"Artistic and literary creation as weapons of coloniality of power in Tomson Highway's Champion and Ooneemeetoo".

• 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), Cristina Brancaglion, Marco Modenesi
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: French
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: Residential schools for Indigenous peoples; residential school literature; cultural genocide; colonial power; Tomson Highway; Pensionnats pour Autochtones; littérature des pensionnats; génocide culturel; colonialité du pouvoir; [INFO.INFO-GL]Computer Science [cs]/General Literature [cs.GL]; [SHS.LITT]Humanities and Social Sciences/Literature; Canada; Indian; First Nations; inuit; inuits; Premières Nations
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04387795

International audience Between 1831 and 1996, one hundred and thirty residential schools for Indigenous peoples were opened in Canada. Even in the 21st century, the existence of these schools and the way in which First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were treated there is still a reality that is difficult for Canadian society to accept. Rape, public humiliation, forced haircuts, first-name changes, the ban on speaking an Aboriginal language and the imposition of English as the lingua franca at residential schools for Indigenous peoples. Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose mandate began in 2008 and ended in 2015, has clearly identified Canada's Indian residential schools as places of trauma. Of these 150,000 children between the ages of 7 and 16 sent to residential schools across the country between 1831 and 1996, authors drew on their individual or transgenerational traumatic memories to use the English language of the colonists to write about this cultural genocide.Thus, "by reinventing the language of the enemy" in order to "repair the damage caused by colonisation", we will observe how Tomson Highway, through the autobiographical novel Champion and Oonnemeetoo, manages, through fiction and the tools of the coloniality of power, to reaffirm and reinvigorate Aboriginal systems and practices laid low by over one hundred and fifty years of acculturation policies for Aboriginal communities in Canada. Au Canada, il y a eu cent-trente pensionnats ouverts entre 1831 et 1996 que devaient fréquenter les jeunes Autochtones. Leur existence et la manière dont y étaient traités les enfants inuits, métis et des Premières Nations constituent, encore au XXIe siècle, une réalité difficile à accepter pour la société canadienne. Viols, humiliations en public, coupe de cheveux forcée, changement de prénom, interdiction de parler une langue autochtone au détriment de l’imposition de la langue anglaise comme lingua franca aux pensionnats. La Commission de Vérité et Réconciliation du Canada, dont le mandat a ...