Indigenous Hosts, and Settler Colonial Apologies (2019)
Angie Wong,
Lakehead University
Abstract:
We make and give gestures of apology every day, Canadians doubly so. Yet, grand actsof apology for more serious and sustained matters, such as historical and contemporary injusticeagainst those with the least amount of social power, require far more ethical consideration and transformation than simply saying, “I am sorry.” Since the early 2000s, several political parties of the Canadian government have taken up the trend of making a spectacle out of nationalapologies to historically oppressed groups. Engaging with the concept of the settler colonial triad to theorize the histories of early Chinese arrivants’ experience, this work departs from the 2006 House of Commons apology made to Chinese Canadians on behalf of former PM StephenHarper and explores the paradoxical operations behind state-sanctioned apologies, including the use of benevolence and hospitality as crisis management tactics resultant of Canada’s settler colonial configuration. Within this contradictory relation, those who identify as ChineseCanadian may find themselves questioning their belonging, given the historically- fraught socialstrategies used for the making of Canadian subjecthood. State-sanctioned apologies function toconsolidate settler colonial reality and constitute a return to normalcy, which is why critical racescholars and scholars of settler colonial studies must look beyond unilateral relationships withthe state.
Angie Wong is a critical race scholar and second-generation Chinese born in Canada. Wong iscurrently a professor of Women’s Studies at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario.Reliant upon critical race theory, philosophy, settler colonial studies, and transnationalfeminisms, Wong continues to research the experiences of Asian women and histories of Chineseracialization in Canada in a forthcoming book project on the Chinatown community of Calgary, Alberta. Wong obtained a BCC from the University of Calgary (2012). Her MA (2014) and PhD(2018) in Humanities are from York University where she conducted the first extensivephilosophical and critical race analysis of the small and powerful grassroots magazinepublication,The Asianadian, under the supervision of Chinese Canadian and postcolonial scholar, Lily M. Cho. Wong’s approach to pedagogy and research is interdisciplinary, political,and cross-cultural.
Angie Wong is a critical race scholar and second-generation Chinese born in Canada. Wong iscurrently a professor of Women’s Studies at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario.Reliant upon critical race theory, philosophy, settler colonial studies, and transnationalfeminisms, Wong continues to research the experiences of Asian women and histories of Chineseracialization in Canada in a forthcoming book project on the Chinatown community of Calgary, Alberta. Wong obtained a BCC from the University of Calgary (2012). Her MA (2014) and PhD(2018) in Humanities are from York University where she conducted the first extensivephilosophical and critical race analysis of the small and powerful grassroots magazinepublication,The Asianadian, under the supervision of Chinese Canadian and postcolonial scholar, Lily M. Cho. Wong’s approach to pedagogy and research is interdisciplinary, political,and cross-cultural.
No comments:
Post a Comment