Witnessing and testimony are an essential component of every Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Canadian TRC is no exception. However, these key terms are ideologically loaded and have historically excluded Indigenous knowledge systems (for instance Delgamuukw v. British Columbia).... Read more
Over the years the road trip has cemented itself as an integral aspect of Western culture. The expressions of freedom and self-determination, which one finds in the ability to “leave it all behind” with the turn of a key, afford... Read more
Teaching is not a Gift: Surfacing Labour and increasing Value by Changing how we Talk about Teaching
I just finished reading yet another piece, by a teacher, that argues “teaching is a gift, not a job.” I am a teacher. Both my parents were teachers. My mother-in-law was a teacher. And let me tell you, teaching is... Read more
We live in an “Age of Apology“. In a way that was unimaginable during the Cold War, “sorry” is now a primary element of intra-state politics. Some label the post-Cold War shift out of realpolitik as an indication of “the new international morality,”... Read more
Like anyone who does it with intent, I often find writing frustrating. And one of the things I find most frustrating, particularly when I’m working for long chunks of time, is the way in which my literary imagination folds in... Read more
Originally published in The Journal of Bioethical Enquiry 1.1 (2010). An Interdisciplinary forum for ethical and legal debate. Click here for the full article. Read more
Gregory Scofield’s I Knew Two Métis Women mourns the loss of a mother and an aunt. The title itself, in its use of the past tense, alerts the reader to the book’s function as eulogy. The series of poems that follow... Read more
Compared to the Social Sciences, which contends more directly with human subjects, the humanities do not have a deep relationship with research ethics–as they are developed institutionally. However, in the case of anthology compiling, a practice that has been historically... Read more
Nice Claim Bro “It is useless to seek this consistency anywhere except in the colonizer himself” (Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized). As Daniel Justice has pointed out, settlers have opinions about Indigenous peoples. Many of those opinions are ill-informed,... Read more
Almost halfway through the Coteau edition of Louise Bernice Halfe’s Blue Marrow, right before the narrator delves into her Métis history, the text is interrupted by a blank, white page (what would be page 66). At first, the page reads as... Read more