A Work in Progress: Implementing the TRC Calls to Action in My Work
Photo Credit: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action
You can find the English language version of the virtual document here, and you can order your own inexpensive physical copy here. I encourage you to review this document regularly. Personally, I review it every month or so and try to tease out the Calls to Action I can work with in my personal and professional spheres.
Archaeology and the Calls to Action
I am an archaeologist, so I work within a discipline with colonial roots, walls, and ceilings. There are a lot of amazing archaeologists who work incredibly hard to decolonize archaeology, both for their own practice and the discipline as a whole. One of the individuals who is particularly inspiring to me for their work in this way and more generally is Dr. Kisha Supernant, and I encourage you to check out her work and projects. I’d love to hear about who inspires you in this work in the comments.
I believe that archaeology has a lot of potential, some realized and much unrealized, to decolonize our societies and countries. Archaeology as a practice looks to the past to understand human culture, society, history, and behaviour, among other things. In my work, I look at how human communities relate to and construct their environments, including the plant and non-human animal communities who share those environments. This often involves learning things through archaeology that are already well known by the communities with or for whom I work. Archaeology often shows really clearly, and in terms that the colonial legal and political systems find digestible, just how extensive and rich the relationships between First Nations (and Indigenous communities more generally) and their territories have been over millennia. One of my favourite TRC Calls to Action is #45.i:
Repudiate concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous lands and peoples such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius.
The Doctrine of Discovery has been used to justify and fuel the colonization of lands and peoples by Christian empires. The concept encapsulates the belief that colonizers have a ‘right’ way of doing things and the right to use violence and manipulation to expand their empires. Terra nullius is Latin for “nobody’s land”, and encapsulates this idea that the lands European empires have worked to colonize were unused, underutilized, pristine, and free to be taken. In many ways it was based on this idea that, because these lands and peoples did not look ‘civilized’ or ‘developed’ the way the Europeans expected based on their own culture and lived experiences, they weren’t at all.
Repudiate: verb
- to refuse to accept or be associated with
- to deny the truth or validity of
- to refuse to fulfill or discharge
Archaeology and the study of historical ecology are incredibly useful tools for undermining and repudiating these concepts of Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius. This is because these sciences can prove the exact opposite, and show long term, sustainable development of land- and waterscapes. We can demonstrate how communities have stewarded and cared for their territories for hundreds or thousands of years, supporting their own histories, practices, and science with Western science. Building on this, we can further look to Call to Action 46.ii:
Repudiation of concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous lands and peoples, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius, and the reformation of laws, governance structures, and policies within their respective institutions that continue to rely on such concepts.
Photo Credit: Sasun Bughdaryan
I am going to bring your attention to the specific actionable items in this Call: the reformation of laws, governance structures, and policies that rely on concepts like the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius. Archaeology and ecology often inform law and legal proceedings, changes in governance structures, and the creation and adaptation of polices. Indeed, although many disciplines are employed in these spaces, the original authors and researchers may not be involved at all in that implementation, through referencing, citations, and consultation of published work. This means that, whether I like it or not, my work is at the very least potentially political, and I would invite you to consider your own work in the same way. Whether you employ your work and research politically or not, once it is published and/or public, it can be used politically. When we see that our work has a particular potential impact, we can use our platforms to push for these reformations in the systems in which we work.
Implementing as a Settler
I firmly believe this is an ongoing practice. It isn’t going to happen overnight, or even in one year. Just like all other important practices, this isn’t something that I’ll ever finish or complete, but rather will continue using as a source of inspiration and direction for my work. As a settler, I have a relationship to the land I live on but also to the lands from which my family and ancestors came. I feel like a guest here - one who is not expected to leave, but one who has an obligation to dismantle the systems of oppression from which I can benefit but are also hurting and limiting those around me. I find the TRC Calls to Action incredibly inspiring and hopeful, it is a beautiful document with so much change and action ready and willing to be implemented. We just need the political and social will to implement these changes. I hope for political leadership that is no longer considering what makes them electable, but instead how much they can change while they have the privilege of holding office. Personally I am trying to contextualize my work to align with the Calls to Action and I hope that by doing so I can contribute to the work of answering these Calls.
So…now what?
We know what we need to do. We know how we need to do it. Now, it just needs to be done. Indigenous land and water defenders, Black, Indigenous, and Brown activists, and allies and accomplices have been telling us what needs to change for decades, and in many cases even longer. What stands in the way is very clearly political, industrial, and commercial interests that serve very few of us, and only ever in the short term. Speak up, speak out, and never stop learning. How can you as a scientist, as a member of your community, as a parent, or any of the many roles you may fill, implement one or more of the Calls to Action? How can you decolonize your own practice? I am listing some resources I have found and continue to find helpful, I encourage you to take a look and continue to seek out more. I also encourage you to reach out, to me or to others, if you are curious about how to contextualize your own work in this way.
Some Resources
Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (book)
Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit by Marie Battiste (book)
A Decolonizing Science reading list by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Truth and Reconciliation offers 94 'calls to action': Commission urges all levels of government to work together and advance reconciliation by Susana Mas (CBC article)
A Note to the Reader
Please let me know how I can do better or if anything written here strikes you as wrong or inappropriate. Contact me here if that is the case.
