Supported by the Mellon Foundation “Humanities for All Times” initiative.
The Carceral Studies Series and Rethinking Place Present:
Colleen Hele Cardinal and Elaine Kicknosway, Mapping the Sixties Scoop Diaspora: Unmaking Canada’s Indigenous Child Removal System
April 26th, 5:15 pm at RKC, Bito Auditorium.
This talk will focus on the Sixties Scoop Network’s organizing for justice and healing for Indigenous survivors of Canada’s colonial child welfare system. The Network’s interactive GIS platform, Mapping the Sixties Scoop Diaspora, maps the displacement of over 24 000 Indigenous children removed from their homes by provincial child welfare authorities and placed in non-Native foster and adoptive homes. Adoptees were displaced from Indigenous nations across Canada and trafficked across provinces, Australia, England, New Zealand, and the U.S. Cardinal and Kicknowsway, will discuss the project along with Cardinal’s memoir, Ohpikiihaakan-ohpihmeh (Raised somewhere else): A 60s Scoop Adoptee’s Story of Coming Home, and the network’s care work to create kinship and spaces to come home to amongst Indigenous survivors of Canada’s Indigenous child welfare diaspora. Mapping the Sixties Scoop diaspora is a survivor-centered project which illustrates the effects of carceral child welfare displacement, while storying Indigenous futurity.
About the Speakers
sîpihkopiyesiw/Colleen Hele- Cardinal is nehiyaw iskwew (Plains Cree) from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, AB but was adopted and raised in Sault Ste Marie ON. She is a community organizer, social justice advocate, student, author and kokum. Her work includes organizing four national 60s scoop gatherings in Ontario, raising the issue of the 60’s scoop at an international level to the displacement and loss of identity survivors have experienced. Colleen also speaks publicly and candidly about MMIW2SG and the impacts of the 60’s Scoop drawing critical connections between colonial child welfare removal policies and her lived experiences and those of women in her family. Colleen continues to volunteer with several initiatives, including Families of Sisters in Spirit, Blackbird Medicines and the Nobel Women’s Initiative Sister to Sister Mentorship program to address gender-based violence, while giving context on the making of Canada, treaty relationships and the dehumanization of Indigenous people through policy and media. She is the author of the Ohpikiihaakan-ohpihmeh (Raised somewhere else): A 60s Scoop Adoptee’s Story of Coming Home as well as spear-heading the GIS mapping initiative Mapping the 60s Scoop Diaspora, and being awarded the Ontario Premiers Award for Outstanding Community Service. Currently Colleen is Resolution Health Support Worker. Colleen has organized and successfully hosted 6 National Gatherings in Ottawa.
Elaine Kicknosway is proud to be Swampy Cree through her biological mother and her biological father’s side is from Buffalo Narrows. She is a member of Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Northern Saskatchewan, and is Wolf Clan. She is a Sixties Scoop Survivor and returned home in 1996 when she was in her late 20’s. She has been long time community advocate in the areas of child welfare, MMIW2SG, healthy families, and Indigenous Wellness. Elaine is an Indigenous trauma informed Counsellor/ an Ontario wedding officiant, Blanket exercise facilitator and trainer, Indigenous full spectrum doula, Indigenous Death Doula, Traditional dancer, singer, drummer and a helper to many.
