| Abstract | The residential school was a primary tool in the settler colonial state's efforts to force indigenous people to assimilate to Canadian society and culture. It was a Dickensian institution in which various forms of abuse were tolerated. This article examines the relative lack of negative narratives elicited during my fieldwork in British Columbia from the 1980s to the first decade of the 2000s. It explores various forms of social memory, proposing the notion of an "emotional archive" that contains nonnarrative memory traces. It also critiques the official discourse of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
|
