Pathways of Reconciliation

Indigenous and Settler Approaches to Implementing the TRC’s Calls to Action

Aimée Craft (Editor), Paulette Regan (Author)

Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its Calls to Action in June 2015, governments, churches, non-profit, professional and community organizations, corporations, schools and universities, clubs and individuals have asked: “How can I/we participate in reconciliation?”

Recognizing that reconciliation is not only an ultimate goal, but a decolonizing process of journeying in ways that embody everyday acts of resistance, resurgence, and solidarity, coupled with renewed commitments to justice, dialogue, and relationship-building, Pathways of Reconciliation helps readers find their way forward.

The essays in Pathways of Reconciliation address the themes of reframing, learning and healing, researching, and living. They engage with different approaches to reconciliation (within a variety of reconciliation frameworks, either explicit or implicit) and illustrate the complexities of the reconciliation process itself. They canvass multiple and varied pathways of reconciliation, from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives, reflecting a diversity of approaches to the mandate given to all Canadians by the TRC with its Calls to Action.

Together the authors — academics, practitioners, students and ordinary citizens — demonstrate the importance of trying and learning from new and creative approaches to thinking about and practicing reconciliation and reflect on what they have learned from their attempts (both successful and less successful) in the process.

Reviews

“Alerts Canadians to what must be done if we are to seriously embrace the goal of decolonizing relations with Indigenous peoples.”

– Peter Russell, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto

“I walk away from this book with a much clearer understanding of reconciliation as a process with UNDRIP as its foundation, and with a deeper knowledge of several ‘truths’ underpinning Indigenous-settler relations in a variety of Canadian contexts.”

Victoria Paraschak, Department of Kinesiology, University of Windsor, American Review of Canadian Studies

“This volume has something to offer all readers—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—and from every field from natural resources to child and family services, and from healthcare to academia. The lessons that the authors share in this volume can help us all take on the work of meaningful reconciliation.”

Richel Donaldson, University of Northern British Columbia, College of Graduate Studies, Canadian Journal of History

“The essays in this book are informative, insightful, and well written. As they outline the scope of what needs to change, their mix of case studies, theoretical reflection, and empirical analyses offers some signs of hope and constructive examples of what can be done. This book deserves to be widely read. It will be useful for academics, community leaders, and educated readers concerned about how to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action.”

Don Schweitzer, The University of Toronto Quarterly, “Letters in Canada 2020”

About the Authors

Aimée Craft is an Indigenous (Anishinaabe-Métis) lawyer (called to the Bar in 2005) from Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Common law, University of Ottawa. Craft is the former Director of Research at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the founding Director of Research at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Her book, Breathing Life into the Stone Fort Treaty: An Anishnabe Understanding of Treaty One (2013) won the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book.

Paulette Regan is an independent scholar, researcher, public educator and co-facilitator of an intercultural history and reconciliation education workshop series. Formerly the research director for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, she was the senior researcher and lead writer on the Reconciliation Volume of the TRC Final Report. Her book, Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling and Reconciliation in Canada (2010) was short-listed for the 2012 Canada Prize.

Other contributors: Peter Bush, Tracey Carr, Brian Chartier, Mary Anne Clarke, Aimée Craft, Rachel (Yacaa?ał) George, Erica Jurgens, Régine Uwibereyeho King, Sheryl Lightfoot, David B. MacDonald, Benjamin Maiangwa, Cody O’Neil, Paulette Regan, Cathy Rocke, John Sinclair, Andrea Walsh, Melanie Zurba

Book Details

Purchase Online

Related Titles