Tuck and Yang’s Decolonization is not a metaphor provides an interesting touchpoint to identify a pattern of “settler moves to innocence.” What does this mean, and what is the pattern? As Indigenous peoples are literally removed from the land and disposed of its resources such as hunting and fishing, but also access to natural resource revenue, they are also figuratively removed and replaced with appropriated words, such as Sakaw. This is an instance that Tuck describes as “settler nativism” where setters attempt to “deflect” their identity by appropriating, in this instance, Indigenous words to be used as place names. There are many instances of this in Canada – itself a place name rooted in an Iroquoian language
This pattern is rooted in colonial and patriarchal power. The settler claims control the land through displacement and replacement of Indigenous peoples. In this specific instance, the Papaschase First Nation who occupied Reserve 136. Settlers, such as those on the Names Advisory Committee and City Council, then use Indigenous words (i.e. Sakaw) as place names to assuage feelings of guilt. This “move to innocence” allows for a feeling of moral resolution without addressing the ongoing colonial structures that led to the theft of land in the first place.
By Laurie Bertram This piece was first published in the University of Toronto Magazine. On May 23, 1889, a packed courtroom in Edmonton watched as “Big Nelly” Webb, the most famous woman in town, answered to the charge of shooting a member of the North West Mounted Police. Several months earlier, Constable Thomas Cairney had been found seriously wounded on… Read more »
By Lillian Shirt, Corinne George and Sarah Carter It was the summer of ’69. Lillian Piché Shirt, a twenty-six year old Cree woman from the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, was living in a tipi with her four young children on Sir Winston Churchill Square outside Edmonton’s City Hall. She was protesting the lack of housing for Indigenous people in Edmonton…. Read more »
By Zoe Todd My research engages the relationship between people, place, stories and time. This manifests in my doctoral work with examinations of human-fish relationships in the context of colonialism in the Western Arctic. But closer to home, in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton), my work examines people’s relationships to place through story and art — fish stories, land stories, stories of movement… Read more »
By Tim O’Grady When you think of important events in your life, chances are you associate them with physical places. Whether it is your childhood home, a former school, or a family cottage or favourite vacation spot, the connection between memory and place is intangible, though very real. People are connected to the buildings in their city. They have lived… Read more »
