BOOK UNSETTLING THE SETTLER WITHIN

Book Unsettling the Settler Within by Paulette Regan.

In 2008 the Canadian government apologized to the victims of the notorious Indian residential school system and established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose goal was to mend the deep rifts between Aboriginal peoples and the settler society that engineered the system.

Unsettling the Settler Within argues that in order to truly participate in the transformative possibilities of reconciliation non-Aboriginal Canadians must undergo their own process of decolonization.

They must relinquish the persistent myth of themselves as peace-makers and acknowledge the destructive legacy of a society that has stubbornly ignored and devalued Indigenous experience. Today's truth and reconciliation processes must make space for an Indigenous historical counter-narrative in order to avoid perpetuating a colonial relationship between Aboriginal and settler peoples.

A compassionate cal to action this powerful book offers all Canadians - both Indigenous and not - a new way of approaching the critical task of healing the wounds left by the residential school system.

PAULETTE REGAN is Director of Research for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. She holds a PhD from the Indigenous Governance Program at the University of Victoria.