We Must Catch Him Very Young Flashcards
“We must catch him very young”
If we want to assimilate these people, we must change their children.
Why kids?
- Idea that children are ‘human becomings rather than human beings’
- Idea of children as plastic, pliable, able to conform
- Idea that children have not ‘arrived’
Attachment Theory
In order to have successful development of a child, there must be:
- a deep connection between child and caregiver
- a deep and enduring connection critically developed in a child’s earliest years
- a secure attachment created within the first year of life
Who developped attachement theory?
John Bowlby
John Bulby argued (attachement theory)
If caregiver or parent is absent, deep resonance of every aspect of that child’s development : body, mind, relationships, morality and identity.
John Bowlby argued (attachement theory)
If caregiver or parent is absent, deep resonance of every aspect of that child’s development : body, mind, relationships, morality and identity.
Human instinct to bond
Humans have an instinct to create bonds between parent and child. Babies reach out and seek this.
Function of attachment theory for children:
Children gain/learn:
- Reciprocity and ability to trust
- secure base to which to head out from
- confidence and security when out in the world
- ability to self regulate
- foundation for healthy individual identity formation
- self worth and realistic sense of self
- healthy perception of how life is going
- Resilience when dealing with stress and trauma
- healthy balance between dependence and autonomy
- ability to create and maintain friendships
- empathy and compassion
- academic success
MOST IMPORTANTLY - more likely to create their own secure attachments with their own partners
Self regulation
management of emotions and impulses, as well as the understanding of ones emotions and others
People that gained secure attachment from their parents/caregivers are more likely to..
create their own secure attachments with their own partners and children.
People that gained secure attachment from their parents/caregivers are more likely to..
create their own secure attachments with their own partners and children.
Terra Nullis
Land belonging to no one
B.C. territory was consistently perceived as…
Terra Nullis
Discourse of Terra Nullis in Canada (general)
- in the media
- in policy
A strong message to these people that made them seem like they didn’t exist.
Discourse of Terra Nullis in Canada (detail)
Primative
Undesirable
As an inconvenient obstacle to territorial expansion
Child-Like, needing care
Why were the first nations populations portrayed as children?
- perception that they needed care and guidance
- bringing these people out of their primitive lives
- justified telling a population what to do as if it were in their best interest
- people that needed ‘protection’ and management
- “the indian race was in its childhood”
Colonizers other wrong assumptions (3)
That first nations people didn’t have systems of territory (they did)
That the land needed to be tamed and agriculture needed to be introduced
That living in one place was best
They were uncivilized
Foucouldian discourse analysis:
Discourse is anything but immaterial. Conversation becomes reality.
The oppressed cannot form popular discourse ( they cannot control the way they are perceived and treated)
How discourse affected the first nations people
The way in which they were talked about formed a moral justification that made it such that their land could be taken away and that they could be made into ‘european’ people.
It even supported the idea that they should be THANKFUL for it.
Woman who was cited for this lecture
Sarah de Leeuw
Sarah de Leeuw quote
Children tended to be (and still are) seen as human becomings rather than human beings
Response to aboriginal protests over land issues in BC, 1887.
B.C. premier William Smithe said
The land all belongs to the Queen… as reserve is given to each tribe, and they are not required to pay for it. It is the Queen’s land”
The Queen gives it to her Indian children because they do not know so well to make their own living the same as the white man.
Aboriginal protests over land issues in BC took place in
1887
BC premier
WIlliam Smithe
Basically, the goal of residential schools was to
“kill the Indian in the child”
Residential schools
Removed kids from their families
Forbade them to use their language
Trained to assimilate to the culture of the dominant culture
Bold faced lie: colonizers had no..
Colonizers had no interest in integrating them. They wanted them to live seperate, european white lives.
Criminalization to not attend a residential school
1930
Last residential school was closed in
1984
Amount of students that went to school
150,000
Space of the residential school: built to mirror discourse
Physically seperated from culture
“Culturally normative”
Maps of Europe
Images of the queen
Long, straight, open hallways
Panopticon style Surveilance
Psychological regulating of a population
Routine beatings
Trained to be void of emotion
Sexual, physical, psychological abuse
Separation by gender
Separated from families
Things taught in residential schoosl
Taught how to become farmers
Geography of Europe and industrial European cities
Residential schools were built to:
built to mirror discourse
Residential school curriculum
Eurocentric education that only went up to elementary level.
Designed to create low level employees (farmhands not even farmers, caregivers)
First nations culture was ____ but no culture was __________
Indigenous culture was removed, but no culture put back in its place.
Result of residential schools (8)
Loss of culture
Loss of cultural knowledge
Denied possibility to form attachment
Abuse and addiction
PTSD
Economic dependency
Persistent fear
Systematic pover
Agents of colonial ideology
Space and children
Space and children were
agents of colonial ideology
Spatial consequences of residential schools
displaced from their land
formed a spatially, geographically and socially fragmented population
Attachment consequence of residential schools
Population was denied the ability to form secure attachment with their parents and caregivers. They were denied the ability to grow into the healthy adults that would result from this attachment.
- the generation after generation consequence of breaking the attachment bond.
