[csaa-forum] VU seminar ­ 'On the responsibility to engage: Non-Indigenous peoples in two settler states'

[Tom Clark]

Community Identity & Displacement Research Network
Victoria University, Melbourne


CIDRN Research Seminar
12.15-1.45 pm, 5 December 2014
City Flinders Campus, Room 11.01

'On the responsibility to engage: Non-Indigenous peoples in two settler
states'

Many non-Indigenous peoples in settler societies understand themselves as
concerned with the legacies of colonialism. They often express a wish to
become more ³engaged² with that history and with Indigenous peoples.
Paradoxically, however, many do not understand how they could do that or
whether, indeed, it is their place to do so. In this research, we survey
findings from three sets of focus groups with non-Indigenous peoples in
Canada conducted over a three-year period and intersecting with the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission process that has nearly concluded there. The
goal was to see what ³emergent² discourses of reconciliation lay in the
quotidian lives of non-Indigenous Canadians.

Some strong but complex themes emerged from this research, in particular a
mode of ³delegation² and another of ³embodiment². These are expressed in
different rhetorical styles and speak to variations in the geography,
history and identity of the participants and their communities. A broad
but tentative conclusion is that for reconciliation, the politics of the
local matter. We explore this finding with one eye toward policy
innovations and toward similar Australian research now well underway.

Presenters
+ Ravi de Costa ­Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University
(Toronto).
+ Tom Clark ­ College of Arts, Victoria University (Melbourne).

Discussant
+ Cynthia MacKenzie ­ College of Arts, Victoria University (Melbourne).


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Posted by

Tom Clark, PhD MPRIA
+ VU Discipline Group Leader for Writing, Communication, & Culture
+ Secretary-General, International Federation for Modern Languages and
Literatures (FILLM)
+ President, Australasian Universities Languages and Literature
Association (AULLA)


tom.clark at vu.edu.au


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