Re-Storying the Past: Transforming the White Settler Colonial Stories that Formed Us

• Main Author: Bensler, Heather
• Other Authors: Friesen, Sharon, Markides, Jennifer, McDermott, Mairi
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: Werklund School of Education 2022
• Subjects: White settler identity; Settler colonial logics; Transformative practices; Truth and reconciliation; Kinship relationality; Treaty responsibility; Indigenous Métissage; Education; Nursing; Tuck; Hector; Nakoda
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1880/114802; https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/39872

In this study, I explore the ways Settler nurse educators understand their identity within the context of Canada’s colonial narrative. I provide a generative space for critical reflectivity on my own social location through creative, embodied explorations of my Settler-colonial story and experiences, Indigenous historical accounts, and dialogical engagement with Canada’s socio-historical configuration as a Settler nation-state. I consider the ways Whiteness , (DiAngelo, 2018a), Settler identity (Tuck & Yang, 2012; Wolfe, 2006), and Settler colonial logics act as barriers to transforming Settler understanding of Canada’s Settler colonial history and Indigenous sovereignty (Donald, 2009). Using Indigenous Métissage as a research sensibility, I engage in narrative and embodied practices to better understand and transform my relationship to self, land, and Canada’s colonial history. Through braided stories of place, practices, and historical perspectives, I examine the impact that Camp Chief Hector had on my White settler formation and its exclusionary and exploitative relationship with the Stoney Nakoda Nation. I consider a path towards reconciliation; one created by attending to respect and reverence, reciprocity, kinship relationality, and treaty responsibility. By thinking through my lived experiences as an entry point to engage Settler identity, I tell a more truthful account of Canadian history and of the current state of how Settler colonial logics influence the relationship between Settlers and Indigenous people.