Unlearning: A messy and complex journey with Canadian Foreign Policy

Foundations (or so I thought…)

I received mainstream training in the canons of International Relations (IR) and Canadian Foreign Policy. I was trained to be a “scholar”—to test theory in ways that were balanced, objective, and neutral. While my doctoral work and early publications were infused with liberal, Western assumptions and typically focused on the subject of climate change, my turn to feminist and critical theorizing began quickly after leaving graduate school. By the mid-1990s I was doing feminist work “on the side,” although I was discouraged from pursuing this line of theorizing and told to keep the feminist work as a hobby since it wouldn’t get me anywhere in my career as a scholar of CFP. While I did continue to do work on climate change and typically looked at it in the context of Canadian Foreign Policy, I didn’t do a very good job of keeping the feminist research as a hobby. Instead, I found myself part of a conversation with other feminist scholars who shared my sense of the absence and marginalization of the feminist voice in Canadian Foreign Policy. As a result of these conversations, the edited volume Feminist Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Policy was published. ²

In that volume I published a chapter that looked at the concept of “internationalism,” and examined how it functioned to silence the inside of Canada. Drawing on the work of feminist IR scholars Christine Sylvester and Cynthia Enloe, ³ I argued for the need to adopt a lens of everyday practice—a lens that has us look beyond the diplomats and princes. Instead, I sought the inclusion of a fuller range of human voices. ⁴

When making the case for everyday practice, one of the examples I included was Indigenous peoples—the first time, I think, I ever included a reference to Indigenous peoples in my work. In particular, I observed that the so-called “Golden Era of Canadian Foreign Policy” of the late 1940s and early 1950s was also a time when the Canadian state was actively relocating Inuit peoples and maintaining a reserve system, not to mention the residential schools that were in place. In the context of the promotion of Canada as a moral beacon in the world, there is regularly a strategic forgetting of Indigenous peoples and the practices of colonialism.

It was also in that volume that I co-authored a chapter on teaching Canadian Foreign Policy, the first piece on teaching and learning CFP to be published in an edited volume. Titled “Engaging in the possibilities of magic,” ⁵ the essay raised questions about how and what we teach in our field. Like the chapter on internationalism, this piece on teaching was also the beginning of a journey for me.

Reflecting on my work over the last two decades, it is clear that a common set of theoretical ideas has shaped my sense of the world. Feminist International Relations theorists inspire me to look for IR and CFP in unusual locations, ⁶ to seek to challenge our own assumptions—our own “uncuriosity,” ⁷ to challenge disciplinary practices that seek to influence who and how we study, and to regard “theorising as a way of life, a form of life, something we all do, every day, all the time.” ⁸ In addition, the work of Roxanne Doty has given me pause to think about our voices. She notes that through our practices we “drain our voices of any traces of humanity,” making us unable or unwilling to ask: “Where is the soul in our academic writing? Where is the humanity in our prose? Where are we as writers?” ⁹

Critical International Relations theory has also had a powerful influence on my work. Robert Cox’s argument that “theory is always for someone and for some purpose” underpins all that I write. ¹⁰ We are again reminded that our theorizing is not neutral and that power and privilege are embedded in the way we frame the world. Like Cox, Steve Smith calls our attention to the power of theorizing in a classic piece on self-images of discipline. Smith asks, “which accounts have dominated and why? Which voices are dominant? Which ‘reality’ is dominant?” ¹¹ The most significant feature of a discipline is its silences: “silences are the loudest voices.” ¹² With this combination of foundational influences, I situate myself theoretically as a critical feminist. I eschew positivist assumptions about my scholarly roles and resist positivist influences in my research (or at least I thought I did). I’ve taken up as many opportunities as possible to write using first person narrative while fending off attacks from various quarters that such an approach is not scholarly. And along my journey I’ve regularly asked questions about silences, voices, margins, and our humanity. I was profoundly struck, however, by the shallowness of how I had previously engaged those questions when I started to do research on the Highway of Tears.

Do you have a good heart…?

Over the years I grew increasingly disillusioned with my research on Canadian climate change policy—nothing ever changed. One area that I did start to do some work on was Indigenous peoples and climate change. Typically this work took the form of a discourse analysis, but it was also increasingly informed by literature on Indigenous ways of knowing. This translated into broader questions about the silencing of race in Canadian Foreign Policy, but also led me full circle back to the question of “everyday practice.” I became increasingly aware of my own location and how the international was playing out in my hometown—on the highway that intersected the City of Prince George. My attention turned to the Highway of Tears.

The Highway of Tears is a stretch of highway (or highways, because the delineation of the space has changed over time) between Prince George and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. It is some of the most spectacular country you can see in Canada. It is also the site of loss, despair, and murder for between 18 and 43 young women who have come to grief along its stretches. According to one report, the Prince George–Prince Rupert corridor was first named the Highway of Tears when, on 25 September 1998, in Terrace, BC, there was a march and vigil organized by families of victims. That vigil “was meant to commemorate six native women who had either been murdered or gone missing along Highway 16: Alberta Williams, Ramona Wilson, Roxanne Thiara, Alisha Germaine, Lana Derrick & Delphine Nikal.” ¹³ This act of remembrance was designed to be a “tearful reminder” of the missing and murdered girls. The Highway of Tears is also a space in which the families spoke of the failure of the RCMP to solve any of the murders. The designation, then, of the Highway of Tears, was intended to be, in part, an act of protest. ¹⁴ This place of politics, where homemade signs tell girls not to hitchhike, is a stark reminder that not all lives are equally grieved. ¹⁵ Even in death, these girls have been marginalized. For decades, the families of the missing and murdered women of the Highway of Tears have called on the federal government to act, only to be told by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2014 that an inquiry was not on his radar. ¹⁶ An independent National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was, however, created in 2016 by the Trudeau government.

My secondary research on the Highway of Tears started in earnest in the fall of 2011. As I began conversations with our research office about how to engage in ethical research on the subject, it became strikingly clear that this was a case unlike any other I had ever approached. Moreover, simultaneous secondary research on Indigenous peoples and climate change was exposing me to a breadth of Indigenous research protocols. Soon, the conversations with my Indigenous colleagues, and non-Indigenous colleagues engaged in Indigenous research, began. Through those conversations, and through the subsequent rereading of key works on Indigenous theorizing and Indigenous methodology, my questions emerged. I had what Brooke Ackerly and Jacqui True refer to as unplanned “deliberative moments.” ¹⁷ Consequently, I have come to realize that there is much I need to unlearn.

The need to unlearn was prompted by a series of interconnected reflections. The first set of reflections was essentially prompted by my own blindness to the everyday of my community. I’ve lived in Prince George for over 20 years now but have only come to increased awareness of this issue over the last seven years or so. The Highway of Tears isn’t far away and distant—it’s about five blocks from my house. The girls and women who have gone missing are friends, mothers, and sisters of people in my community. It’s not a page in a textbook or a problem to be solved. In the process of writing about the Highway of Tears, the question for me wasn’t why now—but why didn’t I do something earlier? How could I have been so unaware for so long?

Second, the profound impact of my own inattention was coupled with insights from some of the vast literature on Indigenous knowledges, Indigenous methodology, and Indigenous theorizing. ¹⁸ In particular, in Decolonizing Methodologies, Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith writes about the kinds of questions one will encounter when first seeking to engage in “research” with/on Indigenous peoples. She notes: “Whose research is it? Who owns it? Whose interests does it serve?… These questions are simply part of a larger set of judgments on criteria that a researcher cannot prepare for, such as: Is her spirit clear? Does he have a good heart? What other baggage are they carrying? Are they useful to us? Can they fix up our generator? Can they actually do anything?” ¹⁹ For me, Smith’s questions required that I reflect on whom my research was for and whose interest it served. It became clear to me that my planned research, in spite of my best intentions, was really only for myself and for my discipline. Reading the Indigenous methodology literature also required, and quite uncomfortably, realizing that I have been a “colonizing academic.” ²⁰ According to Graham Hingangaroa Smith, one of the characteristics of such theorists is that they are “often disconnected from a critical interface with the community whom they are purporting to represent; they are not seen in the community context and often are not known to the community they are writing about—there is certainly not accountability to the community.” ²¹ My work on the Highway of Tears was not connected to the community or to the First Nations who live along the highway.

These deliberative moments, in combination with my reading of Indigenous methodology, Indigenous theory, and the secondary literature on the Highway of Tears, left me dumbstruck and shaken. How could I assume I could waltz in and interview community activists about local constructions of security in the case of the Highway of Tears? Even the label of “case” seemed obscene to me. I felt I was violating the lives and deaths of these young women and epitomizing what Sherene Razack calls “stealing the pain of others.” ²² As I worked with those feelings, it became clear that there was much I needed to unlearn.

Teaching is always for someone and for some purpose …

Just as Cox tells us that “theory is always for someone and for some purpose,” so too do I think that our teaching is always for someone and for some purpose. Consequently, we must not underestimate the power embedded in a course outline, because the creation of a course outline is not a neutral act; it is an act nested in assumptions of what constitutes our discipline or field and it is an expression of our teaching philosophies. Essentially, we teach our discipline in 13 weeks. ³² In the context of Canadian Foreign Policy, the marginalization (and often absence) of stories of Canada and the world from a francophone, gendered, and/or First Nations point of view in leading Canadian Foreign Policy textbooks, and CFP publications more generally, has consequences. This marginalization reinforces and legitimizes a particular view of Canada and perpetuates myths about who and what Canada is in the world.

Work by both Stéphane Roussel and Claire Turenne Sjolander reminds us of the historic dominance of the English language in our field, and our corresponding “deafness to francophone voices.” ³³ In Roussel’s analysis of Canadian Foreign Policy texts, he shows us that of the 7844 references in 266 English-language Canadian Foreign Policy texts, there were a total of 61 references in French, ³⁴ and notes that the “literature in English about Quebec’s international involvement is minimal.” ³⁵ Sjolander’s 2007 analysis ³⁶ of over 50 Canadian Foreign Policy course outlines shows the dominance of English-language readings in francophone Canadian Foreign Policy outlines, and reveals, as Claire Turenne Sjolander and I noted in 2010, the complete absence of “French-language material from courses taught in English.” ³⁷ This overwhelming absence of the francophone voice and experience in Canadian Foreign Policy has been somewhat disrupted by the publication of Kim Richard Nossal, Stéphane Roussel, and Stéphane Paquin’s Politique internationale et défense au Canada et au Québec ³⁸ which has been translated into English. ³⁹ The inclusion of the francophone voices in the English volume (ironically written in English) is a vital contribution to the field of Canadian Foreign Policy because it tells us stories about Canada that are too often left untold.

However, the absences in publications and course outlines noted by both Roussel and Sjolander can play into a greater linguistic and cultural divide. If we are not mindful of the general deafness of CFP and other overlapping or corresponding fields to francophone voices, we run the risk of legitimizing and elevating “particular national narratives, while downplaying and erasing others.” ⁴⁰ We also risk perpetuating an absence of mind about the diverse francophone experiences within Canada, and as such through the construction of our course outlines we undermine curiosity, support assumptions of national homogeneity, and become complicit in the maintenance of misunderstandings. Silences in our course outlines and absences in our textbooks perpetuate divisions, undermine conversations about different experiences, and obfuscate different ways of knowing. If we reverse those silences and absences, the discussion in our classrooms and beyond can become less about false perceptions and more about starting points for conversations across different experiences.

To my knowledge, we do not have research on gender and Canadian Foreign Policy in course outlines equivalent to the work done by Sjolander on the “linguistic divide.” There is, however, research on women and gender and Canadian Foreign Policy in terms of its place in the field. Similar to Roussel’s analysis of francophone literature, Jérémie Cornut and I have looked at the status of women in Canadian Foreign Policy, and we found that while there has been some growth in publication by women over the last 30 years, women scholars still accounted for only 13.4 percent of CFP publications between 1990 and 2002. ⁴¹ Moreover, women are not equally represented in all areas of the field. The areas where women publish tend to be “outside the core” of Canadian Foreign Policy, which in general remains dominated by defence and Canada–US issues.

Not only do women tend to publish outside the core; the work on gender and Canadian Foreign Policy is not recognized as part of the “core.” As David Black and I argued, “feminist scholars have contributed significantly to the current understanding of who and what constitutes CFP. Yet, despite its promise to rethink ‘Canada,’ to challenge the silences on gender in theory and practice, and to disrupt the narrow definition of the field, feminist scholarship (although not necessarily feminist-identified scholars) remains marginal.” ⁴² To support the claims Black and I made, in the context of two of the most widely used textbooks, all one has to do is scan their indexes. The index of the English version of Nossal, Roussel, and Paquin shows no entries under either “feminist” or “gender.” ⁴³ The 2011 edition of the popular Canadian Foreign Policy textbook edited by Duane Bratt and Christopher Kukucha includes one explicitly feminist chapter out of 27 chapters. ⁴⁴ While there are now dated volumes on gender and Canadian Foreign Policy, such as Feminist Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Policy by Claire Turenne Sjolander, Deborah Steinstra, and Heather A. Smith, and gender is included in the 2010 volume on critical Canadian Foreign Policy edited by J. Marshall Beier and Lana Wylie, it remains the case that gender and women are marginalized in the field. ⁴⁵

By imposing silence on gender issues in our classroom, we hide from our students the myriad ways that gender plays through defence and foreign policy. The absence of gender thus reinforces and legitimizes the idea of “core,” making the arguments in favour of the inclusion of women and gender more difficult for students who may be so interested, and signalling to future scholars that there is no place for this kind of analysis in the field. When we introduce gender in our classrooms, we expose our students to ideas that gender is constructed in our everyday action, and through that lens we can help them to connect to their everyday, to see that Canadian Foreign Policy is linked to their lives. Influenced by the feminist International Relations scholarship noted above, we can encourage our students to ask about our shared humanity and the silences in the field. We can challenge students to think about the unusual locations of Canadian Foreign Policy and have them reflect on how Canadian Foreign Policy isn’t something that exists outside our classrooms. They can become part of the making or remaking of Canadian Foreign Policy.

Literature by Indigenous scholars, and about the Indigenous experience and Canadian Foreign Policy, is also not common in the Canadian Foreign Policy literature. Consistent with this impression, Jérémie Cornut and I showed that First Nations is a topic in only 0.03 percent of over 19,000 Canadian Foreign Policy articles examined. ⁴⁶ Of the books listed by John Kirton in his top ten, all are written by white males, which reflects a historical lack of diversity in the field. ⁴⁷ In the survey of the field by David Black and me, there are some references to post-colonial approaches in the discussion of the critical turn in Canadian Foreign Policy, but there is no dedicated section to post-colonial approaches or the silences in terms of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples. ⁴⁸ J. Marshall Beier has produced an excellent edited journal volume and book, Indigenous Diplomacies. ⁴⁹ There are several CFP-related journal articles and book chapters that either adopt a post-colonial approach ⁵⁰ or include reference to Aboriginal peoples, ⁵¹ but it suffices to say that the Canadian Foreign Policy literature with a particular focus on Indigenous peoples is thin.

Practically speaking, as in the case of francophone students, the absence of readings by Indigenous scholars and about the Indigenous experience in Canada means that Indigenous students will not see themselves in the construction of “we” that constitutes Canada in our disciplinary narratives. These silences are another example of systemic discrimination embedded in the subfield of CFP that serves to marginalize Aboriginal students in our classrooms and, more broadly, works to reinforce cultural misunderstandings, prejudices, and myths about Canada in the world, such as the myth that Canada is a non-colonial power. If we do not include Indigenous content in our courses, I believe we become complicit in the maintenance of these myths. The absences in our curriculum serve to perpetuate a strategic forgetting of Canada’s colonial past and present, one that often manifests in ugly statements about the need for “them” to “get over it.” And while First Nations leaders such as Wab Kinew ⁵² have spoken out against the stereotypes inherent in the “‘just get over it” discourse, if our field of study remains largely silent then the silences reinforce assumptions about a race-neutral classroom and a somehow race-neutral Canada. That is not the Canada that many of our students know. The content we include in our course outlines shapes, for our students, the stories of Canada. By purposefully including feminist, Indigenous, and francophone voices in Canadian Foreign Policy we provide spaces for difference and dialogue, we create opportunities for our students to be part of and bear witness to the complexity of the country in which we live, and we help to challenge narrow rhetorical narratives that deny the messiness of our past and present.

Concluding reflections

Shawn Wilson writes, “if research doesn’t change you as a person, then you haven’t done it right.” ⁵³ I think it’s safe to say that the research on the Highway of Tears that led to my engagement with the literature on Indigenous theory and Indigenous method has changed me. I was shocked and saddened by my own lack of awareness, and by my own colonial practices; navigating what is appropriate from the position of ally remains an ongoing struggle. I have no easy answers for myself, but I do firmly believe that, as scholars, we have an obligation to read the literature on Indigenous theory and Indigenous methodology for ourselves. We cannot assume that post-colonial and Indigenous theory and methodology offer the same insights. We cannot deny our own situatedness. We have an obligation to engage in reconciliation. Canadian Foreign Policy scholars are not immune from colonial practices. The challenge then becomes for each of us to be willing to unlearn, to interrogate our own practices, and to ask ourselves, how have we been complicit in the creation and recreation of colonial practices, attitudes and assumptions?

Unlearning is an ongoing process for me. I continue to work on unlearning assumptions about my scholarly self and what constitutes scholarship. That process has reinforced my awareness of the margins in our field and has also had an impact on my sense of myself as a teacher. Teaching is not just about content—it is also about classroom practice. We do construct our discipline in our course outlines, but we also practice our discipline in our teaching. My own classroom practices have also been a site of unlearning. How can I claim to be a feminist and then stand up in front of the class and claim all the authority? How can I claim to value my students’ perspectives if I don’t create spaces for them to engage and to co-create curriculum? If teaching is our everyday practice, what role do we play in the creation of silence, hierarchies, and margin in our classrooms?

Finally, I think it’s vital for us to share our unlearning experiences with each other. The academy and our discipline privilege authority in ways that make many scholars uneasy with sharing those moments of struggle or self-questioning. Somehow, to be unsure is too often equated with “unscholarly,” and yet to be unsure might simply mean that we are questioning, curious, and willing to take risks to be open to new ideas. To unlearn is also to learn—that is what we ask of our students every day. We too should be willing to unlearn.