In this talk, Dr. Len Findlay will defend the use of the term “genocide” in the 2019 report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Against claims that the term is a distraction, a case of unfortunate over-reach, or a distortion, Dr. Findlay situates this use of the term in the shift from the Eurocentric to what he calls the Solidarity Humanities. In this shift, disciplines deeply implicated in colonialism on Turtle Island work to decolonize themselves through a radical (and radicalizing) post-colonial understanding and practice of Indigenous-humanistic teaching, scholarship, and political struggle.

Dr. Findlay is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, former Director of the Humanities Research Unit and founding member of the Indigenous Humanities Group at the University of Saskatchewan.