Anthony Auchterlonie

Topic

Memory, Politics, and Place: Revitalizing Indigeneity and Unsettling Colonial Narratives With Reflections from Holocaust Memorial Culture

Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies

Date & location

• Monday, April 15, 2024
• 8:45 A.M.
• Clearihue Building, Room D241

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Helga Thorson, Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, University of Victoria (Co-Supervisor)
• Prof. Carey Newman, Department of Visual Arts, UVic (Co-Supervisor)
• Dr. Charlotte Schallie, Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, UVic (Member)
• Dr. Ry Moran, Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, UVic (Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Matt James, Department of Political Science, UVic

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Pooja Parmar, Faculty of Law, UVic

Abstract

Following the Government of Canada’s 2008 apology to victims and survivors of the Indian Residential School (IRS) system and in combination with the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), the subject of Indigenous peoples and their place in Canada has been forced to the forefront of Canadian consciousness. Over a decade later, multiple reports commissioned by successive governments have pointed to systemic violence against Indigenous peoples amounting to genocide. Accepting the conclusions of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (NIMMIWG), the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP), this thesis will analyse the role that Memorialization may play in the (re)conciliatory process and consider, specifically, the state’s role in any such memory projects. To do this, this project analyses the ways by which memorial projects have been utilized to influence narrative and collective consciousness in a number of different European countries, through case studies relating to the Holocaust. This thesis then juxtaposes European examples (Germany and Poland) of Memorialization with the processes and methods underway in Canada with regard to the IRS system. Through this juxtaposition, commonalities and differences are isolated, interrogated, and applied to context-specific sites of atrocity in Canada. This thesis concludes with a discussion on the place of Memorialization within the context of (re)conciliation and offers some reflections on how best to proceed—in line with the TRC’s Calls to Action No. 79 to 83—with regard to facilitating the emergence of memory projects in Canada in cooperation with numerous levels of government and Indigenous communities.