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Paper Short Abstract:

This paper discusses temporal dynamics of structural change in a context of settler colonial institution. It examines processes of ‘undoing’ colonial continuities of child removal in Ontario, Canada, where First Nations are gradually taking over control of their child and family services.

Paper Abstract:

Since Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report on history and legacies of Indian Residential Schools in 2015, the Canadian government has committed to pursuing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. To what extent the government’s reconciliation efforts have succeeded in reaching beyond promises to concrete structural changes in society and its institutions, however, remains questioned. Contributing to conceptualization of structural legacy and change in settler colonial context, this paper discusses ongoing reforms in child welfare: what kinds of ‘doing’ and ‘undoing’ it takes to turn an assimilative settler colonial institution into one built to respect Indigenous relatedness, self-determination and nationhood.

Canada’s child welfare system has been criticized for repeating the colonial practice of residential schools in continuing to remove Indigenous children from their kin and communities. After decades of pressuring the government(s) for reforms, several Indigenous communities are now building their own systems for child and family wellbeing under a recent federal legislation. Focusing on how these changes are taking shape locally, this paper draws from conversations and interviews with First Nation and non-Indigenous service providers working with First Nation families in Ontario. It examines how temporal articulations of 'change’ in state reconciliation discourses reflect local realities as described by those working on changes in their own communities and agencies. Language that draws a boundary between an unjust past and a ‘new era’ of reconciliation, the paper suggests, overlooks the complex dynamics of continuity and change that characterize these processes within and beyond the child welfare system.