Monique Woroniak, a graduate of the Dalhousie Master of Library and Information Studies program and this year’s Horrocks Leadership lecturer, gave a talk on January 23rd entitled ‘Beyond Colonialism—Libraries for a Canada We Don’t Yet Know’ (view the recorded lecture here). The lecture focused on the need for Canada as a whole, and libraries as an institution, to acknowledge colonial history. “The colonial past is present,” Woroniak reminded us, and it is vital to remember this in order to move forward.
Through her own experience with Indigenous communities, Woroniak described the need to build meaningful relationships between non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples. Relationships take work, she emphasized, but they are vital to engaging with history and creating a future where power is shared rather than taken.
The colonial project has been, and remains, about attempting to disappear Indigenous peoples. And it is the responsibility of everyone – including libraries – to work against this disappearing, to ask at each step: “Where is the Indigenous knowledge? Where are the Indigenous voices? Where are the Indigenous bodies?”
Woroniak affirmed that a great place for this work to occur was in fact in libraries. Libraries support learning and making connections; these must be discussed in terms of learning about Indigenous peoples and about creating solidarity-based connections in their communities. There is work to be done, but if libraries succeed in these ventures, Woroniak suggests that in time they will have a new collection to take care of and to share, one which describes “the path they chose to walk.”
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