Course Code: VICT 5505
Academic Year: 2025-2026
This course explores the complicated historical, cultural, legal, and political relationships between Indigenous Peoples and Canada. This course introduces students to the diverse cultures and traditions of Canada's Indigenous populations, while also acknowledging Canada's colonial legacy and the impacts of systemic racism. Students will explore histories of displacement, the residential school system, and factors that have influenced the over-representation of Indigenous Peoples in conflict with the law. More specifically, students will explore the negative impacts associated with the lack of resources, high unemployment rates and low income, minimal opportunities, and community fragmentation. Students will explore the criminalization of cultural practices, disputes and expropriation of land, resistance (violent and non-violent) over non-Indigenous authority, and how these factors contribute to the policing of Indigenous communities.