A Conversation about the Reconciliation Framework

Earlier this summer, Archivaria General Editor Heather Home spoke with Raymond Frogner of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) about writing a Notes and Communications piece on the Steering Committee on Canada’s Archives (SCCA)’s Reconciliation Framework. Raymond invited Gwichyà Gwich’in historian and community researcher Crystal Gail Fraser and archival educator Greg Bak to speak to the Framework from their perspectives. Instead of submitting a polished and peer-reviewed article, we decided to present a recorded conversation, and we invited Genevieve Weber to serve as facilitator. Raymond and Genevieve, who previously worked together in the archives at the Royal BC Museum, both served on the SCCA’s Response to the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Taskforce, the committee that wrote the Reconciliation Framework. A conversational format was chosen in an attempt to actively untangle the academic emphasis on written scholarship and the peer-review process and to capture the importance of the spoken word, oral traditions, and the fluidity of thought and engaged conversation. Meeting for a conversation online, using a transcription service, and then polishing our ideas promised a more accessible, quicker approach that would connect with the SCCA’s intention of “living” scholarship. The preface to the Framework notes, “We intend this evergreen framework to be a living document – one that is adapted to respond to where we are on the journey toward reconciliation.” We hope this article is received in the spirit of our discussion, as a positive opportunity to thoughtfully examine the Framework, a tool that positions itself as always provisional, always ready for engagement, and always ready for its next revision. This conversation took place on Friday, July 28, 2023, and was transcribed using a commercial service. The transcript was then edited for clarity, readability, and length. With this as our starting point, I’d like to invite each of you to explore Call 70. Where is the Canadian archival community and academia in regard to reconciliation and decolonization? What is the purpose of Call 70? I’d like to open up the floor to the three of you to discuss that. Greg, you’re on my screen. Do you want to start? You can read the Reconciliation Framework and get some really excellent advice from it in terms of working with community, including following the lead of community in determining when, how, and where meetings happen; how to identify and advance community objectives; and so on. Great advice. Much of it does align with UNDRIP and Joinet-Orentlicher, but the Framework does not specifically tell us what it means, as an archivist, to apply UNDRIP, what it means to apply Joinet-Orentlicher. At a couple of points, we are told to be aware of these instruments, but there is not much of an attempt to explain how archivists should interpret them and incorporate them into our practices. I see a couple of things happening here. Rather than UNDRIP, which the TRC repeatedly referred to as the “framework for reconciliation,” we are told to apply Kirkness and Barnhardt’s Four Rs (respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility), which we are told “serve as the foundation upon which Canada’s archival communities must engage in reconciliation.” This is good advice and quite useful, but the TRC asked for an archival application of UNDRIP and did not reference the Four Rs. Similarly with Joinet-Orentlicher, which, if you map it onto contemporary archival thinking, takes a Survivor-centred approach to archiving. Instead, we see in the Framework a focus on trauma-informed archiving. Again, great stuff – there’s a lot there to recommend it – but it’s not what the TRC directed us to do. …