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These are difficult stories. We bear witness in this chapter to the role of sport in furthering the settler colonial projects throughout Turtle Island. Here are some supports to access in the community and from a distance:
First Peoples House of Learning Cultural Support & Counselling
Niijkiwendidaa Anishnaabekwag Services Circle (Counselling & Healing Services for Indigenous Women & their Families) – 1-800-663-2696
Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre (705) 775-0387
Peterborough Community Counselling Resource Centre: (705) 742-4258
Hope for Wellness – Indigenous help line (online chat also available) – 1-855-242-3310
LGBT Youthline: askus@youthline.ca or text (647)694-4275
National Indian Residential School Crisis Line – 1-866-925-4419
Talk4Healing (a culturally-grounded helpline for Indigenous women):1-855-5544-HEAL
Section One: History
A) The Residential School System
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
We are asked to honour these stories with open hearts and open minds.
Which part of the chapter stood out to you? What were your feelings as you read it? (50 words)
| When going through the readings and this chapter, especially the reading by Forsyth and O’Bonsawin, I feel ashamed as I did not know sport was used as tool in the erasure of indigenous culture, I feel guilty for buying into the idea that sport transcends politics. So often, sport is seen as a positive tool to bring people together, but when looking deeper at the history of residential schools, I can now see this is not the case. Sport was used as tool in erasure by taking away cultural games and practices of Indigenous culture and replacing with sports that the Canadian government would deem acceptable. I did some researching into another book by Forsyth where she exclaims that sport was used as a tool to exhaust the children to lessen their ability and desire to run away. Reading that gave me chills, as it highlights the residential school in the light that they are, which was effectively prisons for indigenous children, where running away was not an option.
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B) Keywords
Exercise 2: Notebook Prompt
Briefly define (point form is fine) one of the keywords in the padlet (may be one that you added yourself).
Sport for Development Ideology:
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C) Settler Colonialism
Exercise 3: Complete the Activities
Exercise 4: Notebook Prompt
Although we have discussed in this module how the colonial project sought to suppress Indigenous cultures, it is important to note that it also appropriates and adapts Indigenous cultures and “body movement practices” (75) as part of a larger endeavour to “make settlers Indigenous” (75).
What does this look like? (write 2 or 3 sentences)
| To me this looks like settlers viewing the Indigenous body practices and indigenous bodies as “manly” tying into to “muscular Christianity.” Settlers aimed to appropriate traditional indigenous games such as hunting, fishing, etc, and turn them into their own settler traditions. The act of “making settlers Indigenous” is another form of Indignenous erasure.
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D) The Colonial Archive
Exercise 5: Complete the Activities
Section Two: Reconciliation
A) Reconciliation?
Exercise 6: Activity and Notebook Prompt
Visit the story called “The Skate” for an in-depth exploration of sport in the residential school system. At the bottom of the page you will see four questions to which you may respond by tweet, facebook message, or email:
How much freedom did you have to play as a child?
What values do we learn from different sports and games?
When residential staff took photos, what impression did they try to create?
Answer one of these questions (drawing on what you have learned in section one of this module or prior reading) and record it in your Notebook.
| When residential staff took photos, they tried to create an impression of positivity, team building, and overall friendly appeal to people that would see the photos. To an unknowing eye, these photos appear to be typical photos of children engaging in sports, such as team photos where children are seen smiling in uniforms. The photo’s do not tell the whole story that these survivor’s depicted in the stories. Although many of the survivors expressed a liking for sports, explaining they enjoyed the time they got to participate in them, these stories highlighted the lack of freedom and expression that the children were offered. Many of them described these sporting events as “mandatory”. From this module, we know that residential schools often tried to paint the picture that these were positive institutions, with the goal of developing children into well-integrated adults of western society, and unfortunately, sports was simply a tool to help with this message, and help with the erasure of Indigneous sport.
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B) Redefining Sport
B) Sport as Medicine
Exercise 7: Notebook Prompt
Make note of the many ways sport is considered medicine by the people interviewed in this video.
| Firstly, Aidan Baker defines sport as medicine, as a means to work through emotional hardship, tying sport to medicine as a means of improving mental well-being.
Later on in the video, sport as medicine is described by the connection to the indigenous cultures that were stripped from them, the survivors in this video describe sport as “therapy” to deal with the trauma that they were through. Sport is described as a gift from the creator, as a ways to work through hardships, and a ways to remember their ancestors who had to use sport as a release from the pain. At the end of the video, sport can be seen as medicine for reconciliation.
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C) Sport For development
Exercise 7: Notebook Prompt
What does Waneek Horn-Miller mean when she says that the government is “trying but still approaching Indigenous sport development in a very colonial way”?
| I think that by saying this she means that the governments believes that the best way to integrate Indigenous people into to professional sport, is to integrate them into already pre-existing colonial systems. However, this is not the case. As Waneek explains, they need to work with Indigenous communities and with Indigenous athletes to come up with ways that they can represent themselves on the international and professional stage, without having to leave their Indigenous roots behind them. This reminds of a class I took last semester , where I learned about rural and remote communities. Where access to resources especially for recreation and sport is rare. The fix-all solution seems to be to fly or move these people to more urban areas so they can pursue their sport at a higher level, however this is a very colonialized way of thinking. |
Exercise 8: Padlet Prompt
Add an image or brief comment reflecting some of “binding cultural symbols that constitute Canadian hockey discourse in Canada.” Record your responses in your Notebook as well.
One of the most iconic cultural symbols in Hockey is the Maple Leaf, a symbol that, regardless of the Canadian team, is on the logo, back, front, or arm to show national pride, highlighting the idea that hockey is truly Canada’s sport. In the context of this chapter, the maple leaf and Canadian pride can be seen as a stark reminder for Indigenous peoples and residential school survivors, reminding them of the very government that opted to participate in the erasure of their culture and genocide of their people.
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Section Three: Decolonization
Please see the major assignment for this half of the term in the final section of this chapter.
