Ry Moran, associate university librarian for reconciliation at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, was named a 2023 Library Journal Mover & Shaker for his work bringing the university’s reconciliation department to fruition and developing a podcast called Taapwaywin, which means “truth” or “speaking truthfully” in Michif, a language of the Métis people. LJ recently touched base with Moran to learn more about his work with truth and reconciliation, and how the podcast is going.

LJ: Tell us what’s happening with the podcast.

Ry Moran: The podcast is providing a really important lens through which I can communicate some of the experiences and lived realities that are present within the topics we often talk about. We’re coming to the conclusion of season one. It’s been, in some ways, a lot of work, and one of those projects where it’s a passion project, not central on my desk at all times. But we’re looking ahead to how we want to talk about things moving forward. The first season, we looked at things largely through the lens of trust, questioning, are our truths presented, or are they buried? How are they obfuscated? How are they contested? That will undoubtedly continue as a theme.

But I think we’re going to more intentionally adopt a lens of respect as well, because respect is so important. The question of respect and what respectful relations look like, what respectful practices actually entail, might be the important lens for the second season. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission that exists here in Canada, and many other initiatives, have really pointed us towards respectful relationships as being the pathway, the framework, or the definition, even, of reconciliation. It’s abundantly clear in society right now that there are some profoundly disrespectful relationships that are happening.

How do you see balancing respect with protecting your rights?

We see this in terms of territorial sovereignty, the ability of states to protect their borders, war, conflict, all human suffering, and then our seemingly disappearing ability to have dialogue within society, as being very concerning. There are foundational principles which we can’t lose sight of, core human rights principles, core foundational principles that we’ve agreed to as an international community. That’s where I hope to take [the podcast], but also have it front and center and a critical lens through which I’m looking at a lot of our work through libraries.

How does that work when the other party isn’t being respectful to you?

These things don’t operate in isolation, self-respect and respect for others. That dynamic sometimes dictates that we have to protect ourselves and stand up for things we feel are important, but how do we know what those things are? My hope for a lot of the work we’re conducting is that we continue to pass along these foundational human rights or other principles on which we rest concepts of respectful behavior.

How has the podcast been received?

Pretty well. The numbers continue to increase, and we’ve got a good core following. I think most importantly, I’ve had some very direct outreach, folks that have reached out and said, “We’re using this in our class, I’ve listened to each episode multiple times. Every time I go back, I hear something different.” Those comments are most heartening because people see this as a resource and as a teaching tool that’s having a positive effect on faculty members and those instructing others. The podcast is trying to help with the work we have to do to educate all Canadians and inform all Canadians about these broad principles of truth and reconciliation. Everybody’s a learner, myself included.

What other initiatives are you working on regarding the concept of reconciliation?

Right now, we have a big fence erected around a big hole in front of the library, where we’re putting up a permanent monument, a flag, to honor residential school survivors, the communities, and all the families affected as a means of saying, one, we will never forget. But two, we honor this, the strength and resilience and determination of the survivors and their families, what they had to endure. I was thinking about that, wondering if it’s a library thing. Why would libraries be involved in this? One, it partially relates to my role with truth and reconciliation. Two, it relates to the calls of action that were released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada that, of course, I had long been championing. But more critically, libraries and archives themselves work in the space of memory. We hold things, we highlight things, we organize things, so they’re passed forward through time and generations. We place emphasis on certain materials or certain objects or certain collections of information to say that this is something important. Future generations need this to help them answer the questions of who they are, where they come from, and where they’re going. So I think commemorative work like this is quite squarely within a broad mandate of libraries, archives, and cultural heritage institutions. I think that’s a positive thing that’s happening at the university here.

What do you see as possible projects or initiatives going forward?

We keep working on our space within the library as a whole, both our web spaces and our physical spaces. There are a number of plans in place to bring more content into the library. We’re talking about concepts like bringing the land into the library, seeing the land as a source of knowledge. What does that mean? It’s almost more of a conceptual frame than a practical frame. We’re not necessarily going to put up living walls in the library. But how does that lens begin to help us situate ourselves in a broader region or set of relationships? How do we use our space in a manner that educates and informs and centers certain ideas?

Truth and reconciliation really requires that we understand where we live and where we are. That’s a big part of unpacking the deeply embedded narratives that we have in a place like Canada. A lot of Canada is still trying to understand how we came to be and also reconciling Indigenous presence since time immemorial. Helping people understand where they live, names that are present or not present, and recontextualizing where we are, is really where the rubber hits the road in terms of reconciliation. It's moving into a space beyond territorial acknowledgments and into a much deeper engagement with histories and oftentimes, conflicted histories as well.