The Political Economy of “Truth and Reconciliation”:
Neotribal Rentierism and the Creation of the
Victim/Perpetrator Dichotomy
Frances Widdowson
Mount Royal University
fwiddowson@mtroyal.ca
In his 2013 book Truth and Indignation, Ronald Niezen shows how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has transformed the assessment of the residential schools. While historically the schools were seen as a paternalistic and misguided effort to “protect, civilize and assimilate” the aboriginal population,1 they now are described as instruments of “cultural genocide”. This assessment, according to Niezen, is due to the increasing tendency to conceptualize aboriginalnon-aboriginal relations in terms of a “victim/perpetrator dichotomy”.2 In such a dichotomy, all aboriginal people are seen as victims and all non-aboriginal people perpetrators, obscuring the complex historical interaction within and between these two, very diverse, categories of people. Although Niezen’s book is an important addition to the literature, in that it shows how historical viewpoints on aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations are being transformed by entities like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, his work is limited by the fact that he does not explain why this has occurred. More specifically, Niezen does not recognize how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the product of particular historical and material circumstances connected to the processes of neotribal rentierism. As will be explained below, neotribal rentierist processes are oriented towards extracting “rent” so as to incorporate aboriginal groups into late capitalism. The “rent” being sought3 in this instance is the dispersal of compensation payments – a form of circulation that is becoming increasingly common in addressing the conflicts between aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state. The creation of a victim/perpetrator dichotomy justifies these payments, but it also acts to disguise the connection between the development of capitalism and the residential schools. The uncritical reliance on unsubstantiated aboriginal memories by “truth and reconciliation” processes, as well as postmodern relativism’s opposition to developing a universal conception of history, also has impeded understanding. A historical and material analysis will show how neotribal rentierist initiatives, like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, are distorting the understanding of why the residential schools were created and operated in the way that they did. The residential schools were not the product of a malevolent plot to destroy the aboriginal population; instead, the decline of the fur trade and the development of an industrial economy meant that it became necessary to detribalize the aboriginal population and try to make them more productive. This required the development of disciplined work habits, abstract educational practices and encouraging a deference to legalrational authority.4 The pressures of settler colonialism, however, resulted in the widespread neglect of aboriginal peoples and the creation of a substandard educational system, inhibiting the accomplishment of these goals. These consequences of settler colonialism must be understood before there can be any movement towards actual “truth and reconciliation”
continue reading here .. https://cpsa-acsp.ca/documents/conference/2017/Widdowson.pdf
Mount Allison University's agenda to 'indigenize' the campus has been ongoing since 2015....
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