Ontological Destruction: Genocide and Canadian Aboriginal Peoples

Abstract

The impact of colonialism on Aboriginal groups in Canada is often described as ''cultural genocide'' or ''ethnocide.'' In contrast, this article offers a re-reading of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) that is sensitive to Aboriginal understandings and experiences of group life and group destruction. Through this re-reading, it is argued that genocide must be understood in a culturally contextualized manner so as to avoid modernist and Eurocentric biases. Only by opening up the conception of genocide will we be able to contend adequately with Canadian Aboriginal experiences of colonialism.

What Does Genocide Produce? The Semantic Field of Genocide, Cultural Genocide, and Ethnocide in Indigenous Rights Discourse

“…The recent emergence of a nascent approach referred to as "decolonizing genocide studies," which attempts to destabilize some of the foundational assumptions and biases of the field in order to open space for Indigenous ways of knowing, has furthered this dialogue. 84 Not only does this new approach promise epistemological insights into the nature of genocide as a broad category of group destruction, but it also poses important methodological and ethical challenges regarding the legal and political implications of genocide studies. Indeed, as the semantic field of genocide, cultural genocide, and ethnocide continues to be deployed by the transnational advocacy network for Indigenous rights, genocide scholars must revisit our field's perennial concern with the balance between scholarship and activism.…”

Does Reconciliation and Racial Justice Necessitate a Struggle against White Supremacy?

“…Indigenous genocide should not be assessed using the Holocaust as the sole example of genocide. Nor should it necessarily be evaluated based on the Lemkin definition of genocide, though as the recent National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls report (2019) shows that Indigenous genocide is genocide using multiple aspects of that definition as well (see also MacDonald 2015; Moses 2002; Simpson 2017; Starblanket 2019; Wildcat 2015; Woolford 2009, 2013 on Indigenous genocide). When the Shoah or other “hot” genocides such as Rwanda (see Anderson 2015) are considered as the only kind of genocide, this also overlooks how assimilation is part of Indigenous genocide.…”

Killing Them Softly: Forcible Transfers of Indigenous Children

“…6 Survivors have also related to their experiences in terms of genocide. 7 Yet, residential schools litigation has faced substantial legal obstacles in both domestic and international law regardless of whether they seek to apply the UNGC or tort law.…”