Legacies of colonialism: encounters on my ma FIELD TRIP
Visiting British Columbia and Vancouver Island in Canada as part of my MA in International Heritage Management and Consultancy was always going to be a life changing experience.
Having never visited the country before I was looking forward to it very much. I held the commonly shared view that as well as beautiful, Canada was tolerant and multi-cultural, and it is. But it carries a very dark legacy, much of it dating from its colonisation by the British which began in the mid 1700s, and more specifically from the establishment of the Residential School system, which operated between the 1870s and the 1990s, with the last school not closing until 1996.
These Schools were where indigenous children were taken, often forcibly, from their families, for the purpose of “educating and civilising” them. Invariably no education was provided, and the “civilization” process involved a complete ban on the children continuing any of their cultural practices or speaking their language, replacing these with “civilised” western culture and language. Many of these children never saw their families again, and whilst living at the Schools large numbers suffered physical and sexual abuse. It was cultural genocide.
This hidden history of the Residential School system, about which I knew nothing prior to my research, was apparently not widely known to Canadians either until relatively recently. It took until 2008, for the them Prime Minister Stephen Harper to publicly apologise for, inter alia the abuse and suffering cause by the Residential School system.
My research about the Schools was in preparation for our field trip in 2019 and I was appalled at what I read. As a mature student I have children of my own, and could not imagine the distress and lasting damage to both parent and child of being separated against your will.
Despite my research knowledge, nothing prepared me for how I would feel confronting evidence of this suppression face to face. It was shaming, not only because of historic wrongs, but also because the beauty and complexity of the indigenous culture was extraordinary, in comparison to which ours of that period felt two dimensional and shallow.
I do not seek to reduce indigenous North American people to victims, they are not in any way, but my research and visit made me confront the true legacy of colonialism, both in Canada and across the world. Up to that point my knowledge of the impact of colonialism had involved colouring areas of world maps with pink to show the extent of the British Empire, or a vague notion of how we, the British had done a favour to so many colonised countries by bringing railways and “civilisation”. I had no idea at what cost this “progress” had been achieved.
One moving response to this destructive legacy is the Reconciliation Pole, erected at the University of British Colombia in 2017. It was carved by an indigenous Haida carver James Hart, is 17 m high and depicts in traditional imagery elements of North American indigenous culture before, during and after the Residential School system.
I visited the Reconciliation Pole initially on my own, early in the morning of our first day in Vancouver. The impact of that first viewing was profound. Particularly distressing to see were the 6000 copper nails hammered into the carving of a residential school; each nail representing a child who died in one of the schools.
I have experienced a fundamental shift in my understanding of the impact of British colonialism as a result of the field trip and my preparatory research, I find I question, and challenge previously held (in many cases subconscious) views on how Britain shaped and influenced the world during colonialism. I can no longer passively watch or read the many programmes and books that subtly reinforce the established imperial view; I can see how so many prejudices are subconsciously perpetuated, albeit perhaps unintentionally.
I believe, I hope, that as a result of these experiences and the knowledge I have developed by undertaking the MA as a whole, that I have changed, and my understanding and empathy has grown.
