Power, discourse and Aboriginal healing

This thesis begins with a discursive analysis of the implementation and operation of the residential schooling system. I examine the history of the schooling system through "Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Report" (1996) to argue that it provides for an analysis of the history through Michel Foucault's concept of biopower. I then continue to examine how although discursive conditions are no longer such that residential schools are in operation, the presence of biopower can continue to be seen through Health Canada's "Indian Residential School Mental Health Support Program" (2003). In this analysis I also use the work of Ernst van Alphen and his discursive view of experience and trauma to examine how this continued presence of biopower can be seen to affect residential schooling victims and their traumas. I propose that the continued presence of biopower is managing the healing process of residential schooling victims, and therefore potentially continuing the traumatisation which they initially endured. Finally, I explore how an aesthetic rendition of trauma may allow healing to take place within a medium which is not managed by discursive conditions such as is seen in the "Indian Residential School Mental Health Support Program.".