Description
Book SynopsisRhetoric and Settler Inertia: Strategies of Canadian Decolonization explores how communication might accelerate the decolonial process in Canada, where colonization dates back 478 years and counting. Tracing a middle path between Indigenous-focused calls for resurgence, and idealistic appeals to settler conscience, Patrick Belanger explores communication forms that can generate settler support for decolonization. Indigenous flourishing is crucial, and is pragmatic to mobilize the settler majority's political power. Emphasizing the importance of both Indigenous and settler audiences, the book suggests the promise of decolonial rhetoric framed in the language of mutual benefit.
Trade ReviewPatrick Belanger has produced, in a single muscular volume, one of the most forward-thinking analyses of truth and reconciliation politics in Canada and the most honest prescriptive for moving along productively with decolonial solutions. Rhetoric and Settler Inertia: Strategies of Canadian Decolonization balances a colonial critique of settler culture in Canada with on-the-ground ways of moving toward a reparative program of reconciliation for Indigenous peoples. Rhetoric and Settler Inertia promises to be a high water mark in reconciliation politics, working applicably and practically from the more theoretical work being done on Indigenous decoloniality. -- Jason Black, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Patrick Belanger’s Rhetoric and Settler Inertia offers a pragmatic approach to Canadian First Nations decolonization that directly addresses the indifference and ignorance of the settler public. This book tempers the celebratory idealism of truth and reconciliation with the cold yet practical reality of what it will take to achieve indigenous political and cultural sovereignty. Through close readings of Indigenous-Canadian dialogue, Belanger illustrates how First Nations have shaped and can continue to shape the public memory of Canada’s colonial past and provide a roadmap for possible decolonial futures. -- Casey Ryan Kelly, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Table of ContentsChapter 1: Colonization Chapter 2: The Federal Apology for Indian Residential Schools Chapter 3: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Chapter 4: The U’mista Cultural Centre Chapter 5: Common Ground Chapter 6: Interest Convergence
