by Karine Duhamel
Canadian Museum for Human Rights
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Brieg Capitaine and Karine Vanthuyne, (eds.), Power through Testimony: Reframing Residential Schools in the Age of Reconciliation. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2017, 228 pages. ISBN 978-0-7748-3390-5, $32.95 (softcover)
Power through Testimony represents a new exploration of the impact and potential of testimony presented to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) by survivors as a mechanism for a larger decolonization of public knowledge and engagement. Featuring nine separate articles, the contributors to Power through Testimony provide important insights regarding the limitations of the truth and reconciliation process, as imposed by the legal structure of the proceedings and of the dissemination of these truths. It begins with a simple, yet remarkably complex question: Can memories of residential schools transform relationships? Anchored in the concept of ‘re-storying,’ authors emphasize the creation of a new story of the history of residential schools oriented towards the broader goal of decolonization, exploring how “this symbolic action has succeeded, or not, in forging new attitudes and practices towards Indigenous peoples” (p. 8).
The collection is divided into three parts: 1) The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Action, 2) Conflicting Memories and Paths of Action, and 3) (Un)reckoning with Historical Abuses. In the first part, author Eric Taylor Woods makes an important case for the need to connect the history of residential schools to the genocidal impulses of the settler state. Other contributors in this section focus on the creation of a survivor identity through emotions like love, shame, and collective trauma. In the second part, the conversation shifts to alternative perspectives that extend conversations outside of the normative frameworks imposed by the narrative of reconciliation, including the experiences of the Labrador Inuit within a wider framework of colonization, which includes residential schools, forced relocation, and child welfare. The final part of the book looks broadly at the way in which survivors’ messages have or have not been incorporated into a ‘re-storying’ of Canada’s national narratives. More specifically, authors engage on the question of how limitations to terms of reference and the communications of testimonies to the public have served to constrain the message and simplify—or in some cases, distill—the hard truths of colonialism.
One of the primary strengths of the approaches that bind this collection is the assertion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission itself, as an entity and social actor. In an era focussed on transitional justice as an important means towards societal transformation, this question is of central importance in critically evaluating the success, or perceived impact, of justice initiatives. The focus on survivors themselves and on their testimonies, interlaced with larger insights about the constraints and limitations of reconciliation processes such as the TRC, makes a case for the pervasive symbolic and performative nature of power, particularly as related to the histories and ongoing claims of Indigenous individuals and communities.
In addition, a unique feature of this collection is its attempts to reach beyond the confines of existing scholarship that has largely embraced the impact of the TRC as positively transformative for the Canadian public. As Chief Commissioner Murray Sinclair has pointed out, no inquiry or commission can ever be everything to everyone. In this case, the TRC’s inability to lay blame has contributed to the failure to fundamentally re-story the residential school experience within a wider framework of colonial experience. The pervasive reach of the ‘few bad seeds’ narrative of the residential school system, which casts blame for abuse with individual perpetrators rather than with the system itself, continues to occupy space in public rhetoric surrounding the needs for reconciliation. As editors point out, while Canada’s version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is oriented largely towards public education and engagement, the limitations imposed upon it—by its terms of reference, by the forces of non-reconciliation, as well as the tendency for communications to form around ideas that provide a sense of unity and belonging—have dramatically affected its impact.
Editors of Power through Testimony ultimately conclude that, though premised on a colonial narrative of Canada, the Settlement Agreement and its associated processes including the TRC have fundamentally served to help Canadians remember and reframe the story of residential schools and of settler colonialism. Yet, in focussing on the power of the testimonies themselves through the creation of a survivor identity, contributors do not decisively make the case that the testimonies have collectively changed how Canadians engage with these histories—stories that extend beyond the Indian Residential School system and into the very foundational processes of settler colonialism. To the contrary, in many circles the testimony of survivors through the TRC have in the past, and continue to provoke a sort of defensiveness towards the need for reconciliation as an ongoing and complete reframing of the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the state. While some public institutions such as school boards have taken up the TRC’s mantle for re-education, many of the TRC’s Calls to Action continue to be ignored or delayed. In addition, the survivors’ testimonies have often inadvertently marginalized or excluded the claims of day school survivors and of other groups not included in its terms of reference. As a whole then, the emphasis of the collection on a broad reading of the TRC’s impact on the Canadian public at large also fails to account for alternative traumas and testimonies, different kinds of publics, and the variety in public engagement.
Of course, a study of cultural impacts would benefit from the passage of time and from the ability to create distance between the researcher and the subject. Perhaps in ten years, a new edition of this kind of work can serve to illuminate how the Settlement Agreement and the associated work of the TRC have in fact contributed to societal change, through a study of changing educational initiatives, systems, and a more educated public raised within the era of reconciliation. In that time, as well, perhaps the survivors of the federal day school system and of mission schools will have achieved some kind of justice and reconciliation, as well. In the meantime, Power through Testimony nevertheless adds to the existing body of literature on the work and legacy of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada by looking specifically at its impact in various contexts, while providing a unique entry point into a larger discussion about the impact of reconciliation initiatives in achieving their goals. In a unique way, this collection dares to imagine what impact survivors’ memories could have on Canadian society, were they allowed to do the work they were intended to carry out, and it encourages its readers to look beyond a simple reading of the TRC process as the only route towards reconciliation.
We thank Clara Bachmann for assistance in preparing the online version of this article.
We thank S. Goldsborough for assistance in preparing the online version of this article.
Page revised: 31 March 2021
