Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Hi everyone and welcome to the “Imagining a New ‘We’” video blog with me, Dr. Samantha Cutrara. A video series designed to help history teachers and other history educators teach history in ways that are more transformative, meaningful, and inclusive for their students.

During these pandemic times, I’ve been doing a series talking with people in the history community; Historians, archivists, comic book creators, museum people about what it might be like to teach history in these pandemic times both during the moment we’re in right now and after when we get back into our more like formal classrooms.
And today, we have another amazing guest. I just feel so privileged to be able to talk with so many awesome people. We’re going to talk to Dr. Sean Carleton.

Sean is a historian. He’s a history professor. He has written some awesome things in popular media like Canadian Dimensions. His particular focus is on settler colonial relations and also the history of schooling, which I just feel like it’s such an awesome moment right now to be able to talk about those things. So let’s go over to Zoom and talk to Sean.
Hey, Sean, thank you so much for chatting with me today. I know that you’re busy teaching, and so it’s been great to be able to schedule a time to talk. So thank you so much.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Oh, thanks for the invitation really. Really happy to chat.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        So I’ve been asking people three questions and it’s really about like our present about teaching history, the future of teaching history, and then like this notion of imagining or kind of community history. So let’s just dive right into the first one, but we can kind of take some, like some roots back and forth between the three if you want.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Sure.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        So, have you thought of history any differently because of this moment? Because I know I have. Have you?

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Yeah. I mean, that’s an interesting question. You know, as a historian of indigenous/settler relations, I’m always trying to guide students to a better understanding of the present and dreaming of what might be in terms of the future, how to improve indigenous/settler relations? How to work towards reconciliation? Whatever that would look like, and grounding that in an awareness of the past. So in some ways, I’m always thinking about the present and the future through the lens of the past and asking students to do that.

I think what’s so unusual about this situation is that the future that — the future seems so uncertain. And in terms of indigenous/settler relations, when I’m trying to lead students for the most part from not knowing a lot about indigenous/settler relations, these founding agreements nation-to-nation and I’m trying to get them to the point where in the present, they can see how understanding all of that history can help them do better and work towards something attainable.

Right now, it seems like the future is so uncertain that it’s hard to figure out like what’s the future of indigenous/settler relations post-pandemic? What will that look like? How can Canadians prioritize rebuilding society in some ways that don’t leave indigenous/settler relations and those founding agreements behind? I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that, and I think that’s what’s so unsettling in maybe a good and a bad way.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        You know, something we talked about offline was that during these moments of crisis, you can really see how like Canada is structured, right? And you brought up how important it is to recognize this indigenous/settler relations in these moments. And it’s kind of interesting that it might not have shifted your perspective of history, but if we think of that lens, then we can really see how history is playing out in the present because of these absences, these silences and things that we are hearing and the things that we aren’t.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Absolutely. I think moments of disaster, of crisis sort of reveal who you are. How society works. What its priorities are.

And I think teaching indigenous/settler relations this semester has been very interesting, because we’re in the midst of [inaudible] in solidarity protest shutdown in the history that we were teaching through come to life the kinds of core issues. And it was a really fertile moment I think for me and my student to kind of walk through and understand how an awareness of that history can really help us kind of think through the present and dream of better futures. And then very quickly, indigenous/settler relations got lost in the pandemic, which I thought was quite interesting because I was trying to make arguments in February and March about shutdown Canada being an opportunity for Canadians to learn about these core issues and understand how colonialism continues to influence the present and not just the past, right? And yet, when the pandemic broke out, Canadians’ attention very quickly moved away from issues of the environment and our fundamental relationships to these lands and I think it revealed a lot about our priorities in sort of uncomfortable ways. And I felt like students really wanted to talk through that, but in the shift to online learning, I was still developing and delivering content, but I didn’t have the opportunity to really talk with students about some of those really interesting issues about what this says about indigenous/settler relations because colonialism doesn’t stop because there’s a pandemic. The coastal gaslink work is continuing under the cover of the Coronavirus crisis and most Canadians don’t know — a lot of mainstream media aren’t paying a lot of attention to that. So I think that that does say something interesting about the relationship between history, the present, and the future and what our priorities are in these moments.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        But also, it’s — you know, when you’re saying colonialism, it doesn’t stop. It’s also a matter of things like access and equity, right? What are the assumptions that we are making about who and what a Canadian is or a person in Canada is and what they need right now, those are facing very colonial assumptions about a Canadian community and that is not many people’s experiences. It wasn’t before, but it certainly isn’t now.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        No, I think you raised something really interesting in the sense that what I was trying to teach students about shutdown Canada was that the way that people talk about these kinds of issues is that it’s Canada versus indigenous people.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        And the only way to that kind of rhetoric gains traction is by people’s own ignorance around how Canada is structured, right? To think that Canada is a country of two founding people, French and English, and like indigenous people are like sort of a colonized subordinate minority. That’s not how Canada functions, right? Canada is built on these nation-to-nation relationships that include indigenous people as part of that kind of that fabric of what peaceful coexistence was supposed to look like, and shutdown Canada kind of showed us that that poor relationship of working nation-to-nation isn’t working. And yet, the pandemic is an interesting example where people are able to come together and make sacrifices and try and think in more compassionate ways about who is included and yet, indigenous people not surprisingly to me are being left out of that conversation. You know, it’s, “Okay, now we have to focus on the health of Canadians,” and indige8nous communities are saying, “Okay, well, you need to honor your nation-to-nation agreements where many communities are vulnerable, we need help. And it’s like, “Okay, we’ll send you some tents. Good luck.” I think again, that shows that there are gaps in how we think of Canadian society and how indigenous people are often left out of those conversations to the detriment of working together in peaceful and reciprocal ways in these lands.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        You know, I think of another video that we did right at the beginning of this series with Neil Orford about the Spanish flu and how he was saying how important it was to talk about indigenous peoples and their experiences with the Spanish flu in the defining moments Canada project. And he brings up the historical thinking concept of continuity and change. And so did Jan Haskings winner, who’s another person that — who’s another educator that I interviewed. And people that watched the video know that I kind of have issues with historical thinking concepts, but if we are just going to use the continuity and change one, this is an interesting moment to do the continuity and change of a kind of Canadian nation-to-nation response to pandemic issues and the support of different nations. But, I mean, this is kind of separate from this conversation. One of my issues with the historical thinking approach is that it doesn’t really incite action, and I think that we can be in it to be able to look right now for, sure, continuity and change, but then we need to take that extra step for action. And I think that teachers can really connect with their students right now about doing some of that research and looking at ways to advocate for greater indigenous and settler relationship right now in order to have that kind of greater understanding of what Canada could be with greater nation-to-nation relations.
I know that, like, historical thinking isn’t like you’re not in that world as much. But I don’t know if you have any kind of thoughts on that.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Well, I mean, I guess my response would be that the way that we teach Canadian history often marginalizes indigenous people even if we’re trying to foreground that history.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Yes, good point.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        The way that we teach Canadian history places an emphasis on Canada, its structures, its development. And I think that that’s — constitutionally, that’s not even accurate in terms of understanding the Royal Proclamation, the Treaty of Niagara, the establishment of this nation-to-nation relationship that is the core, the bedrock of what this country was supposed to be and yet in practice, has never really actually emerged as that, and it’s just another opportunity to showcase how things like the pandemic show us that the way that Canadians think of Canada continues to deviate from that kind of nation-to-nation relationship. How many health officials, premiers, politicians were first and foremost having conversations about maintaining our treaty responsibilities in these times. Instead, indigenous people continue to get kind of marginalized. It’s like Canadians become focused on themselves in these times, which is true. I mean, like, everybody is worried, I’m worried about the health of myself and my family, but I think it does show that our commitment to reconciliation is pretty shallow in this moment. Because as soon as something else happens, we completely ignore those responsibilities. We couldn’t — I think it would have been an interesting moment if coming out of shutdown Canada going into the pandemic, if politicians had said, “We’re wanting to maintain those relationships as we respond to this pandemic talking about treaty responsibilities.” I mean, there’s a cause in treaty six that many treaty people in that territory we’re trying to invoke saying, “We have treaty responsibilities here in terms of medical visions that most people have — I mean, they don’t even know there’s a treaty let alone intricate —

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        And I think that that reveals something perhaps unsettling about our priorities as Canadians, as settlers in these moments that we say we’re committed to doing different, and then when we’re given the opportunity whether it’d be shutdown Canada or now our response to the pandemic, it just reveals that that is fairly surface level and shallow, which is both disappointing and an opportunity to perhaps change that.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        And so, like, the second question is about teaching history after this. And do you think there will be a change? Do you think that — I mean, in terms of content or delivery or having more fodder to explore this, do you think there’ll be a change after this? Or what will that change be?

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Yeah. I mean, I try to think of the way that I teach history kind of pessimism of the intellect optimism of the will trying to get students to understand that history can teach us a number of different lessons that can guide us in terms of a response to the present and try and create better futures. And I think in that way, I don’t really see the way that I teach history changing and yet, it seems pretty unlikely that the way that I teach won’t be affected.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Right, right.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Because as historians, as people, we make our own history, but not in conditions of our own choosing so we respond to what we’re going through. It does shape the way that we do what we do. And so, I mean, I think in terms of how the pandemic will shape the way that we teach history, I think there will be some delivery changes and how we prepare for those in some ways. Sort of the nitty-gritty of the mechanics of the way that we teach. But I guess my core teaching that I try to infuse whatever I’m teaching is kind of learning from the past to better understand the present, to create a better future, I think in some ways, that will make that core idea that we need to continually learn from the past to try and think of better futures. I think that that teaching is more relevant coming out of the pandemic. And I’ve been recently reading Jones’ book on the 1918-19 influenza and I see that teaching in this book, which is what happened was devastating particularly to working class or marginalized communities and yet, there is inspiration after the influenza working class people were more willing to fight for a better future in the streets of Winnipeg in the 1919 general strike, that a lot of that organizing and wanting to dream of a better world inspires political organizing in the ‘20s and into the ‘30s and ‘40s. So I think there’s lots of examples of teaching through crisis that can provide some hope and inspiration and try and getting people to think about if you want to dream of a better world, you first have to understand how that world was created and what — in some ways, how it works so that you can figure out ways to make it work better.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Yeah. And I think it’s also about, like, pulling new stories. Like being open to finding and looking for and pulling those new stories from the past, right? Like, sure teachers might come in now and teach them of the Spanish flu, but those links between working class struggles afterwards, is that going to be brought up as much? Because that can really align with a lot of students’ experiences with their own families. Like, I think that this pandemic demonstrates a real failure of or could demonstrate, for some people, a real failure of capitalism to take care of like small businesses, to take care of a large population and that we can use history to demonstrate working class struggles, for example, always in identifying where the issues that we’re having now, where the roots of that history is too.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Yeah. And I mean, I think in listening to the conversations that have been going on the past couple of weeks, I think that this debate over is our society structured around the idea of people before profit or profit before people?

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Yeah.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        And I think we’re seeing that there’s actually a tension that I think a lot of people want to prioritize society over profit and yet, the way that we’ve structured our society makes that very difficult in many ways.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Mm-hmm.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        And I think the pandemic might provoke some interesting questions both within the present and future, but also of the past. I mean, I’m reading a Zilt’s book and thinking, “Wow, it’s so different than what we’re going through now and yet, people a hundred years ago we’re asking very similar kinds of questions.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Like, if you don’t have a properly functioning health care system, when a crisis hits, things are gonna get pretty bad, but not bad for everybody. Some people will be able to afford better kinds of care, and the people that are affected most by the pandemic will be marginalized vulnerable communities.

So I think that the kinds of questions that people are raising now and in trying to think through in terms of what kind of future we want to have, I think we can learn a lot from the past and applying some of those same questions to grapple with how people responded to moments of crisis and disaster that might give some clues about how we might grow up towards a better kind of future today. I’m hopeful that that can happen.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Yeah, I’m hopeful too and that leads to my last question about this notion of imagining a new we. What do you think this imagining or this we might look like if it all, if that’s a concept that resonates with you after this moment.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Yeah. I mean, I guess as a bald white guy  teaching indigenous/settler relations, I’m always acutely aware of the we. Who’s included in that. And I guess part of the teaching that I do is understanding how the we is complicated in colonial settings. Who’s included? Who’s not included? When and why? And who benefits most from those kinds of exclusions and exclusions? And I guess my view is that the we, both in the past, present and future, in indigenous/settler relations isn’t a sort of melting pot we, but rather a sort of nation-to-nation peaceful coexistence we. That we — that Canadians settler society and indigenous nations exist in parallel and that we doesn’t collapse that, but rather maintains that parallel nature and find ways to mutually reinforce it rather than abandon it, which I think we’re seeing in these kinds of moments. We’re making some progress, although we can debate that towards reconciliation and then all of a sudden, the pandemic breaks out and we’re sending body bags and tents to indigenous communities. That isn’t kind of reinforcing of that kind of parallel nation-to-nation relationship, it’s sort of like, well, we’re gonna double down on protecting Canadians first.

So I think in coming out of this pandemic, it might be an opportunity. That’s what I’m trying to argue is that the pandemic is another opportunity at least in terms of indigenous/settler relations to say that our response to the pandemic needs to also ensure that our treaty responsibilities, our nation-to-nation relationships are being up capped that Canadians are also, though they’re looking around the world in terms of what can we do to help places like Italy or Spain, the United States even, how can we help their response? Okay, well, what about your treaty partners? What about indigenous communities?

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Right.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        We, Canadians society, needs to understand that in these moments, Canada also has responsibilities to indigenous nations. That’s what this country is supposed to be founded on and yet, we don’t do that often. And I think that that’s sort of that double-edged sword. We can either say, “Well, I guess we’ll just abandon it and we’ll pick up reconciliation in 18 months.” But I think more optimistically, it’s an opportunity to ensure that those responsibilities don’t get dropped in times of crises. That we don’t get distracted by worrying just about our own family, but in trying to think of our relations more broadly to ensure that our commitments to reconciliation and nation-to-nation relations can actually be strengthened in these moments, you know. Like if we can find a hundred billion dollars to ensure that businesses can pay out their workers, well, then our arguments about not being able to find money for clean drinking water and working nation-to-nation to ensure that indigenous kids aren’t being discriminated on reserve, we can do that.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Right, right.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        That’s a decision we can make if we prioritize it. And so, I like to think that pointing out the gaps in our response isn’t just because I’m a mean person or I want to make Canada look bad, it’s an opportunity to say, “I like that there’s more — we need more —

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Sorry, we did just get a visitor, yeah. Sorry.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        I was wondering what if one of my two would come, but now it’s nap time. I guess to kind of wrap that up, I hope that this isn’t an opportunity to push snooze on another opportunity for Canadians to respond differently. We didn’t do very well, honestly, as a country during shutdown Canada. We resorted to ignorance, misinformation, not learning the lessons of the past to respond in gracious ways. But we can learn — we can continuously learn to respond in different ways. And I think that during a pandemic, my hope is that nation-to-nation relations isn’t something that seems marginal, but can continuously be brought in as a priority and that might be a stepping stone, and once we get out of the pandemic, that we can point to that as something that has changed since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Yeah. I mean, all of that is so — it just brings up so many interesting things to think about and also, I think, to act upon. And during this moment when teachers, for example, aren’t seeing their students face-to-face and that they have time — I mean, although a lot of teachers are also parents, and so like, you know. But to be able to do some more research and like think about their own narratives and how that can be brought into the classroom in order to advocate for greater action and greater advocacy for what a nation-to-nation relationship would look like and our responsibilities as Canadians to push our governments to kind of ensure that.

So, thank you so much for really being such a — being so clear in bringing those issues to the fore. I really appreciate that. Thank you.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Yeah. I mean, it’s an opportunity I think — it’s an opportunity to envision the kind of society that we want to build after this.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Yeah. Yes.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        And my hope is that nation-to-nation relationships don’t get abandoned in that. That we can include that in our conversations. And if we can do that, I think we will continue to make progress towards reconciliation. If not, I’m worried that all of the work that we’ve done in the last 10 years that Canada will teach indigenous communities, that when push comes to shove, they’re not really interested in strengthening those relationships, and I worry about that. So I hope that we can take this opportunity to focus, to ask new questions, to learn more, read more, but also to widen our ability to be compassionate around the world, but also to indigenous communities across Canada.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Yeah, that’s great. I think that’s really — I think it’s useful, and like useful in the way that you’re articulating it and I think it’s gonna have a live resonance for teachers and other people watching this video. So, thank you so much for taking the time to be able to talk with us and to be able to, like, explore these issues more during these times, these odd times that we’re all trying to get our footing on and thinking about using this as a way to build a stronger future, I think, is such an important takeaway.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Yeah, thanks for the invitation. I really appreciate the opportunity to do something other than Zoom lectures and respond to panicked emails. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Well, let me know if there are — or let me know what resources you want to share with teachers. I’ll provide a link below. And, of course, we can always keep this conversation going because I think this will be really useful and I can only imagine how useful teachers will find it. So, thank you so much. Have a great rest of the day. I hope your cats wake up from their nap so you can talk —

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Yeah, they still gonna want some treats, yeah.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Yeah. Okay, see you later. Bye.

Dr. Sean Carleton:        Okay. Thanks, Samantha.

Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Wow, what a great conversation. It was so awesome to talk with Sean and to be able to really, like, think about settler and indigenous relations in this moment. I don’t know if you heard that cat behind me. You know, one of the things that I took from it is about, like, we can really use this moment to think about how the world is changing because of something we didn’t expect and how our expectations of what the world is supposed to be like. How that can shift to. And that we can use this moment to be able to do more research and more thinking. Like, just were thinking about this. And then think about ways we can bring this into our classrooms because it will be stressful going back into the classrooms and it will be — it’s like, what’s the word I’m looking for? There’ll be this desire to kind of get back to normal in a way that could gloss over the real learning opportunities that this moment shows. And if we go back to Neil’s video about the Spanish flu, like indigenous/settler relations, like that was an issue then and how can it be — how can we leave this moment even stronger than when we left in 1918 related to these things.
So, I hope you took that too and how useful this moment can be for rethinking the world that we want. Let me know if it does. It’d be great to have a conversation with you just like I had it with Sean, and Neil, and Jen and all these other great people and great people I have lined up as well for next week. So let me know if you want to be one of them. Three questions. What do you think about now in terms of the present in teaching? What do you think about the future? And how or if we can imagine a new we in different ways because of this.  Have a great day, everyone, and stay home. Bye.