Since the earliest published American narratives, writers and subsequent Western clinicians alike have often mislabeled Indigenous behaviors, especially the behaviors of Indigenous women, as insanity. And yet, as Pemina Yellow Bird (Three Affiliated Tribes) explains, "Native peoples generally do not have a notion of "insane" or "mentally ill." (4). Instead, Indigenous peoples often discuss mental health in their communities through storytelling. As but one example of the ways that cultural narratives work to reclaim Indigenous understandings of mental health, this paper analyzes how the writings of Chickasaw author Linda Hogan challenge non-Indigenous understandings of mental health as a gendered phenomenon within tribal communities. Hogan does this in ways that destigmatize behaviors including hallucinations or prophetic dreams that Western medicine considers abnormal, and reintroduces community-specific understandings of these behaviors as either a supernatural phenomenon or a gift of foreknowledge. Hogan's novel Solar Storms (1995), in particular, reframes stereotypical images of tribal women as insane with images of Indigenous women as cultural, political, and spiritual leaders in their communities. While she addresses community-specific understandings of actual mental illness, Hogan also characterizes what many might mistake for mental illness as the essential foresight of Indigenous women and thereby offers a healing corrective to the prevailing narrative of Indigenous women's presumed insanity. A central discussion in this paper is how Hogan defines knowledge-making and Indigenous women's rights and responsibilities in Solar Storms. The term "rights and responsibilities" refers to a sense of stewardship Indigenous women in the novel experience to protect land and community: this charge may include giving life through childbirth, communicating with animals and the dead, dreaming of medicinal plants, intuitively remembering traditional song and dance, "seeing" creatures without one's eyesight, and healing abilities, among others. Female knowledge-making, then, refers to insights about oneself, community, and the material and immaterial world in enacting these behaviors. By expressing the possibilities of Indigenous women's relationship with the natural and supernatural world instead of either exoticizing or dismissing them, Solar Storms works to legitimize Indigenous modes of female knowledge-making in the face of ongoing colonial assumptions about Indigenous insanity.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s first call to action is to reduce the number of Indigenous children and youth in care, including keeping young people in culturally appropriate environments. While we work towards this goal, culturally appropriate resources are needed to support children and youth as evidence shows that when Indigenous youth have access to cultural teachings, they have improved physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health outcomes. Our project focused on the protective qualities of Indigenous coming of age teachings. Together with our community partner Surrounded by Cedar Child and Family Services, we worked to develop resources that inform and advocate for a culturally-centered coming of age for urban Indigenous youth living in foster care in Victoria, British Columbia on Lekwungen Territory. This dissertation begins with a literature review to provide the social and historical context surrounding urban Indigenous youth-in-care’s access to coming of age teachings. This is followed by a description of the Indigenous research paradigm that guided our work, what it meant for us to do this project in a good way, and the methods that we used to develop three visual storytelling knowledge sharing tools. Three manuscripts are presented, two published and one submitted, that reflect a strength-based vision of coming of age shared by knowledge holders who participated in our community events. The first manuscript retells the events of the knowledge holder’s dinner, where community members shared their perspectives on four questions related to community engagement and youth support. An analysis of the event’s transcripts revealed key themes including the responsibility of creating safe-spaces for youth, that coming of age is a community effort, and the importance of youth self-determining their journey. A graphic recording and short story are used to illustrate and narrate the relationship between key themes and related signifiers. This manuscript highlights the willingness of the community to collectively support youth in their journeys to adulthood. The second manuscript focuses on our two youth workshops that had the objective of understanding what rites of passage youth in SCCFS’s care engage with and how they learn what cultural teachings were most important to them. The findings suggest that when youth experience environments of belonging, and know they are ‘part of something bigger’, qualities like self-determination, self-awareness, and empowerment are strengthened. The third manuscript focuses on how we translated our project findings into different storytelling modalities using an Indigenist arts-based methodological approach. The project findings provided the inspiration and content for a fictional story called Becoming Wolf, which was adapted into a graphic novel, and a watercolour infographic. These knowledge sharing media present our project findings in accessible and meaningful ways that maintain the context and essences of our learnings. This research illustrates how Indigenous coming of age is an experience of interdependent teachings, events, and milestones, that contribute to the wellness of the body, mind, heart, and spirit of youth and the Indigenous community more broadly. Through our efforts, we hope to create a shared awareness about the cultural supports available to urban Indigenous youth that can contribute to lifelong wellness. / Graduate

The Inuit people in Greenland are internationally recognized as indigenous. They, therefore, have been granted protective measures, such as self-government rights in 2009. However, some scholars have started to question whether protective measures are still a necessity because of their increased autonomy rights. To contest this questioning, this paper examines the contemporary political discourse in Greenland regarding the Inuit people’s emphasis on their cultural heritage, ongoing identity issues, and aspirations of independence, in the light of Will Kymlicka’s liberal theory of multiculturalism. The paper concludes that the Inuit people in Greenland, to a large extent, apply to Kymlicka’s theory regarding his criteria of national minorities and the importance of belonging to a societal culture. However, the study also finds that his theory is limited in protecting potential sub-cultures and lacks nuances about secessionist thoughts among indigenous groups. The results underline the importance of continuingly protect indigenous peoples in Greenland and suggests considering additional measures to other minorities on the island.

The January 2021 edition of PMLA housed an entire cluster on "Indigenous Literatures and the Anthropocene," in which at least four of the eight non-Indigenous contributors directly addressed and supported a call for learning from and collaborating with Indigenous voices. The unanimity of the discussion dissolves somewhat drastically when considering exactly how this should be done, leading Melanie Taylor to voice one of the framing questions of the cluster: "If it is increasingly clear that not all members of Anthropos are equal drivers of the Anthropocene, and that not all are uniformly compromised by its havoc, how can we begin to manufacture a communal will to redress it?" (Taylor 10). My thesis presents as a potential solution collective environmental guilt—collective guilt responding to the specifically ecological violence enacted by settler-societies. William Kent Krueger's This Tender Land and Geraldine Brook's Caleb's Crossing, two works of settler-authored historical fiction, utilize collective environmental guilt to manufacture a communal will in their popular readerships by demonstrating and assigning guilt to the settler-collectives of their protagonists before guiding readers to embrace and center Indigenous ecologies as a potential path to mitigating that guilt and promoting positive environmental change. As settler-authored works, the texts offer an alternative mode of engagement with Indigenous knowledges for an audience traditionally outside of scholarly discourse's reach in a way that models a path for ally authorship supporting Indigenous environmental movements.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Many South African Foundation Phase learners perform poorly in literacy, especially in reading and writing. The Annual National Assessment (ANA) results show that many Grade 3 learners experience difficulties in reading and in writing sentences from pictures (Howie, Venter, Van Staden, Zimmerman, Long, Scherman & Archer, 2008). The learners also struggle to produce meaningful written sentences, even though they are taught through the medium of their own home languages, including African languages (Department of Basic Education, 2013). To enrich learners’ language and literacy skills, the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) encourages the use of figurative and metaphorical language through the teaching of folklore. However, CAPS does not provide explicit guidelines on how folklore ought be taught to enhance learners’ literacy skills.

Reflecting on my own experience as an Indigenous social worker, and a thorough literature review of mostly other Indigenous researchers, I addressed the following questions: What can wellness look like for Indigenous social workers? Does connection to culture contribute to wellness for Indigenous social workers practicing from an Indigenous way of being? And does this connection to culture impact my approach to practice and how? By exploring the literature, current policy and legislation, and social work practice in this province, I will discuss how I navigate my work and how I ensure that my practice continues to be grounded in traditional ways of being. In addition, recent shifts in policy, legislation and practice, urge us to practice in a way that honours traditional systems of decision-making, planning and caring for children within child welfare in BC. Given this, this research is timely. I will explore cultural and permanency planning for children and youth in care and how my own experience plays a vital role in how I approach this area of practice. I will discuss the integral role of culture in my life and how it keeps me grounded to continue walking alongside the Indigenous community in a good way. Ultimately, though, the foundation of this research is centered around wellness. Wellness for Indigenous social workers directly impacts the work we do, how we approach children and families, and our ability to continue doing the work in a good way. / Graduate / 2020-12-13

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of Zululand in partial fulfilment for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Psychology, South Africa, 1984. / The present study has investigated the role of dreams for Zulu indigenous practitioners. This role is two-fold (i) significance of dreams in the personal lives of the Zulu indigeoous practitioners; for example, how dreams function to set the foundation for an individual's fate, how dreams establish a direct relationship between the dreamer and certain supernatural forces and beings that are considered to have an independent existence, and how the individual, in turn, acquires a creative, sacred power, (ii) significance of patients' dreams, in so far as the indigenous practitioners can make analyses of such dreams in order to effect a client's diagnosis; and also the indigenous practitioners' methods of such dreams' analyses. Subjects that were selected for the present study were Zulu indigenous practitioners from Ngoye/Dlangezwa districts who used dreams in their diagnotic and treatment methods. There were three categories of such practitioners, namely, the izangoma izinyanga, and abathandazi. The content of their dreams was analyzed by the technique of content analysis which involved classifying dream elements into three basic categories of natural, supernatural indigenous Zulu, and supernatural Christian religious. The procedure of data collection involved initial visits to each indigenous practitioner in order to establish rapport; and subsequent visits involved the actual collection of data. To achieve the latter, a list of questions that were structured in the form of a questionnaire was used. In addition, a structured dream by a confederate patient was taken to each indigenous practitioner for analysis. Analysis of this dream was judged by three independent judges (Clinical psychologists) in order to ascertain if there was any inter-practitioner consistency regarding the theme of analyses. Major results were that dreams have an important role to play in the personal lives of these indigenous practitioners, and that such dreams are supernaturally orientated, in the sense that they always involved a dreamer's encounter with a supernatural being usually the grandmother or grandfather, or a religious deity. Further, the indigenous practitioners were found to be consistent in their analyses of confederate patient's dream, as judged by three independent raters- The study also indicated that there is an urgent need of research to investigate the role of dreams for indigenous practitioners in depth. For example, it could be hypothesised that patients1 dreams might conceivably be analyzed in terms of individual symbols personally significant to the individual practitioner.

Despite low life expectancy, high suicide and homicide rates, and excessive levels of poverty and violence, American Indians continue to survive. However, few researchers have assessed the correlates of resilience among adult American Indians. Current researchers assessing American Indian resilience have focused primarily on adolescents and preadolescents, resulting in a definition of resilience that is more often than not defined by the lack of negative youth outcomes. In this quantitative survey study, data were collected from 103 American Indians living off-reservation in a northwestern state. Gender, age, education level, degree of enculturation (using the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure), level of stressful life events (using the Life Events Checklist) were tested using linear regression as potential predictors of resilience (measured with the Resilience Scale). Results suggested that higher enculturation was associated with higher resilience; other predictors were not statistically related to resilience. It was surprising that the data did not support a relationship between trauma and lowered resilience. Implications for positive social change include understanding more clearly the role of enculturation in resilience; such knowledge can be used to foster activities that value local culture and can have a positive impact on mental and physical health.

Based on a review of one tribal government's strong membership powers exercised in General Tribal Council (GTC) meetings, tribal leaders do not analyze or review the activities in those meetings on an ongoing basis to determine where or if improvements are needed or are effective when implemented. The purpose of this study was to bridge the gap in empirical studies and to identify a process by which tribes can review GTC meetings to implement continuous improvements. Based on the tenets of Habermas' deliberative democracy framework, this qualitative study used the Discourse Quality Index (DQI) to determine the level of participation and deliberation occurring in membership meetings. Through a content analysis of transcripts from a year of GTC meetings of a single tribe, findings provided insight on speaker interruptions, reasons underlying opinions, respect given to others, and community-based decisions. The findings also identified that GTC meetings score high in all elements except regarding respect for others. By focusing on improvements in deliberative forums, Tribal leaders can create a more inviting atmosphere to individuals to speak, improve community networking, and increase levels of respect for others. Implications for social change are the development of meetings that improve over time, resulting in the generation of a greater range of solutions to public issues and creation of networking relationships as members hear other solutions and positions.

Colonialism had tremendous effects on the lives, geography, and institutions of the colonized peoples. The colonizers rejected indigenous institutions and practices and adopted or imposed Western and Eurocentric policies in the processes of administration and conflict resolution. Not surprisingly, the differences in cultures between the colonialists and the indigenous populations were bound to cause challenges both to the colonizers and the indigenes. Despite the challenges encountered by the respective colonial administrations, most post-colonial governments replicated their policies. The consequences have been poor governance, confusion, and conflicts in the post-colonial era. To address the situation, calls are being made for the integration of indigenous institutions into the formal institutions of respective post-colonial administrations.The mixed method case study used in this study highlights the Ekpe process of conflict resolution as practiced by the indigenes of Manyu Division in the South West Region of Cameroon and explores the possibility of using Ekpe to resolve chieftaincy, land, and succession to property disputes in Manyu Division. Through observation and qualitative interviews, the Ekpe process of conflict resolution is described and the participants expressed their preference of Ekpe in resolving disputes. Logistic regression is also utilized to find out if there is a correlation between administrative involvement and chieftaincy conflicts, administrative involvement and land conflicts, the courts and succession to property disputes as well as a correlation between the Ekpe model and disputes. The outcome of the study reveals that the indigenes prefer the Ekpe model to resolve chieftaincy and land disputes, and the courts to resolve succession to property disputes in Manyu Division.