Unsettling the Settler Within

A compassionate call to action that points the way toward an honest and meaningful exploration of the legacy of the Indian residential school system and its impact on all Canadians

Unsettling the Settler Within is a powerful call to action that lays bare the myth of the peacemaking settler and points the way toward a meaningful reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians grappling with the legacy of the Indian residential school system.

In 2008 the Canadian government apologized to the victims of the notorious Indian residential school system, and established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose goal was to mend the deep rifts between Aboriginal peoples and the settler society that engineered the system.

Unsettling the Settler Within argues that in order to truly participate in the transformative possibilities of reconciliation, non-Aboriginal Canadians must undergo their own process of decolonization. They must relinquish the persistent myth of themselves as peacemakers and acknowledge the destructive legacy of a society that has stubbornly ignored and devalued Indigenous experience. Today’s truth and reconciliation processes must make space for an Indigenous historical counter-narrative in order to avoid perpetuating a colonial relationship between Aboriginal and settler peoples.

A compassionate call to action, this powerful book offers all Canadians – both Indigenous and not – a new way of approaching the critical task of healing the wounds left by the residential school system.