Post-colonial recovering and healing

• Main Author: Angelina Weenie
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2000
• Subjects: Indian; First Nations
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.650.9757; http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/LIB/LIB6.pdf

Naming and defining the problem is the first step toward post-colonial recovering and healing. This paper addresses issues of rac-ism, oppression, feminism, and resistance theory within the context of colonialism. This paper derives from the author’s desire to work to-ward effective change in Canadian First Nations ’ education. I speak from the position of an Aboriginal woman, a single parent, and an educator. These identities are shaped by various social, political, and economic contexts and have named me as the “other. ” My history denotes me as a colo-nized person. By virtue of the Canadian Indian Act of 1876, I am considered a ward of the Federal Government. I am implicated in the dichotomies of colo-nizer/colonized, oppressor/oppressed, male/female. These binaries depend upon “essentialized ” notions of race, class, and gender. The colonial encounter has been devastating to tribal peoples, and a reawakening is timely and necessary. Resistance, as part of decolonization, is as much a personal struggle as it is a group struggle. Resistance is analogous to