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Curating Difficult Knowledge pp 23–40Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

“We were so far away”: Exhibiting Inuit Oral Histories of Residential Schools

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Part of the Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies book series (PMMS)

Abstract

In the spring of 2008, two Inuit residential school Survivors1 from each of the four Inuit geographic territories of Canada—the Inuvialuit settlement region, Nunavut, Nunavik, and Nunatsiavut—traveled to Ottawa, Ontario to share their stories for the creation of a national exhibition about the Inuit experience of the residential school system. During the sensitive filmed interviews, the Survivors recounted the impact that residential schools had had on their lives before, during, and after their time as students. Individually, their stories described a range of distinct circumstances, as they attended schools in different times, in different parts of the country, and experienced varying degrees of abuse, trauma, and long-term negative impact. Yet read together, themes emerged that resonated across the stories of all eight of the Survivors, providing invaluable source material around which to build the exhibition.

Keywords

  • Aboriginal People
  • Royal Commission
  • Residential School
  • Inuit Community
  • Archival Photograph

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Authors
  1. Heather Igloliorte
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. assistant professor in History and Anthropology-Sociology, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

    Erica Lehrer

  2. Canada Research Chair in Latin American history and is Associate Professor, Département d’histoire, Université de Montréal, Canada

    Cynthia E. Milton

  3. postdoctoral fellow, History Departments, Concordia University, Canada

    Monica Eileen Patterson

  4. postdoctoral fellow, Université de Montréal, Canada

    Monica Eileen Patterson

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© 2011 Heather Igloliorte

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Igloliorte, H. (2011). “We were so far away”: Exhibiting Inuit Oral Histories of Residential Schools. In: Lehrer, E., Milton, C.E., Patterson, M.E. (eds) Curating Difficult Knowledge. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230319554_2

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