ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shares the ongoing challenges to reconciliation from Indigenous perspectives. North American Indigenous activist, scholar, and educator Leanne Simpson, in Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back, critically unpacks some of the implications that a narrow neoliberal notion of reconciliation holds for Indigenous people. It attempts to redefine reconciliation from an Indigenous perspective. Two First Nations scholars, Elders, educators, and activists discuss how Indigenous perspectives on reconciliation create belonging and solidarity, exploring concepts and practices of reconciliation within the structural and attitudinal limits to such efforts of settler colonial legacies. The book investigates whether and how reconciliation in multicultural countries and other settler colonial societies can connect with non-Indigenous people in ways that promote a deeper engagement with Indigenous needs and aspirations.
