IPIA & KIAS Rapid Research Response on Residential Schools

This letter was originally sent by Situated Knowledges: Indigenous Peoples and Place (SKIPP) Signature Area and republished with permission.

In light of the renewed focus on Indian Residential Schools, the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archeology and the Kule Institute for Advanced Study have partnered to develop a Rapid Research Response around the impacts of residential schools and settler colonialism on Indigenous peoples in Canada.

A rapid research response is a digital tool/technique to reach out to people and groups as rapidly as possible on an urgent topic for which we have local research knowledge that can be leveraged quickly to showcase the breadth and depth of UAlberta’s expertise to enable critical dialogue and engagement with current events.

With the legacy of residential schools and the impacts of colonialism on Indigenous peoples strongly in the minds of Canadians, we are developing a web-series of 5 to 6 episodes to facilitate conversations, highlight the voices of experts, community members, and faculty members across the University of Alberta. We particularly encourage Indigenous colleagues to consider participating.

We aim to focus each episode on a different topic including but not limited to the history of residential schools, the archival work being done, how the impact and trauma of residential schools continues to this day, and the contemporary work being done to locate missing children. We also invite discussions on Indigeous resurgence and revitalization.

We envision that these videos will be shared as broadly as possible, shared with members of Indigenous communities, government, students, and the general public to facilitate conversation and advance the work of the Calls to Action issued by the TRC.

Our timeline for this project is to have the first of the videos completed and ready to distribute by September 2021 with additional episodes to follow. If you are interested in participating we will work with you to create your material and arrange a time with a professional videographer to record your episode.

If you would like to participate in this project please contact Casey Germain at kias@ualberta.ca by August 30, 2021.

Sincerely,

Kisha Supernant

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