Ronald Niezen
Ronald Niezen is Distinguished James McGill Professor of Anthropology and Associate Member of the Faculty of Law at McGill University. He was the Katharine A. Pearson Chair of Civil Society and Public Policy in Anthropology and Law at McGill from 2013-2020 and William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs for the 2018-2019 academic year. He has a PhD in social anthropology from Cambridge University. His published work draws from his ethnographic research on Islamic reform in West Africa, justice campaigns in Aboriginal communities in northern Canada, the international movement of indigenous peoples in the United Nations, and digital technologies in justice campaigns and repression of dissent.
Supervisors: Jack Goody and Ernest Gellner
Address: Canada
Supervisors: Jack Goody and Ernest Gellner
Address: Canada
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Cet article examine quelques-uns des moyens qu'on emploie de "coutume" pour réformer les administrations officielles dans la société Cree de James Bay. Il indique un nombre de problèmes d'adaptation administrative, associés à l'autonomie régionale qui ont accompagné la réalisation de l'accord James Bay, surtout en venant efficacement à bout de l'accroissement de la fréquence du suicide, de l'abus des drogues et de l'alcool, de la violence familiale et du crime juvénile. On trouve que les perceptions des Crees des moyens habituels de surmonter les problèmes de l'autodestruction et de la violence varient dans une seule communauté et dans des autres, pourtant elles ont le potentiel d'être employés efficacement dans les stratégies des institutions autonomes.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada on Indian Residential Schools provides us with the opportunity to observe the process through which victims reconsider their place in the history of the state. The statements offered in this context put into relief the suffering and memories of assault and torture of children, to the detriment of a more complete and varied view of the origins, modes of operation, and consequences of these residential schools. By favoring the expression of a certain type of testimony, Canada’s TRC shapes many narratives of trauma, institutional crime, and national history. This essentialization of testimony leads us to question the ability of the TRC to effectively reveal the diversity and dynamics of the residential schools, the reasons for their establishment, the causes of the corruption of their goals, and the common features they might have with ongoing, enduring forms of abuse and institutional power.
Cet article examine quelques-uns des moyens qu'on emploie de "coutume" pour réformer les administrations officielles dans la société Cree de James Bay. Il indique un nombre de problèmes d'adaptation administrative, associés à l'autonomie régionale qui ont accompagné la réalisation de l'accord James Bay, surtout en venant efficacement à bout de l'accroissement de la fréquence du suicide, de l'abus des drogues et de l'alcool, de la violence familiale et du crime juvénile. On trouve que les perceptions des Crees des moyens habituels de surmonter les problèmes de l'autodestruction et de la violence varient dans une seule communauté et dans des autres, pourtant elles ont le potentiel d'être employés efficacement dans les stratégies des institutions autonomes.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada on Indian Residential Schools provides us with the opportunity to observe the process through which victims reconsider their place in the history of the state. The statements offered in this context put into relief the suffering and memories of assault and torture of children, to the detriment of a more complete and varied view of the origins, modes of operation, and consequences of these residential schools. By favoring the expression of a certain type of testimony, Canada’s TRC shapes many narratives of trauma, institutional crime, and national history. This essentialization of testimony leads us to question the ability of the TRC to effectively reveal the diversity and dynamics of the residential schools, the reasons for their establishment, the causes of the corruption of their goals, and the common features they might have with ongoing, enduring forms of abuse and institutional power.
consequences of ‘victim centrism’, including the ways that ‘truth-telling’ can be influenced by the affirmation of particular survivor experiences and the wider goal of reforming the dominant historical narrative of the state through public education. Canada’s TRC was limited by its mandate to a
particular kind of institution and scope of collective harm. It was at the same time active in its creation of narrative templates, which guided the expression of traumatic personal experience and affirmed the category of residential school ‘survivor’ as the focal point for understanding policy-driven loss of language, tradition, and political integrity.
history that I present in this chapter serves to illustrate this
complexity.
production and distribution it is increasingly possible to make
limited-range, at times cumulatively massed, efforts to persuade unseen
audiences, to influence or “raise” public awareness, with the potential to
become a catalyst of judicial and political criticism and reform. The publics to which this outreach is targeted, however, often have significant limitations, with contradictory impulses that vacillate between enclosure and compassion, with limited potential for persuasion and involvement in the causes that successfully appeal to them.