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The ethic of time: Indigenous oral histories of sport in an age of reconciliation
I spent the first 15 years of my academic career doing mostly archival and oral history research into Indigenous sport in Canada. During that time I collected nearly 50 oral interviews with Indigenous men and women talking about the place of sport in their lives — what sports they did, where they learned to play, what those experiences meant to them, what sport has given them, and what it's taken away.
I began conducting these interviews just after the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples released its suite of reports in 1996, through the ascendancy and contestation of the Indian residential school settlement agreement and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in addition to the growth of the Indigenous sport system in Canada.
In this talk I reflect on what it 'means' to do academic oral history in that rapidly changing landscape that often did not take sport seriously enough. If there was one question that framed my work those years (and still does), it is this: What to do with their stories? I reflect on that question while seeking guidance in the interview material I have. My hope is to spur further thinking on the 'ethic of time' and how it shapes the way we understand what it is that people are trying to tell us.
Dr. Janice Forsyth is a Professor in Indigenous Land-Based Physical Culture and Wellness at UBC and a member of Fisher River Cree Nation.
For more information, visit the WSSS website, or email the WSSS co-chairs at chelsea.ekstrand@uleth.ca and/or miranda.leibel@uleth.ca
Contact:
Miranda Leibel | miranda.leibel@uleth.ca | 403-317-2890 | ulethbridge.ca/equity-diversity-inclusion/women-scholars-speaker-series