The KAIROS Blanket Exercise is a unique interactive and experiential teaching tool that explores the historic and contemporary relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in North America.

The KAIROS Blanket Exercise involves a 3-hour workshop in which participants stand on blankets spread out on the floor representing traditional native lands. Over the course of the workshop, and guided by trained facilitators and local Indigenous elders and knowledge keepers, the blankets are slowly and systematically removed and reduced in size as traditional native territories are taken away and reassigned or sold to settlers.

Participants play various roles during the blanket exercise and take turns reading and listening to a localized script that covers historical and contemporary events such as pre-contact, colonization, treaties, settlement, and resistance. The blanket exercise concludes with a debriefing to allow participants to process their feelings, share their impressions, and ask questions about this uniquely powerful and visceral experience.

The KAIROS Blanket Exercise has been delivered for two decades now throughout Canada, the United States, Central American, South America, and Australia. During the COVID pandemic, the exercise was delivered virtually. See https://www.kairosblanketexercise.org/programs/ for more information or watch the short video below.

The KAIROS Blanket Exercise is being co-organized by the following NCFR member groups: the American Indian/Native American/Indigenous Peoples Focus Group, the International Section, and the Feminism and Family Science Section.

How to Register

$30 Professional or Student

You can add any pre- or post conference workshop when you register for the conference, or add it to your registration separately.

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