" Assimilationist policies in residential schools for Indigenous peoples: Tomson Highway, Champion and Ooneemeetoo and Richard Wagamese's White Game ".

• Main Author: Mougeot, Damien
• Other Authors: Héritages : Culture(s), Patrimoine(s), Création(s) (Héritages - UMR 9022), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Ministère de la Culture (MC)-CY Cergy Paris Université (CY), Université Laval Québec (ULaval), Stéphane Bikialo, Julien Rault, André Magord
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: French
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: Residential schools; residential school literature; cultural genocide; Tomson Highway; Richard Wagamese; Pensionnats pour Autochtones; littérature des pensionnats; génocide culturel; [INFO.INFO-GL]Computer Science [cs]/General Literature [cs.GL]; [SHS.LITT]Humanities and Social Sciences/Literature; Canada; algonquin; anishina*
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04387754

International audience Canada has a tragic past: more than a century of assimilationist policies in residential schools for Indigenous peoples. Children were stolen, forbidden to speak their language, raped, lost their bearings, alcoholism, wandering: how do you survive after that? Is it really possible to heal from this tragic episode ? Can we say what we saw, heard and felt ? These are the questions addressed by Tomson Highway and Richard Wagamese in their two novels. Champion and Ooneemeetoo by the Nehiyaw author and Jeu Blanc Horse by the Anishinaabe writer, two communities of Algonquin origin, two peoples, but the same goal : through fiction, that is, through the ability to establish a link between the emergence of truths and the construction of spaces where conciliation - or reconciliation? - and recovery become possible, to write this 'sad chapter' in the history of Canada. These two novels are on the one hand 'historical' writings, but they are also writings of fiction, seizing on the archived historical narrative and the forms of narration imposed by the hegemonic culture in order to better question and push further the reflection on the impacts and consequences of the past and implications of the forced assimilation suffered by these children, but above all in order to reconstruct the cultural links and ways of thinking that the residential schools tried to destroy. Le Canada a connu un passé tragique : celui des politiques assimilationnistes dans lespensionnats pour Autochtones pendant plus d’un siècle. Enfants volés, interdiction de parler sa langue, viols, perte de repères, alcoolisme, errance : comment survivre après cela ? Peut-on réellement se soigner de cet épisode tragique ? Peut-on dire ce qu’on a vu, entendu et ressenti ?C’est ce que nous livrent Tomson Highway et Richard Wagamese à travers leurs deuxromans. Champion et Ooneemeetoo de l’auteur nehiyaw et Jeu Blanc Horse de l’écrivain anishinaabe, deux communautés d’origine algonquine, deux peuples, mais un même but : par la fiction, ...