Navigating the Paradox of Repair: Indigenous Genocide and Public Education in Minnesota and Manitoba

Abstract

This paper examines how educational institutions and individual educators in Manitoba, Canada, and Minnesota, United States (US), understand and enact reparation in their respective fields of practice. The basic principle of restorative or reparative justice is that wrongs are set right by giving back to the injured party that which restores equality, dignity, and rights. However, educational reforms reveal a structural challenge in societies reckoning with the legacies of foundational violence perpetrated against Indigenous populations. Coupling an analysis of state / provincial social studies standards with key informant interviews, we try to untangle the paradox that the public education system, including non-formal education offered in state museums or historical societies are now tasked with addressing and repairing an injustice they were- and, to a large degree, continue to be - a part of. Findings show that sometimes dissonant visions of a reparative future and conflicting attempts to seek and promote justice in public history, the curriculum, and pedagogy are negotiated in the educational arena, resulting in complementary forms of specific practices. These constitute a growing stock of knowledge and models of engagement that shed light on how institutions and individual actors navigate the project and paradox of repair.