King Charles and Queen Camilla stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after their coronation in London on May 6, 2023.
(Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)
Canadians should learn the lessons of the U.S. and the U.K. to avoid idealizing a republic with a powerful president and at the same time acknowledge that a constitutional monarchy is no alternative.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, photographed in New York circa 1874.
Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Theosophy and its founders had an outsize impact on Americans’ ideas about spirituality and Asian religions.
It’s been 75 years since Palestinians were first expelled from their homeland. Here, people from Tantura as they were relocated to Jordan, June 1948.
(Benno Rothenberg/Meitar Collection/National Library of Israel/The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection)
Vinita Srivastava, The Conversation and Boké Saisi, The Conversation
The UN’s resolution to recognize Nakba Day on May 15, to mark the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in 1948, helps to acknowledge past traumas but does the resolution have other implications?
André Dao has kept the legacy of his grandparents alive in Anam, a brilliant novel of immense scope that became a full quest for the truth of his family history, which spans the two Vietnam Wars.
King Charles, left, then Prince of Wales, talks with artist Wade Baker, of the Squamish Nation in Vancouver, B.C., in November 2009.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Ironically perhaps, it may be the move toward reconciliation between Indigenous Peoples and settler Canadians that revives the focus of the Crown in Canadian schooling.
What can the Crown Jewels tell us about the history and future of the British Royals? In this photo from last May, then-Prince Charles sits with Camilla and William by the Imperial State Crown in the House of Lords Chamber in London.
Ben Stansall/AP
Vinita Srivastava, The Conversation and Ollie Nicholas, The Conversation
Although King Charles will have a low-key ceremony this coronation, the Crown Jewels will still figure prominently. An exploration of the jewels tells a tale of exploitation, rape and pillage.
Blueberry River First Nation Chief Judy Desjarlais (middle) called her nation’s agreement with the province a “historic moment.”
(Flickr/Province of British Columbia)
New agreements in B.C. provide economic compensation for land restoration activities to several First Nations and limit new oil and gas development projects.
Beyond the familiar ideas of mateship and sacrifice, Anzac Day offers an opportunity to teach young people a more complicated but meaningful version of history.
Searchers pulled the bodies of two families who had attempted to cross the Canada-U.S. border from the St. Lawrence River in Akwesasne, Que. on March 31.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
The recent deaths of migrants trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border through Indigenous territory highlight the history of colonial dispossession that the border represents.
International human rights mechanisms alone cannot offer reliable solutions to racism, including racism affecting racialized migrants. Protestors support migrant worker rights in front of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, in Toronto, in August 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
Dignity is at the centre of many rights-based declarations, but to eradicate racist policy and practices, we must commit to noticing each other’s personhood in new ways.
The inequitable distribution of the benefits and harms of the food system is a violation of the constitutional right to food.
Volunteering for global health experience is a common way of gaining clinical observation experiences for medical school applicants. This, and other opportunities to get close to the practice of medicine, also have unintended consequences.
(Shutterstock)
A winning medical school application requires stories about observing clinical care. But applicants’ quests to get clinical experiences have unintended and surprisingly far-reaching consequences.
The Uluru Statement from the Heart calls for truth-telling as a crucial step towards reconciliation. What does this process involve, and what are the potential promises and pitfalls?
Last week, Pope Francis repudiated a 500-year-old-decree justifying colonialism. This image is from last summer: at Lac Ste. Anne, Alta., in Canada.
(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Vinita Srivastava, The Conversation and Boké Saisi, The Conversation
The Vatican has repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, a 500-year-old decree used to justify settler colonialism. Scholar Veldon Coburn explains this symbolic victory and what still needs to happen.
Human evolution is typically depicted with a progressive whitening of the skin, despite a lack of evidence to support it.
Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov/Wikimedia Commons
From Aristotle to Darwin, inaccurate and biased narratives in science not only reproduce these biases in future generations but also perpetuate the discrimination they are used to justify.
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, left, hosts his Tanzanian counterpart during a state visit in March 2023.
GCIS/Flickr
An investigation has revealed that French tech firms, seeking to create an AI “à la française”, have turned to one of the country’s former colonies, Madagascar, for low-cost labour.
How are people today related to those who lived centuries ago in the Swahili civilization?
The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs/Flickr
The first ancient DNA sequences from peoples of the medieval Swahili civilization push aside colonialist stories and reveal genetic connections from the past.
Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa and Assistant Professor in the History of International Relations, Utrecht University
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University