ethnocide
Destroying a people's identity
Ethnocide is the deliberate destruction of a people's culture while leaving the people themselves physically alive.
Unlike genocide, which kills bodies, ethnocide kills languages, religions, customs, and ways of life—often through forced assimilation, banning native languages, or removing children from their communities.
Government boarding schools committed ethnocide against indigenous populations.
Absorbing into a whole
- residential schoolsInstitutions for Indigenous assimilation
- colonialismDomination through foreign settlement
- RussificationEnforced cultural assimilation
- boarding schoolsResidential institutions for pupils
reeducation · civilizing mission · settler colonialism · forced conversion · mission schools · cultural imperialism · dispossession · erasure
Locally transmitted ancestral understanding
- ancestral practicesTraditions from earlier generations
- oral historyRecorded interviews about the past
- sacred sitesReligiously significant locations
- folk customsTraditional community practices
cultural memory · identity loss · mother tongue · storytelling · elders · generational trauma · rootlessness · displacement
Foreign territorial takeover
- imperialismExtending dominion over others
- conquestDefeating and seizing control
- missionariesReligious workers abroad
- reservationsDoubts or advance bookings
Stolen Generations · Trail of Tears · Ainu · Sami · Uyghur · Tibet · Aboriginal · First Nations
Protections for original inhabitants
- human rightsInalienable personal freedoms
- international lawRules governing relations between countries
- recognitionPerceiving something as known
- reparationsCompensation for historical wrongs
truth commission · documentation · advocacy · tribunal · prosecution · accountability · restitution · survivors
assimilation
Absorbing into a whole
- residential schoolsInstitutions for Indigenous assimilation
- colonialismDomination through foreign settlement
- RussificationEnforced cultural assimilation
boarding schools · reeducation · civilizing mission · settler colonialism · forced conversion · mission schools · cultural imperialism · dispossession · erasure · denationalization
indigenous knowledge
Locally transmitted ancestral understanding
- ancestral practicesTraditions from earlier generations
- oral historyRecorded interviews about the past
- sacred sitesReligiously significant locations
folk customs · cultural memory · identity loss · mother tongue · storytelling · elders · generational trauma · rootlessness · displacement · spiritual practices
colonization
Foreign territorial takeover
- imperialismExtending dominion over others
- conquestDefeating and seizing control
- missionariesReligious workers abroad
reservations · Stolen Generations · Trail of Tears · Ainu · Sami · Uyghur · Tibet · Aboriginal · First Nations · Native American
indigenous rights
Protections for original inhabitants
- human rightsInalienable personal freedoms
- international lawRules governing relations between countries
- recognitionPerceiving something as known
reparations · truth commission · documentation · advocacy · tribunal · prosecution · accountability · restitution · survivors · testimony
ethnocidecultural preservation
Protecting community traditions and artifacts
cultural renaissance · heritage conservation · cultural reclamation · decolonization · indigenous rights
ethnocidemulticulturalism
Coexistence of diverse traditions
ethnocidemulticulturalism
Coexistence of diverse traditions
ethnic, suicide, pesticide, homicide, genocide, ethnicity, regicide, matricide, infanticide