Archives Alive: Kwaskastahsowin (“put things to right”)

[Archives Alive] Kwaskastahsowin (“put things to right”): Conciliation in the McClelland & Stewart and E. Pauline Johnson Collections
In the updated and restored 2019 edition of Halfbreed, Métis writer Maria Campbell introduces the Cree word, kwaskastahsowin, to describe what it means to seek conciliation or to “put things to right.” By focusing on what it means to “put things to right” in the context of twentieth-century publishing in Canada, this talk explores Campbell’s definition of kwaskastahsowin in relation to two key twentieth-century works of Indigenous women’s writing in Canada: E. Pauline Johnson’s Legends of Vancouver (1911) and Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed (1973). Specifically, Dr. Alix Shield examines how materials found in McMaster University’s Archives and Research Collections present opportunities to shift away from colonial publishing narratives and instead “put things to right” for both of these Indigenous-authored texts.