"Problematization"

-process of complicating or critiquing common sense (what we do not question on a daily basis)

-allows new or suppressed perspectives to emerge

-a critical thinking process: making the strange familiar and the familiar strange (assuming that the opposite is correct）

History: A "tricky" category

-simple definition: a record of events that happened in the past

-"study of past events in particular of human affairs" (OED)

-history always comes to us through others or other media (mediation)

-history comes from dominant perspective (victor) within that society

Historiography

-the writing of history

-critically examine source materials

-create narratives that can be peer reviewed and can confirm that it is accurate and relevant

-selection of information is important because not anything is important or relevant

-try to be as objective as possible

"History is written by the victors" (Winston Churchill)

"History is a set of lies agreed upon by the victors" (Napoleon Bonaparte): history is always constricted

"Who controls the past controls the future. And who controls the present controls the past." (George Orwell, 1984)

On "Objectivity"

-context can shape how history is told and whose history is depicted

-absolute objectivity is not possible

-dominant history = history "from above"

From epistemology to history

-what we know and how we know are dependent on social transmission and construction of knowledge

"The genuine historian must have the strength to recast the well known into something never heard before." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

History and the Victors

-they are not the only people to emerge from conflict. For example: people have inhabited land but they do not emerge in history (Americas being "discovered" by Columbus)

The present always writes the past

-history is written through the lens of needs, outlooks, and agendas of those in the present

The "Doctrine of discovery"

License to "invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue" the people in new lands f discovery.

-gave Columbus and other people ideas of what to do when they "discovered" the Americas

-they invaded the land although natives were inhabiting

Colonialism

"The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically." (OED)

-physical colonies

-economic control

-subduing indigenous

Doctrine of Discovery + terra nullius (no one's land)

Post-colonial Studies

Academic branch that specifically investigates the legacy of colonialism

-see the effects of the past

-critical history fits well into post-colonial model

History "from below"

What happens when we look at these historical events through the eyes of those who were conquered?

-practicing history as a criticism of power

Genocide

"The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethic group" (OED)

-equal to literal death

Ethnocide

"The deliberate and systematic destruction of the culture of an ethnic group." (OED)

-equal to culture death

-includes forced religion conversion

-loss of languages, customs, beliefs and practices

It erases the historical memory of the people and culture

The Legacy of Colonialism in Canada

Residential schools (1883--1998)

-compulsory for all indigenous children

-removed them from families

-illegal to speak native languages

-forced sterilization

-many cases of abuse

-MOR THAN 3000 children died due to lack of medical care

TODAY IS TOMORROW'S HISTORY

TODAY IS YESTERDAY'S HISTORY