Anxious Reconciliation(s): Unsettling Foundations and Spatializing History

Abstract

In this paper I explore the relationship between law, history, and reconciliation in the Canadian context. I argue that linear, teleological forms of history are employed by courts to continually reiterate the myth of a legitimate assertion of colonial sovereignty. By doing so, any potential for political transformation that lies in the objective of reconciliation is stunted; political challenges brought in the form of aboriginal rights claims are folded back into the existing political, economic, and juridical structures of the nation-state. I conclude with an examination of how spatializing history in a nonlinear, nonteleological way could open up possibilities for political change and transformation.