Val Napoleon, a 2026 Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and Professor of Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria, reflects on the concepts of decolonization, colonization and culture, and on the importance of questioning the terms we use to understand societies. 

In this video, she invites us to examine what we really mean by “decolonization” and the limitations of seeking to return to a past supposedly untouched by change. She also reflects on the notion of “culture,” which can sometimes reduce the complexity of societies to a single way of living or doing things. Val Napoleon instead prefers the term “society,” which, in her view, better captures their evolution, exchanges and diversity.