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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)
| The part that stood out to me was the “sports, truly anglo-saxon vigour”
They talk about how they believed that if women were to part-take in sport or activity like it, it would ‘ interfere with a womans ability to to carry out her social role’. That made me feel so devalued. It still blows my mind that people used to only see women as good for having children and doing domestic work. Another thing that stood out was the talk of having sports like lacrosse in the residential schools. And by parttaking in this sport it would ‘ civilize’ the Indigenous children. This concept is so harmful but also, lacrosse was made by Indigenous People. This is just another thing that settlers thought they could take for their own, just like the land.
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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).
Muscular Christianity
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C) Settler Colonialism
Exercise 3: Complete the Activities
In contrast to colonialism, , in settler colonialism, settlers form a deep attachments to the land
true
What is the role of sport in settler colonial projects?
controlling bodies of Indigenous people
appropriating the body cultures of Indigenous people
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)
| Taking Indigenous practices as their own, appropriating different cultural aspects of Indigenous ways of knowing.
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D) The Colonial Archive
- Church and state objectives
- False Familiarity
- Interchangeable and identity
Exercise 5: Complete the Activities
The archive furthers the idea that sport is seen as good. If you are in sport you ‘must have been treated well growing up”. As many settlers look at these pictures of Indigenous students in sport pictures, their assumptions of residential schools change to the idea that maybe it wasnt that bad. Which of course is a bad way to see it. As stated in the reading, a former student looking at those photos can point out many things that were wrong and bring up past traumas of that point in time.
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.
| What impression did they try to create?
The residential school staff tried to create a false narrative about the schools and what was really happening. By taking pictures of students in expensive sporting equipment people can be under the impression that the schools were using lots of money towards these children. Also many of these pictures were staged as mentioned by many of the survivor’s. Meaning smiles and sporting goods did not equal well taken-care-of children. As many of these children used sport as an escape from the everyday traumas they had to live through. School staff wanted to show Canadians that what they were doing was good and right, they gave the impression that what they were doing was ‘gods work’.
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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.
| – stripped of their language in residential schools, could use sport as a way of communication
-sport as therapeutic -wellbeing of Indigenous children and adults -prideful in their sport -being able to ‘release’ used as a release of emotions, feelings, being able to forget about hardships as you play –
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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”?
| The government is not working with Indigenous communities. She states that the government needs to start working with them to develop. The government should offer more accessable coaching and sport opportunities for Indigenous youth. As well as be invovled in Indigenous games like the North American Indigenous games. The government needs to show interest into these things. To help provide the much needed change |
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.
| I am choosing to do an at home ice rink. They can symbolizes numerous different things. They can inspire youth, facilitate learning and growth, foster resilience and determination. When I think of a homemade ice rink, I think about community. I think about all the kids in the neigborhood coming together and playing. This sense of connection and community that helps build a sense of self.
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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.
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