Abstract
This paper demonstrates, through Sagkeeng First Nation narratives, how the Fort Alexander Indian Residential School (FAIRS) is a micro-instance of genocide in the context of language. An understanding is offered from the perspective of a settler colonial academic, in consideration of decolonizing principles. Using relational theory, namely Actor-Network Theory, this paper discusses how FAIRS’s practices were designed and operated to disrupt relations between children and their community by removing Anishinaabe language, and the ways children and their families negotiated and undermined these practices. Data was collected through critical narrative analysis and sociohistoric inquiry to identify and unpack the practice of language removal in FAIRS, as identified in Survivors’ testimonies, interviews, stories, and memoir.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements: I thank the community members of Sagkeeng First Nation; I am very grateful for their kindness, welcoming, and conversation. I’d like to acknowledge Professor Andrew Woolford who advised my research. Thank you to the University of Manitoba who funded my work, and especially thank you to the journal Genocide Studies and Prevention for hosting my research.
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.9.2.1291
Recommended Citation
Ilyniak, Natalia
(2015)
"“To rob the world of a people”: Language Removal as an Instance of Colonial Genocide in the Fort Alexander Indian Residential School,"
Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal:
Vol. 9:
Iss.
2:
76-97.
DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.9.2.1291
Available at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol9/iss2/9
