Decolonizing the Mind: Intellectual Colonialism in Canadian Indigenous Residential Schooling

Abstract

The present study draws on Canadian literature and the contributions of indigenous poets to the discipline, aiming to generate an indigenous voice in contemporary times. The present study aims to examine contemporary Indigenous Canadian poetry as a site of resistance to intellectual colonialism, which was produced through the residential school system. Using qualitative textual analysis, the paper analyses selected poems by Rita Joe and Alootook Ipellie to demonstrate how Indigenous poets reclaim silenced histories and reconstruct cultural identity through decolonial expression. In order to engage with the decolonial narrative, Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’O’s Decolonizing the Mind have been adapted as the comparative decolonial framework to examine processes of cultural erasure, linguistic dispossession, and epistemic violence within a Canadian settlercolonial context. By foregrounding Indigenous poetic voices and survivor narratives, the article argues that contemporary Indigenous poetry functions as a counter-discursive space that challenges colonial knowledge systems and reasserts Indigenous ways of knowing within Canadian literature.

Key Words: Contemporary Indigenous Poetry, Decolonising the Mind, Residential Schools, Cultural Erasure, Intellectual Colonialism.