Displaying Truth and Reconciliation: Experiences of Engagement between Alberni Indian Residential School Survivors and Museum Professionals Curating the Canadian History Hall by Bradley A. Clements BA Anthropology, University of Victoria, 2015 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Anthropology Bradley Clements, 2018 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Supervisory Committee Dr. Andrea N. Walsh (Department of Anthropology) Supervisor Dr. Michael I. Asch (Department of Anthropology; Department of Political Science) Departmental Member iii Abstract Supervisory Committee Dr. Andrea N. Walsh Supervisor Dr. Michael I. Asch Departmental Member The re-curated Canadian History Hall (CHH) opened at the Canadian Museum of History (CMH) in Gatineau, Québec, on July 1st, 2017, becoming the first Canadian national narrative to exhibit the history, experiences, and aftermath of Canada’s genocidal Indian Residential School (IRS) system. Through interviews and participant observation, this case study considers experiences of CHH curatorial engagements between Alberni IRS Survivors and museum professionals. Their experiences illustrate practical challenges, structural limitations, and complementary interests of Western museums and Indigenous source communities attempting to collaboratively curate difficult history. Despite having limited capacities for indigenization or decolonization, this thesis demonstrates that museums like the CMH can be complicated but beneficial partners for some Indigenous source communities and their anti-colonial engagements with Canadian society. iv Table of Contents Supervisory Committee .................................................................................................... ii Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. iv List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures .................................................................................................................. vii Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................... viii Dedication ......................................................................................................................... ix Introduction: Displaying Truth and Reconciliation ...................................................... 1 Setting and Background .................................................................................................. 4 Displaying Truth and Reconciliation .............................................................................. 8 Outline........................................................................................................................... 10 Methodology ............................................................................................................. 10 Context ...................................................................................................................... 11 Experiences and Structures ....................................................................................... 11 Institutional and Community Framings ........................................................................ 12 The Importance of Relations in Representation........................................................ 14 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter I: Methodology ................................................................................................. 19 Purpose .......................................................................................................................... 19 Contributing to Exhibit Case Study Literature ............................................................. 20 Understanding Communities and Institutions: Theory to Methodology to Methods ... 23 Theory ....................................................................................................................... 23 Methodology ............................................................................................................. 26 Methods..................................................................................................................... 27 Ethics......................................................................................................................... 29 Interpretive Framework ............................................................................................ 31 Politics and Reflexivity ................................................................................................. 31 Chapter II: The Canadian History Hall in Context .................................................... 36 v Entering the Canadian Museum of History .................................................................36 Establishing Canada’s National Museum ..................................................................... 37 Contested Indigenization: The First Peoples’ Hall ....................................................... 40 The Canadian Museum of History’s New Mandate and its Politics ............................. 44 The Canadian History Hall ........................................................................................... 48 Gallery 3.3: “First Peoples: 1876 to the Present Day”.............................................. 51 Assessing the Canadian History Hall ........................................................................ 55 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 58 Chapter III: Experiences and Structures ..................................................................... 60 Teachings from Experiences, for Structures ................................................................. 60 Tension .......................................................................................................................... 61 Experience: Time and Tension in Public Programming Turned Ceremony ............. 61 Structure: Institutions, Communities, and Communication ...................................... 66 Care ............................................................................................................................... 72 Experiences: Testimonial Boundaries and Difficult Histories .................................. 72 Structures: Self Care and Community Support ......................................................... 82 Transformation .............................................................................................................. 93 Experiences: Transformation through Relations, Testimony, and Witnessing......... 93 Structures: Relations as Accountability .................................................................... 96 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 101 Conclusion: Museums, Colonialism, and Truth-Telling ........................................... 104 Museums are Colonial, What Now? ........................................................................... 105 Relating Across Difference ......................................................................................... 107 Truth-Telling, Witnessing, and Change ...................................................................... 113 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 116 Interviews, Personal Communications, and Public Presentations .............................. 121 Museum and Gallery Exhibitions ............................................................................... 123 vi List of Tables Table 1: Summary of Experiences and Lessons by Collaborative Factor ...................... 102 vii List of Figures Figure 1: The opening of the IRS section of Gallery 3.3. © Bradley Clements, 2017. ..... 5 Figure 2: Community in the institution: the Alberni IRS Survivors group visiting the completed CHH. © Deborah Cook, 2017. ....................................................................... 12 Figure 3: Gina Laing recording her testimony in the CMH. © Andrea Walsh, 2015. .... 15 Figure 4: The CMH. © Tourism Ottawa. ........................................................................ 37 Figure 5: The FPH IRS display. © Bradley Clements, 2017. .......................................... 43 Figure 6: Sketch of the layout of Gallery 3. © Bradley Clements, 2018. ........................ 50 Figure 7: Opening of Gallery 3.3. © Bradley Clements, 2017. ....................................... 51 Figure 8: Sketch of the layout of Gallery 3.3. © Bradley Clements, 2018. ..................... 51 Figure 9: Charles August (left) and Dennis Thomas (right) watching August's video interview in Gallery 3.3. © Bradley Clements, 2017....................................................... 53 Figure 10: "Affirmation" section of Gallery 3.3. © Canadian Museum of History,