Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the use of technology to document and remember the Indigenous victims of Christian-inspired genocide in Canada. In 2021, radar discovered the remains of 215 children at a school, making real the horrors of residential schools, and was behind the Pope’s apology the following year.

Paper long abstract:

On July 25, 2022, Pope Francis, on a “penitential pilgrimage” in Canada, arrived in Maskwacis, AB, to offer a public apology for the abuse that Indigenous children and their survivors faced in Catholic-run residential schools. This apology was a long-time in the making and, in so doing, fulfilled # 58 (the call for a papal apology) of the 94 Calls to Actions as outlined in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Though it mentioned neither sexual abuse in the schools nor reparations, the Pope’s apology was an important first step towards reconciliation between the Church and Indigenous groups in Canada. Technology played a key role in the Pope’s apology in at least two ways. First, in the previous year, ground-penetrating radar survey at a former residential school in British Columbia (that had been in operation until as late as 1969) had located the remains of 215 children. For many Canadians the “215” suddenly made the residential school system, and the TRC (and subsequent report) that documented it, more tangible. Technology had done, in other words, what other media (including victim testimonies) could not. This technology, I suggest, was directly responsible for the Pope’s apology the following year. The second use of technology is in the Pope’s apology itself, as national and international media followed the “penitential pilgrimage,” with videos (still) widely circulating on online platforms such as YouTube. Technology here both attests to religious violence and commemorates its victims, in ways previously unimagined.

This case study, thus, examines the use of technology to document and remember the victims of Christian-inspired genocide. Since many of the victims and survivors are also Christian, we see how the violence of the Church inspired new forms of Indigenous faith, but also Indigenous resistance, both of which involve technology.