In Search of Missing Indigenous Children. An Exploratory Study on Memory, Space and Dispossession

In May 2021, the discovery of 215 anonymous graves next to a building formerly used as a residential school for Indigenous children in Kamloops, British Columbia made national and international headlines. In the debate that followed that event, the remote sensing technologies used to locate burial sites, such non-invasive ground-penetrating radar, captured the public’s attention. Yet numerous stories and rumours about these burial sites that made mention of these disappearances had been circulating long before the use of these technologies.

What role do the testimonies of residential school survivors play in locating such burial sites?

We propose to carry out an exploratory survey of the socio-spatial inequalities tied to the disappearance of Indigenous children, employing an interdisciplinary analysis that is attentive to the narratives of people's memories.

The overall objective of our project is therefore twofold: first, we hope to provide information to the ongoing search for missing Indigenous children in Canada; and second, we would also like to imagine and propose innovative interdisciplinary measures that would allow a place for the marginalized narratives of memory within the archaeological search for unmarked burial sites.

In this project we propose to study the construction of "imaginary geographies" tied to the burial sites of Indigenous children. In our view, it is vital that the analysis examine not just what a rumour says or how it appears, but also how the rumour affects the people and spaces concerned.

Our exploratory project will be based on collaborative research as well as Indigenous research, with a methodological framework that is both mixed and interdisciplinary.

The project will first involve exploratory research: we will carry out a literature review on missing children in Canada, going through the archives of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, particularly the testimonies from survivors of residential schools collected by the WG; a press review on the search for missing children that began in 2021; a search for experts' reports on unmarked burial sites.

Then, from the collected data, we will create a qualitative database, codify the collected material, and analyze the primary and secondary sources. This analysis will provide us with a global overview of the actors and the accounts that have emerged from the discoveries of the graves (e.g., private actors, government actors, Indigenous communities, etc.). We will also be able to draw up a first historical timeline sequencing the events that occurred during 2021-2022. We could as well produce different types of maps in order to visualize the searches for burial sites, the communities requesting them, the dates, the targeted residential schools, etc.

Alongside this work, we will establish agreements with Indigenous communities that would like to collaborate in this research project. Once collaborations have been established with the communities wishing to participate, we will conduct interviews with survivors, interviews with the "experts" who are carrying out the search for anonymous burial sites (teams of forensic anthropologists, archaeologists, private companies offering the georadar technology), as well as interviews with members of the WG. We also plan to carry out non-participatory observations during the search for unmarked burial sites.

Canada

Objectives

A. Describe
C. Imagine

Axes

3. Towards a more equitable distribution

Work Packages

3.3. Indigenous and citizens’ practices in the struggle to overcome inequalities