Abstract
Appeals to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) haunt most post-1990s institutional attempts to address historical injustice. Comparing Canada and South Africa, Nagy (2012) notes that “loose analogizing” has hampered the application of important lessons from the South African to the Canadian TRC—namely, the discovery that “narrow approaches to truth collude with superficial views of reconciliation that deny continuities of violence.” Taking up her important specification of the Canada-South Africa analogy, we expand Nagy’s recent findings by gendering the continuum of settler colonial violence in both locations and by outlining the implications of these TRCs for Indigenous and Black women in particular. In both the Canadian attempt to grapple with the legacy of residential schools and the South African effort to deal with a history of apartheid, institutional approaches to truth have been both narrow and androcentric. The simultaneous historical bounding and social consolidation of Indigenous experiences of abuse and injustice has thus produced a “double settler denial.”
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Notes
In South Africa, racial categorizations included White, Black, Coloured, and Indian. Using the term “Black” is not intended to discount the experiences of “Coloured” or “Indian” persons, who were also profoundly impacted by apartheid.
“Transitional justice” refers to a suite of programs employed to forge social repair mostly in a post-conflict setting and can include initiatives such as truth commissions, official apologies, and reparations.
This paper is a response to and elaboration on the article here referenced; for a detailed explanation of the original author’s logic of comparison—i.e., her focus on South Africa and Canada despite their distinct histories and statuses, as well as the differing scale, scope, and intent of their respective TRCs—please see Nagy (2012).
Bantustans were rural areas set aside for Blacks under apartheid’s “solution” of physical segregation—the South African equivalent of Canada’s own “reserves,” in terms of how these colonial states addressed the territorial aspect of their shared “Native problem.”
A historical failure to accomplish this kind of articulation is the very reason Spivak (1999) questions the meaningful existence of a post-colonial archive.
Thanks to Matt James for this particular articulation.
We use the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation’s definition: “sexual violence is a continuum that stretches from sexual harassment through to rape-murder” (cited in Sigsworth 2009, p. 12).
Racist mythologizing disproportionately affected female students, who “had a greater obligation […] to be modest in dress, chaste in behavior, and free of pregnancy [as] part of ‘the misfortune of being a woman’” (Miller 1996, p. 235). For example, because the onset of menses established the arrival of fertility, school staff tracked girls’ periods, had them begin bathing clothed, and flattened their growing breasts with cloth bindings. The first experience of menses was often terrifying, with untutored girls certain they were dying and enduring humiliation at the hands of amused staff (Ing 2011; Miller 1996).
Stories have emerged of ranking girls by their physical attractiveness, where one was either favored positively (“You know, I didn’t have it as bad as others”) or negatively (“I’m really, I’m so glad I wasn’t pretty like my sister because of the things that happened to her”) (interviewees quoted in Stout and Peters (2011), pp. 18 and 19).
Direct harms stemming from IRS attendance include substance abuse; feelings of hopelessness, suicidal behavior, low self-esteem, dependency, and isolation; child apprehension; incarceration; class issues, e.g., financial instability and lack of access to education; loss of cultural fluency and sense of Indigenous identity; prostitution; gambling; homelessness; compromised interpersonal relationships; sexual abuse; and violence (Ing 2011; Smith 2003, 2004, 2005; Stout and Peters 2011).
A Bill to Amend the Indian Act (Bill C-31) (1985) brought Canada’s Indian Act into line with gender equality under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, principally through changes to status and membership criteria.
In Quebec, “Women of Courage: Gendering Reconciliation” highlighted survivorship, coping mechanisms, and overcoming trauma among women leaders, while a Kanien’kehaka-organized panel also spoke to the issue of gender inequality, and gender and the Two-Row Wampum (Nagy and Gillespie 2015). In Vancouver, “Honouring Women’s Wisdom: Pathways of Truth, Resilience, and Reconciliation” featured women discussing the rematriation of Indigenous governance, colonialism-induced gender discrimination and inequality, and women’s resistance and resilience.
Although it neglected to gender the IRS experience per se, RCAP (1996) dedicated a significant portion of the fourth volume of its report to the perspectives and experiences of Indigenous women. Further, linkages were made throughout between colonialism (especially assimilation projects, of which residential schools are a part) and the violence and oppression Indigenous women and girls face today.
In 2003, the government proposed a dispute resolution (DR) process, intended to fulfil RCAP’s recommendations, the promises of the government’s 1998 Statement of Reconciliation, to compensate survivors, and to foreclose mounting lawsuits.
In criminal proceedings against the staff and architects of the residential schools, no plaintiff is female until the later, massive class actions are launched. Even in civil cases, women constitute the vast minority of claimants (for example, in 2001/2005 Blackwater vs. Plint, only 2 of 28 petitioners are female).
The conservative minority government was called out by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women for failing its international treaty obligations to Indigenous women (CEDAW 2008).
SiS’s public vigils subsequently dropped by 41 %, diminishing hopes of catalyzing the resources to spur policy development and review and to “empower the aboriginal women’s groups to examine [women’s] issues” (Harvey Michele, quoted in Gass 2011).
With Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government now in office, and particularly with the appointment of an Indigenous woman as Justice Minister (Jody Wilson-Raybould, Wai Kai Nation) and the almost immediate announcement of an official inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, there has been a profound shift in the state’s official stance—though whether this is reflective of, or capable of catalyzing a broader shift in the Canadian consciousness is not yet clear. It may simply exemplify the “extreme concern” node on the spectrum we propose.
“[V]ictim-centered approaches treat truth as a multifaceted and deeply experiential reality that is best approached by hearing the diverse voices of survivors of state-inflicted trauma on their own terms” (James 2012, p. 185).
These include promises to rescind the already defunct sections of the Indian Act pertaining to residential schools; commissioning artwork for Parliament Hill; and memorializing the year-old, heavily critiqued official apology.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for editorial and reviewer feedback in improving this piece and extend thanks in particular to Matt James, Sheryl Lightfoot, Michael Murphy, Kate Newman, and members of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Workshop at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities). The research and writing of this article were made possible through grants from the Canadian Federation of University Women, Fulbright Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Political Science Departments at the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia.
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Grey, S., James, A. Truth, Reconciliation, and “Double Settler Denial”: Gendering the Canada-South Africa Analogy. Hum Rights Rev 17, 303–328 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-016-0412-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-016-0412-8