ABSTRACT
In a number of countries around the world, a system of residential schools in which Indigenous children were compulsorily enrolled was operational by the late nineteenth century, and continued to be so for at least a further century. These schools were, in many cases, run by Christian religious orders on behalf of, but with relative independence from, the governments of post-colonial nations, with the usually expressed intention of ‘solving’ the ‘problem’ of Indigenous peoples. This ‘solution’ was often implemented in the deliberate and forceful removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities, and them being ‘educated’ away from their ‘savage’ backgrounds, into the ‘civilised’ ways of the colonising societies. As these truths have begun to be recognised, a horrifying history of abuse and neglect has emerged, and the legacy that has been left by the operation of these residential schools systems has, in many cases, been one of significant individual and cultural trauma. In this chapter, the scope and the structure of the book are outlined, and some of the chapter author's/editor's initial thoughts on the possibilities that might exist for processes of truth, restitution, reconciliation, and reclamation are outlined.
