming Canada’s genocide might backfire as an advocacy strategy.
A full schedule is available at: www.ncas.rutgers.edu/colonial-genocides-conference-schedule
Workshop sponsors include the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Rutgers University.
For more information, contact Andrew Woolford at: email: Andrew.Woolford@ad.umanitoba.ca or Helen Fallding, manager, Centre for Human Rights Research, at email: fallding@cc.umanitoba.ca or phone 204-474-6156
