The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and the pursuit of archival decolonization

Abstract

Western archival institutions have both silenced and misrepresented Indigenous peoples in Canada for more than a century. These actions have in turn assisted in the colonization and subjectification of a myriad of Indigenous communities within the colonial construct of Canada. This institutional complicity in the colonization process has recently come under fire. Questions have arisen about how these institutions can be decolonized and how they can be used in partnership with Indigenous peoples to strengthen the Indigenous voices they once silenced. The institutional decolonization of archives becomes especially important when the archival institution in question has been given the responsibility to care for records that relate to gross human rights abuses perpetrated against Indigenous peoples. This is the case for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) at the University of Manitoba, which has a mandate to preserve and share the truths of Residential School Survivors.