The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) at the University of Manitoba received $2.4 million in support from the Canada Innovation Fund. The funding supports the NCTR’s Digital Architecture project, which will allow archivists to develop a new framework to decolonize their archives and data.
Centre head of research and engagement Tricia Logan is part of the project team, which includes researchers from across Canada.
“Residential schools were a social engineering project of the federal government to basically erase Indigenous cultures from the Canadian landscape. In one sense, the records held by NCTR are very much the institutional, administrative records of the colonial operation of these residential schools…. But these records are more than the administration records of schools. They record of some of the most profoundly important events in a child’s life, and to bring Indigenous voices to them, is to decolonize them.”
Raymond Frogner, head of archives at NCTR
The project is estimated to take four years to complete. Logan says the project is important in providing support to Survivors and their families, allowing them to collaboratively build community histories.
Learn more from the University of Manitoba website. The story was also featured in the Toronto Star.