Abstract: Any attempt to set rigid boundaries around assimilative education is likely to misrepresent the varied experiences within Indigenous boarding schools, the relations between Indigenous communities and the school and the specific interactions of staff and students, among other factors. While for many a term like genocide captures the destructive ends sought through these schools, a processual and nuanced application of the term must be insisted upon, so that the historical particularity of Indigenous Boarding Schools is not unduly circumscribed and reduced for the satisfaction of legal accusation. In this chapter, I present the metaphor of the ‘settler colonial mesh’ as a means for capturing this complexity. In addition, I show how what is sometimes referred to as ‘intimate colonialism’ can be captured through this metaphor. Finally, I discuss how Cybercartography opens map-making to the intimacy and unevenness of settler colonial genocide.
