Pathways of Reconciliation: Indigenous and Settler Approaches to Implementing the TRC?s Calls to Action

Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its Calls to Action in June 2015, governments, churches, non-profit, professional and community organizations, corporations, schools and universities, clubs and individuals have asked: “How can I/we participate in reconciliation?"

Recognizing that reconciliation is not only an ultimate goal, but a decolonizing process of journeying in ways that embody everyday acts of resistance, resurgence, and solidarity, coupled with renewed commitments to justice, dialogue, and relationship-building, Pathways of Reconciliation helps readers find their way forward.

The essays in Pathways of Reconciliation address the themes of reframing, learning and healing, researching, and living. They engage with different approaches to reconciliation (within a variety of reconciliation frameworks, either explicit or implicit) and illustrate the complexities of the reconciliation process itself. They canvass multiple and varied pathways of reconciliation, from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives, reflecting a diversity of approaches to the mandate given to all Canadians by the TRC with its Calls to Action.

Together the authors―academics, practitioners, students and ordinary citizens―demonstrate the importance of trying and learning from new and creative approaches to thinking about and practicing reconciliation and reflect on what they have learned from their attempts (both successful and less successful) in the process.

Aimée Craft is an Associate Professor at the Faculty Law, University of Ottawa and an Indigenous (Anishinaabe-Métis) lawyer from Manitoba. She holds a University Research Chair Nibi miinawaa aki inaakonigewin: Indigenous governance in relationship with land and water. She prioritizes Indigenous-led and interdisciplinary research, including visual arts and film, and works with many Indigenous nations and communities on Indigenous relationships with and responsibilities to nibi (water).

Paulette Regan is an independent scholar, researcher, public educator and co-facilitator of an intercultural history and reconciliation education workshop series. Formerly the research director for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, she was the senior researcher and lead writer on the Reconciliation Volume of the TRC Final Report. Her book, Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling and Reconciliation in Canada was short-listed for the 2012 Canada Prize.