IDENTITY AND

SOVEREIGNTY IN A POST-
COLONIAL CANADA
Unit 2
 SO NOW WHAT?

• Colonization happened in Canada

• Indigenous People became wards of Canada, essentially, Canada’s problem
• Relationships that were previously developed during early contact have since been destroyed
• With the growing population and migration in Canada, much land was needed forcing
Indigenous people onto reservations and communities far out
 WHAT DO WE DO?

• 1876 – Introduce the Indian Act putting laws and limitations on Indigenous People
• Kill the culture
• Establish church run Residential Schools
• 60’s Scoop
• ASSIMILATE! ASSIMILATE! ASSIMILATE!
 TERMINOLOGY THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• IDENTITY: the act of being who or what a person or thing is

• SOVEREIGNTY: having supreme power or authority; the authority of a state to govern itself or another
state
• Personal Sovereignty
• Spiritual Sovereignty

• COLONIALISM: the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over
another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
• POST-COLONIALISM: he critical academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism
and imperialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation
of colonized people and their lands.
• RACE: a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories
generally viewed as distinct within a given society.
• RACISM: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the
basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or
marginalized.
• RACE THEORIES: the idea that different human groups had different hereditary makeups and,
as a result, had different physical and mental capacities.
• DISCRIMINATION: the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or
things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.
• ORIENTALISM: the representation of Asia, especially the Middle East, in a stereotyped way
that is regarded as embodying a colonialist attitude.
• EXPLOITATION: the act of selfishly taking advantage of someone or a group of people in order
to profit from them or otherwise benefit oneself.
• ASSIMILATION: the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's
majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or
partially.
• NATION STATE: a territorially bounded sovereign polity, or state, that is ruled in the name of a
community of citizens who identify themselves as a nation.
• OTHERING: a phenomenon in which some individuals or groups are defined and labeled as not
fitting in within the norms of a social group
• US VS. THEM MENTALITY: A state of opposition between two groups, mostly based on group
membership.
• CULTURAL APPROPRIATION: the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs,
practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more
dominant people or society.
• CULTURAL APPRECIATION: when someone seeks to understand and learn about another
culture in an effort to broaden their perspective and connect with others cross-culturally.
• IDEOLOGY: cultural beliefs that justify particular social arrangements, including patterns of
inequality.
• AMBIVALENCE: the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or
someone
• ALTERITY: the state of being other or different; otherness
• DIASPORA: a large group of people with a similar heritage or homeland who have since moved
out to places all over the world.
• ETHNICITY: the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural
tradition
• EXOTICSM: the quality of being attractive or striking through being colorful or unusual. Style
or traits considered characteristic of a distant foreign country
• HEGEMONY: the dominance of one group over another, often supported by logical norms and
ideas
• MIMICRY: the action or art of imitating someone or something, typically in order to entertain or
ridicule
• SUBALTERN: the lower social classes and the Other social groups displaced to the margins of a
society
• HYBRIDITY: a cross between two separate races, plants or cultures. A hybrid is something that
is mixed, and hybridity is simply mixture
• MICROAGGRESSION: indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a
marginalized group
• STEREOTYPE: a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of
person or thing.
• EUROCENTRIC: a worldview that is centred on Western civilization or a biased view that
favours it over non-Western civilisations
• WHITE PRIVILEGE: inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race
in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice.
• SYSTEMIC RACISM: refers to a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of
a society or an organization
• SEGREGATION: the action or state of setting someone or something apart from other people or
things or being set apart. Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or
other ethnic groups in daily life
• TO BE MARGINALIZED: (of a person, group, or concept) treated as insignificant or confined.
• OPPRESSION: prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.
• INFERIOR: lower in rank, status, or quality
• SUPERIOR: higher in rank, status, or quality
• ENFRANCHISEMENT: the giving up of a right or privilege, especially the right to vote. A legal
process for terminating a person's Indian status and conferring full Canadian citizenship
• INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA: trauma that gets passed down from those who directly
experience an incident to subsequent generations
• SETTLERS: a person who moves with a group of others to live in a new country or area
• GENOCIDE: the intentional action to destroy a people
• CULTURAL GENOCIDE: systematic destruction of traditions, values, language, and other
elements that make one group of people distinct from another