Notice Board

Department of History Colloquium and I-CYS presents:

They Certainly Did Have a Lot of Strange Ideas:  Indigenous Bodies, Morality, the Reshaping of Sexualities, and Violence at Inuvik's Residential Schools, 1950s to 1970s (History Colloquium_March 2015.pdf)

Guest Speaker:  Crystal Fraser (Dept. of History, University of Alberta)
Day/Date:  Friday, March 20, 2015
Time:  3:00 p.m.
Location:  D-633

Abstract: 

Knute Hansen recalls his experience at Inuvik's Stringer Hall as a project to reshape Indigenous children into "nice white kids." Intrinsic to that agenda was to instill new bodily practices based on heteronormative  assumptions about morality and cleanliness. I consider how the churches and state managed bodies through  reshaping understandings of gender and sexuality, such as the monitoring of reproductive systems and teaching of intimate practices. These efforts were linked to desire to mould children into ‘good citizens’ in the construction of a nation state. I analyze how Indigenous people  navigated their educational experiences in a remote  region, during a time of change, while grappling with  policies that were founded upon ideas about  assimilation, coercion, and a modern nation state. The 1950s to the 1980s were turbulent decades consisting of three different governing bodies with varying approaches to education, a generation of northerners who contended with residential schools for nearly a century, and intense educational reform. My research contributes to  understandings about Indian educational policies during the twentieth century, how northerners responded to  vigorous state intervention, and how and why residential schooling finally came to a close . This timeframe is of particular importance when including oral interviews of living people who were  immersed in these experiences.

Everyone welcome.