Abstract
This article argues that within the context of settler colonialism, the goal of transitional justice must be decolonisation. Settler colonialism operates according to a logic of elimination that aims to affect the disappearance of Indigenous populations in order to build new societies on expropriated land. This eliminatory logic renders the death of Indigenous peoples “ungrievable”. Therefore, this article proposes a decolonising transitional justice premised on a politics of grief that (1) re-conceptualises Indigenous death as grievable, posing a challenge to the logic of elimination and advancing a “decolonisation of the mind”, and (2) resists a purely affective concept of grief in order to mobilise grief as a political resource to demand transformative structural justice. This article consider deaths at Canada’s Indian Residential Schools as a case study of ungrievability under settler colonialism and the Project of Heart as an illustration of a decolonising form of informal transitional justice.
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Notes
Estimates of death rates cannot be applied uniformly across the entire period of IRS operation. The bulk of deaths occurred in the early decades, perhaps peaking around 1905–1907 (Maass interview 2013).
I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for this conceptualisation.
Wolfe uses the term the “logic of elimination” rather than genocide for at least two reasons. First, the qualification or hyphenation of genocides (such as “indigenocide”) tends to “devalue” the violence against Indigenous populations. Second, elimination specifies that “settler colonialism is premised on the securing… of territory” (Wolfe 2006, p. 402).
An apology was issued for this forced relocation in 2010. https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100016115/1100100016116. Accessed on 25 June 2015.
The housing crisis in the northern Ontario reserve of Attawapiskat has emerged as a symbol of impoverished conditions of First Nations communities. http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/attawapiskat-s-housing-crisis-a-ground-level-perspective-1.2460256 . Accessed on 25 June 2015.
In 2011, only 4 % of children in Canada were Aboriginal, while almost half of children in state care were Aboriginal. http://aptn.ca/news/2013/05/08/nearly-half-of-children-in-foster-care-aboriginal-statistics-canada/ . Accessed on 25 June 2015.
The oral histories were gathered at community events in which the LHF partnered with local Indigenous organisations. As part of the educational mandate of the LHF, the oral histories are public but are available only through on-site access, although a short sampling is available in video form (http://www.legacyofhope.ca/projects/our-stories-our-strength/video. Accessed on 25 June 2015). The informed consent of all participants included use of their oral histories for research on condition of anonymity. As such, I have changed names and all identifying details in the oral histories I discuss.
All in-text citations for Smith refer to an interview conducted in 2014.
All in-text citations for Bearhead refer to an interview conducted in 2014.
As of 2014, there are 1181 missing or murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/mmaw-faapd-eng.pdf. Accessed on 25 June 2015.
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Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Thanks to anonymous reviewers whose insights have strengthened this paper.
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Park, A.S.J. Settler Colonialism and the Politics of Grief: Theorising a Decolonising Transitional Justice for Indian Residential Schools. Hum Rights Rev 16, 273–293 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-015-0372-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-015-0372-4