Visualizing Pedagogy and Power with Urban Native Youth: Exposing the Legacy of the Indian Residential School System

Abstract

The Indian Residential School System, an institution of colonization that reflects Whiteracist culture, has had deleterious effects on the lived social reality of Indigenous peoplesin Canada. The intergenerational effects are manifested in social, cultural, economic,political, spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, and linguistic ways. Sadly, citizensof Canada are overwhelmingly unaware and misinformed about the Indian ResidentialSchool System's egregious legacy. This article represents one attempt by descendantsof the Indian Residential School System to interrogate the mnemonic landscape ofCanada—one that has a tradition of forgetting, erasing, or making invisible Indigenouspeoples histories, their realities and their existence. Using photovoice methodology,three urban Native youth helped to answer the question, "How do urban Native youthinterpret and experience the intergenerational effects of the Indian Residential SchoolSystem in Canada?” Through a critical examination of their photographs, my researchpartners visualized pedagogy and power by engaging in critical consciousness, byeducating the greater community, and by talking back to the master narrative ofCanadian society.