Remembering through Space and Story

Narratives of Colonial Martyrdom

Kaleigh McLelland

PhD student, Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto

The predominant narrative of the Martyrs’ Shrine, a Catholic site in Canada, has been one of a religio-political, colonial ‘frontier,’ emphasizing faith through determination and pain. However, a different narrative can be identified in the encounter between the legitimacy claimed by the space and an alternative historical reality: the traumatic consequences of the colonial story for Indigenous peoples. By contrasting the colonial narrative (that of violence upon the colonist) with a narrative that reflects on the past and contemporary presence of Indigenous actors (and the result of the structural violence inherent in the colonial project), this paper examines how horror mediates the spaces through which visitors experience the memories of religiously-significant sites.

For Sites of Memory workshop participants — read more (password protected)

With the support of the Anneliese Maier Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation, Dr. Pamela Klassen of the University of Toronto and Prof. Dr. Monique Scheer, Director of the Ludwig-Uhland-Institut of Historical and Cultural Anthropology, University of Tübingen, are directing a research project on Religion and Public Memory in Multicultural Societies. The project runs from 2015 to […]

How Should We Understand Indigenous Spirituality (in English)? A reflection on the philosophy of listening Indigenous spirituality matters to Indigenous peoples. In this discussion, I am broadly interested in how Indigenous spirituality is used in contemporary Indigenous politics. More specifically, I ask the question: How should we understand Indigenous spirituality in English? My discussion involves […]