Événements

The notion of home brings together several realities that today’s current events make more complex.

We could define the notion of home as having a public dimension, a living space that contributes to relationships with others (family, neighborhood, communities, society, country). The notion of home is also linked to the idea of privacy and individual protection. It relates to symbolic and cultural objects, memories, decor, interior design, and spaces (open or closed) that present personal territory contributes to the construction of the « I, » as well as the affirmation of the « we. »

That’s why the cultural dimension of home takes on fundamental importance when one’s home is with others. And what happens to your home when it has been taken away or robbed?

These remarks would be incomplete without incorporating the postcolonial dimension. France and Canada (and other countries such as the United States, Australia, or Brazil) are countries born of colonisation and whose indigenous territories were dispossessed. For Canada, in 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) specifically emphasised the need to present immigrants to Canada with “a more inclusive history of the diverse Indigenous peoples of Canada, including information on treaties and the history of residential schools,” and to recognise the important role of Indigenous peoples (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) in decision-making on issues that could affect them. On the one hand, we note that homeless people are overrepresented among Indigenous peoples in Canada, and on the other hand, land dispossession during colonisation was much more than theft. Indigenous peoples maintain a special relationship with their ancestral lands and make them a central element in the experience of their identity. Based on a holistic perception of the environment, Indigenous peoples consider spirit and matter to be on an equal footing, perceiving themselves as part of the territory. The territory is a home and, as the poet Natasha Kanapé-Fontaine warns us: “Don’t enter my soul with your shoes on”. The paradox comes from the fact that the Indigenous question in Canada is often treated like that of migrants or Indigenous peoples. « We are not immigrants and we do not want to be part of the newcomer category, as if we were not here before, » says, for example, Mélanie Boivin, executive director of the Lac-Saint-Jean Native Friendship Centre.

The selected presentations will explore the interrelationship between man and his territory has thus gradually developed over the ages: the territory shapes man as much as man designs it.