Many Indigenous communities around the world are facing a health crisis aggravated by environmental degradation and dispossession. Through community-based participatory research, we examined barriers to land use, declining environmental health and human health implications for the Isga People in west-central Alberta, Canada. Through interviews, land use-and-occupancy and traditional and local knowledge of environmental change was spatially documented. Key concerns including declining wildlife health and water quality were largely attributed to the petroleum and forestry industries. Barriers included the encroachment of industry, agriculture and urban development, and a legacy of state-imposed assimilation policies. Human health concerns were associated with these barriers and environmental degradation along with a loss of connection to land and cultural practices. However, community resilience was also evident in the persistence of land use and cultural revival. Underlying environmental and sociopolitical factors are crucial for the health and wellbeing of the Isga and Indigenous Peoples worldwide.

Cultural Safety is an educational framework and pedagogy developed by Maori nursing scholar, Dr. Irihapeti Ramsden (2002). Through this research, I explored the application of Cultural Safety to the Greater Victoria School District’s Aboriginal Education Enhancement Agreement. My research question is: What are the key elements that would be included in the development of a Cultural Safety Agreement for the Greater Victoria School District? This research is grounded in decolonizing, Indigenous and action research methods. Theoretically, it employs critical and decolonizing perspectives to critique the appropriateness of public education curriculum and teaching practices for Indigenous students. This study utilized a qualitative research method called Action Research and used an existing community council, the Aboriginal Education Council of Greater Victoria (AEC) as a focus group. Data was collected from the focus groups and enhanced through an individual interview with the coordinator of Aboriginal Education in the Greater Victoria School District (GVSD). An outcome of this research is a draft framework for cultural safety in the school district. The framework has now become the property of the Aboriginal Education Council of the Greater Victoria School District. / Graduate

While it is generally agreed that First Nations in Canada are facing a housing crisis in their communities, the Canadian public has largely misunderstood what the crisis of housing is, thus frustrating efforts to improve the situation. A re-conceptualization of the problem of on-reserve housing as a crisis of governance with roots in processes of colonialism (both historical and ongoing) offers the possibility of addressing the crisis and moving forward. This research seeks to situate housing as an important site of engagement for First Nations and settler society (as important in decolonization efforts as it was in colonization) and points to the importance of relationships both within Indigenous communities and with settler society in restoring governance and improving housing. Housing has been a contested site throughout the history of First Nations-settler relations, with colonial policies focusing on reshaping how First Nations lived. These policies have been consistently resisted by First Nations. This history of struggle provides the crucial context for understanding how and why housing has reached an impasse. This impasse is illustrated by examining federal housing policy, which appears to offer increased community control over housing but does so without addressing underlying governance and capacity issues. First Nations are becoming increasingly responsible for on-reserve housing without corresponding supports or redress for the history of colonialism that has created the crisis. Current approaches to solving housing problems on-reserve are then critically assessed, focusing on policy and legislative moves toward homeownership and privatization on-reserve. I argue that this approach circumscribes self-determination for First Nations in particular ways, reducing these claims to a set of market based options. Finally, several innovative community housing initiatives are examined, moving beyond the debate to privatize. Priorities identified are consistent across the examples: housing is at the service of the community, is affordable, builds local capacity, is self-sustaining, is culturally and environmentally appropriate, and the locus of authority remains in the community. The initiatives were achieved by cultivating relationships, both within First Nation communities and with settler society. In this thesis, I suggest the importance of housing for decolonization efforts for First Nation and settler alike. / Graduate / 0334 / 0740

This thesis provides preliminary, qualitative research that explores whether there is a common understanding of Aboriginal public servant leadership within the British Columbia (BC) Public Service. An interpretive, grounded theory approach underpinned by attention to Indigenous methodologies was used in this thesis. Research was conducted using semi-structured interviews with 22 self-identified Aboriginal peoples within the BC Public Service. The results identify properties of three analytical perspectives of leadership that interact in the context of Aboriginal public servants in British Columbia: (1) individual; (2) Indigenous, traditional or family setting; and (3) bureaucracy/public service. A linking theme across these analytical perspectives, “it’s personal not individual”, is proposed that influences an approach that interviewed Aboriginal public servants use in their professional positions and in their daily life. This study concludes that although there is not one specific understanding of leadership among Aboriginal public servants, their personal commitment to improving the well-being of their peoples may be the basis for their leadership work to facilitate and build bridges of understanding between communities and government. In addition, there is a call to non-indigenous public servants to consider their own leadership and share responsibility for bridge building alongside their Aboriginal colleagues. / Graduate / 0617 / fionnamain@gmail.com

This dissertation comprises two essays. While the topics of both essays are different both are interrelated on the base of economic development. The first essay examines ethnic wage gaps on segmented labor markets with evidence from Latin American countries. The second essay revisits the determinants of fiscal decentralization with an emphasis on the role that geography plays in determining fiscal decentralization. The first essay contributes to limited literature on ethnic wage gaps in Latin America. It examines ethnic wage gaps for workers in formal and informal labor markets. Using data from Latin American countries we estimate and examine across-ethnic wage gaps for informal and formal markets, their changes over time, factors that explain their differences, and the wage gap distribution. More specifically, we verify that different ethnic wage gaps do exist across formal and informal markets; they behave differently not only at their means but also along the wage distribution. The results indicate that higher ethnic wage gaps in informal sectors exist not only on average but also throughout the distribution. In addition, we find that wage gaps have declined significantly over the last 10 years. we explain this by examining changes in the prices of institutional factors and changes in human capital endowments. The distributional analysis shows a decrease in the unexplained component, especially in the top part of the distribution. The second essay contributes to the existing literature on the determinants of fiscal decentralization by motivating theoretically and exploiting in depth the empirical relevance that geography has as a determinant of fiscal decentralization. The relationship between decentralization and geography is based on the logic that more geographically diverse countries show greater heterogeneity among their citizens, including their preferences and needs for public goods and services provisions. Communications and physical distance are also a very important issue and play a key role on the effect of geography over time. (Lora et. al., 2003) argue geography plays a key role in economic and social development, as well as in the institutional design of the countries; yet, this effect could be enhanced (or diminished) in the presence of better physical infrastructure or communications. The theoretical model in this paper builds on the work by Arzaghi and Henderson (2002) and Panizza (1999). For the empirical estimation, we use a panel data set for approximately 91 countries for the period 1960-2005. Physical geography is measured along several dimensions, including elevation, land area and climate. We construct a geographical fragmentation index and test its effect on fiscal decentralization. In addition, we interact the geographical fragmentation index with time-variant infrastructure variables in order to test the effect that infrastructure and communications have on the relationship between geography and fiscal decentralization. For robustness, we construct Gini coefficients for in-country elevation and climate. We find a positive and strong correlation between geographical factors and fiscal decentralization. We also find that while the development of infrastructure (in transportation, communications, etc.) tends to reduce the effect of geography on decentralization, this effect is rather small and mostly statistically insignificant, meaning that the impact of geography survives over time. The strategy has additional value because geography may be used as an instrument for decentralization in future econometric estimations where decentralization is used as an explanatory variable, but may be suspected to be endogenous to the economic process being studied (economic growth, political instability, macroeconomic stability, income distribution, etc.).

This dissertation explores Inuit gender relations in a post-colonial setting in Greenland. Explicitly avoiding Western theories as support, a pan-Inuit framework was constructed in order to more appropriately study gender equity among the kalaallit, the Greenland Inuit. This framework materialized the linkages of Inuit thinking to that of the West, making sense of the Inuit worldview, and arguably justifies the development of other analytical tools. Inuit terms and notions are used in teasing out the emic aspects that reveal the cultural foundations specific to the target group to enable more accurate perception. Concurrently, culturally appropriate protocols in soliciting partnership for research in the field were established to test feasibility that such a relationship could create new knowledge. The combination of the established research modes caused the emergence of a more culturally enriched social construction, which made it possible to go beyond the regular scholarly treatises and standards of analytical structure. The epistemological understanding allowed for more critical analyses of what is presently known of relations between Inuit men and women in the Arctic.

No description available.

The First World War left few untouched on Canada’s Native reserves: many councils donated money to war funds, thousands of men enlisted and their families sought support from the Military and war-specific charities, and most became involved in the debate over whether Native men could be conscripted and the implications that decision could have for broader Native-government relations. Much of the extant literature on Native participation in the war has paired enthusiastic Native engagement with the Canadian government’s shabby treatment. However, in many different ways and with many different goals, Native peoples achieved significant success in determining the parameters of their participation in the war. Yet, the resolution of these debates between Native peoples and the Canadian government, specifically the Department of Indian Affairs, inadvertently (from the Native perspective) cemented the Indian Act’s key role in Native peoples’ lives, displacing other foundational agreements and traditional organizational principles of reserve life. Native peoples’ varied participation in the First World War paradoxically saw Natives temporarily take control of their relationship with the Canadian government, but in the end brought them more completely under the authority of the Department of Indian Affairs.

This thesis analyses the current development of indigenous rights in Taiwan based on a study of the Atayal community of Smangus in Hsinchu County. The research focuses on a case study of the Smangus Beech Tree Incident, a legal case related to the use of wood　from a wind-fallen tree. The case began in 2005, the same year that Taiwan passed the Indigenous Peoples' Basic Law. The events are also placed in the broader context of the　modern indigenous rights movement which had its beginnings in Taiwan in the early 1980s and the more than century long history of conflict between the Atayal and the state. Smangus has developed a unique community with a cooperative system of management that draws from both the Atayal tradition and ideas from the modern world. Ecotourism is the main economic foundation for the community. The development of Smangus and their assertion of their rights in the Smangus case provides an example of how indigenous peoples can regain greater control over the lands which they consider to be their traditional territory. The thesis then looks at co-management of Aboriginal-owned national parks in Australia. The final chapter considers how the co-management model could be adapted in Taiwan and gives recommendations for policy makers.

The original question this study posed was, "How do contemporary Christian Hawaiians identify themselves between being Hawaiian and being Christian?" This hypothetical question is fundamentally oriented in the present. In order to find better answers to the question, however, a broader historical framework is indispensable. Therefore, the dissertation is composed of two focuses: the past and the present of Hawaiian Christianity--mainly in the Congregationalist tradition. They are separated not only by time and target of investigation but also in the analytical methods used for approaching targets. However, I attempt to present them in such a manner as to make interpretation of the past and the present resonate. In the historical study of this dissertation, I investigate how Hawaiians incorporated Christianity in the latter half of the 19th century and how Hawaiian culture functioned in the process of incorporation. By locating two dissident Hawaiian Christian movements within a broader social context of the colonial condition, I aim to describe how Hawaiians were dealing with Christianity. Although their results were different, leaders of the two movements attempted to seize the initiative and establish sovereignty in the church. They wanted to establish a real church for Hawaiians. In the study of contemporary Hawaiian Christianity, I investigate how Christian Hawaiians are constructing their identity and faith. Through examining their narratives on how they deal with Hawaiian traditions and Christianity, I show how their identity and faith are diversely constructed but loosely unified under the problem that originally brings about diversity. I also point out that Christian Hawaiians are facing difficulty in the process of establishing Hawaiian Christianity because of the post-colonial condition, in which Hawaiian-ness (a symbolic complex of Hawaiian history, culture and identity) is competitively represented and has never had a fixed unitary meaning. By juxtaposing the past and present of Hawaiian Christianity, I argue that Hawaiian-ness can serve not only as a problem but also as a catalyst when constructing Hawaiian Christian faith in the present. As a post-colonial problem, the relation between culture and faith becomes a significant issue for Christian Hawaiians, who desire to make Christianity Hawaiian.