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Indigenous & First Nations Studies: Truth and Reconciliation

Library and online resources for researching Indigenous and First Nations topics.

Introduction

These titles are a guide for readers seeking more knowledge about reconciliation. The works consider the broader context, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, stories and memoirs, and local viewpoints.

Books

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Indigenous Resurgence in an Age of Reconciliation (2023)

The essays in this collection centre the work of Indigenous communities, knowledge, and strategies for resurgence and, where appropriate, reconciliation. The book challenges narrow interpretations of indigeneity and resurgence, asking readers to take up a critical analysis of how settler colonial and heteronormative framings have infiltrated our own ways of relating to our selves, one another, and to place.

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Truth and Reconciliation Through Education: Stories of Decolonizing Practices (2023)

Educators have a special role in furthering truth and reconciliation in education, but many struggle to understand exactly what that means and how to accomplish it. Educators can only meaningfully accomplish truth and reconciliation in education by seeking out truth and reconciliation through education: an ongoing process of amplifying Indigenous voices and experiences, allowing oneself to be changed by them, and being guided by this learning both personally and professionally.

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Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance (2022)

 As the child of an American father and an Anishinaabe mother, Wente grew up in Toronto with frequent visits to the reserve where his maternal relations lived. By exploring his family's history, including his grandmother's experience in residential school, and citing his own frequent incidents of racial profiling by police who'd stop him on the streets, Wente unpacks the discrepancies between his personal identity and how non-Indigenous people view him.

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Namwayut - We Are All One: A Pathway to Reconciliation (2022)

Chief Robert Joseph traces his journey from his childhood surviving residential school to his present-day leadership journey bringing individual hope, collective change, and global transformation. Before we get to know where we are going, we need to know where we came from. Reconciliation represents a long way forward, but it is a pathway toward our higher humanity, our highest selves, and an understanding that everybody matters. 

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The Witness Blanket: Truth, Art and Reconciliation (2022)

This nonfiction book for middle-grade readers, illustrated with photographs, tells the story of the making of the Witness Blanket, a work by Indigenous artist Carey Newman that includes items from every residential school in Canada and stories from the Survivors who donated them.

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Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future (2021)

Examines the foundational work of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and the legacy of its 1996 report. It assesses the Commission’s influence on subsequent milestones in Indigenous-Canada relations and considers our prospects for a constructive future.

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Pathways of Reconciliation: Indigenous and Settler Approaches to Implementing the TRC's Calls to Action (2020)

Recognizing that reconciliation is not only an ultimate goal, but a decolonizing process of journeying in ways that embody everyday acts of resistance, resurgence, and solidarity, coupled with renewed commitments to justice, dialogue, and relationship-building, Pathways of Reconciliation helps readers find their way forward.

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The Theatre of Regret: Literature, Art, and the Politics of Reconciliation in Canada (2020)

Through close examination of core concepts in reconciliation theory - acknowledgement, apology, redress, and forgiveness - Gaertner unpacks reconciliation within the contexts of Canadian settler colonialism and the international history of the TRC. In so doing, he exposes the deeply embedded colonial ideologies that often define reconciliation in settler colonial states. The Theatre of Regret redirects current debates about reconciliation and provides a roadmap for the deconstruction of state-centred discourses of regret.

eBooks

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Troubling Truth and Reconciliation in Canadian Education (2022)

Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars address both theoretical and practical aspects of troubling reconciliation in education across various contexts with significant diversity of thought, approach, and socio-political location. Throughout, the work challenges mainstream reconciliation discourses. This timely, unflinching analysis will be invaluable to scholars and students of Indigenous studies, sociology, and education.

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True Reconciliation: How to Be a Force for Change (2022)

What can I do to help advance reconciliation? It is clear that people from all over the country want to take concrete and tan­gible action that will make real change. We just need to know how to get started. This book provides that next step. 

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Valley of the Birdtail:An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation (2022)

This book follows multiple generations of two families, one white and one Indigenous, and weaves their lives into the larger story of Canada. It is a story of villains and heroes, irony and idealism, racism and reconciliation. Valley of the Birdtail has the ambition to change the way we think about our past and show a path to a better future.

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Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance (2021)

Part memoir and part manifesto, Unreconciled is a stirring call to arms to put truth over the flawed concept of reconciliation, and to build a new, respectful relationship between the nation of Canada and Indigenous peoples. 

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Indigenous relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality (2019)

Practical and inclusive, Indigenous Relations interprets the difference between hereditary and elected leadership, and why it matters; explains the intricacies of Aboriginal Rights and Title, and the treaty process; and demonstrates the lasting impact of the Indian Act, including the barriers that Indigenous communities face and the truth behind common myths and stereotypes perpetuated since Confederation.

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21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act (2018)

Joseph examines how Indigenous Peoples can return to self-government, self-determination, and self-reliance—and why doing so would result in a better country for every Canadian. He dissects the complex issues around the Indian Act, and demonstrates why learning about its cruel and irrevocable legacy is vital for the country to move toward true reconciliation.

National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) - Overview

The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (by volume)

Reports and Publications

Photographic Collections

Learning about Reconciliation

Healing Traumas

Anti-Racism

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