by Krista McCracken
I wrote, “Challenging Colonial Spaces: Reconciliation and Decolonizing Work in Canadian Archives” while thinking about the ways in which archives in Canada manage, share, and care for records created by and about Indigenous peoples. As a settler archivist who works in an Indigenous community archives I am constantly listening and working to break down what I thought I knew about archival records and systems.
The piece aims to unpack the complex power relationships embedded within the colonial archival system, by drawing on decolonization and settler colonialism literature and my personal experience working at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre. The article illustrates that the archival community must change its practices in order for Canada to be compliant with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the United Nations Joinet-Orentlicher Principles.