An Indigenous wholistic framework is used to examine the question "what makes a university a successful place for Aboriginal students?" This study moves away from a student deficit discourse by critiquing universities from an Indigenous methodological and theoretical approach in terms of (a) how Indigenous knowledges were defined and found in universities and (b) how Indigenous understandings of success, responsibility, and accountability resonated in three universities in British Columbia, Canada. This research is grounded in Indigenous theory; however, social reproduction theory was used to explain power structures inherent in the mainstream educational system. The Indigenous research process involved a mixed methods approach. Approximately 60 interviews and four sharing circles were held with a total of 92 participants representing various stakeholders across the institution. In addition, the Undergraduate Baccalaureate Graduate Surveys (UBGS) were analyzed to contextualize Aboriginal undergraduate student experiences over the last 10 years. A major finding is that respectful relationships between Aboriginal stakeholders and university faculty and leaders are key to universities becoming more successful places for Aboriginal peoples. This study shows how Indigenous knowledges were present, as pockets of presence, in the academy in programs and through Indigenous faculty, staff, and students. As sites of Indigenous knowledges, First Nations Centres played a critical role by wholistically supporting the cultural integrity of Aboriginal students and being agents of change across the institution. Indigenous wholistic understandings of success challenged hegemonic definitions that emphasized intellectual capital to include the physical, emotional, and spiritual realms. Kirkness and Barnhardt's (1991) 4Rs were used to critically examine the responsibilities of universities to Aboriginal higher education. The following institutional responsibilities were presented: relationships, such as the seen face through Aboriginal presence, having authentic allies, involving Aboriginal communities, and enacting agency; reciprocity and relevance, which addresses issues of limited financial resources, increasing retention and recruitment, and putting words into action; and respect for Indigenous knowledges. Institutional accountability from the Indigenous framework went beyond neo-liberal discourses, to include making policy public, surveillance from inside and outside the institution, and the need for metrics and benchmarks.

The goal of this study was to gather information from Aboriginal offenders and develop a categorical map that describes the factors that help and hinder maintaining a crime free life after incarceration. The critical incident technique was utilized to examine 42 Aboriginal offenders’ journeys from prison to the community. Three hundred and forty-one incidents collapsed into nine major categories representing themes that were helpful in maintaining a crime free life: 1) transformation of self; 2) cultural and traditional experiences; 3) healthy relationships; 4) having routine and structure in daily living; 5) freedom from prison; 6) purpose and fulfillment in life; 7) attempting to live alcohol and drug free; 8) professional support and programming; and 9) learning to identify and express oneself. Seventy-eight incidents formed four categories representing obstacles that interfere with maintaining a crime free life: 1) self; 2) unhealthy relationships; 3) substance use; and 4) lack of opportunity and professional support. The findings were compared and contrasted to two major theories in the literature: desistance and the risk-needs-responsivity principle. Most of the categories were well substantiated in the literature contributing knowledge to theory, policy, practice, and the community. Information obtained from this study provides an increased understanding of the needs of Aboriginal offenders and offers guidance concerning useful strategies to incorporate into their wellness plans when entering the community, most notably respecting Aboriginal culture and traditional practices. The findings also add awareness of those circumstances, issues, and problems that arise during transition that may be harmful or create obstacles to a successful transition.

“Indigenousness and the Reconstruction of the Other in Guatemalan Indigenous Literature” examines the production of a contemporary Indigenous literature in Guatemala. With the aid of a multidisciplinary approach informed by cultural, feminist, gender, socio-anthropological, and postcolonial studies, I analyze the emergence and ongoing struggle of Maya writers in Guatemala to show how the production of an alternate ideology contests official notions of nationhood and promotes a more inclusive space. I argue that Maya writers redefine Indigenous identity by reinstating Indigenous agency and self-determination, and deconstructing and rearticulating ethnicity, class and gender, among other markers of identity. I begin by examining the indio as the basis of colonial and national narratives that logically organize the Guatemalan nation. I then observe the emergence of a contemporary Indigenous literature in Guatemala in the 1970s, a literature that, I argue, isolates and contests the position that was assigned to the indio and proposes a literature written by and for the Indigenous peoples of Guatemala. I posit that the inauguration of a Maya cultural space occurs with Luis de Lión’s novel El tiempo principia en Xibalbá (1985) and Gaspar Pedro González’ La otra cara (1992). I then observe the destabilization of traditional Maya female roles and symbols in the recent work of female Indigenous poets, Calixta Gabriel Xiquín and Maya Cu. Lastly, in the work of Víctor Montejo and Humberto Ak’abal I identify a negotiation of heterogeneity and essentialism for the development of a cultural project that looks to the formation of a pluricultural, plurinational Guatemalan state.

This thesis uses three case studies to analyze and contextualize the interface between Western conceptions of indigenous peoples and nature and community-based conservation and development schemes in the Amazon: Kapawi Ecolodge (Ecuador), Chalalán Ecolodge (Bolivia), and Posada Amazonas (Peru). It explores how three Amazonian communities represent their indigenous identity in the online marketing of their ecotourism lodges. As a methodological tool, this research identifies four characteristics of the Ecologically Noble Savage stereotype: the spatial, the spiritual, the temporal, and the cultural. Current ethnographic literature describing these communities is used to analyze these self-representations. This thesis examines these representations within larger academic discussions on authenticity, power and control, and the long-term viability of ecotourism as a community-based development model.

This project explores the “Laurier Memorial,” a pivotal document written by Chiefs of the Secwépemc, Nlaka’pamux, and Syilx Nations of interior British Columbia, and presented to Prime Minister Laurier in 1910. With the assistance of Scottish-born ethnologist James Teit, the Memorial is written in lucid first-person narrative, charting the history of relations between these Interior Tribes and settler populations, then putting forward a different vision of relations based in traditional law, reciprocity, obligation, mutual sovereignty and shared jurisdiction. As the document continues to circulate a century later, drawing new relations around it, it provides insight into Indigenous-State relations throughout history and how we might make moves towards resolving them. This work looks at the document’s proposal, its continued relevance and circulation, its nuanced impacts on broader political relations, as well as its impacts on my own political, personal, and research relationships.

The purpose of this project is to develop a theory of collective resentment. Collective resentment, on my view, is resentment that is felt and expressed by individuals in response to a perceived threat to a collective to which they belong. This is particularly important for understanding resentments that arise from social vulnerability, resentments which are often about membership within a particular social group. In this thesis, I develop my theory of collective resentment and apply it to understand the resentments of indigenous and settler Canadians in response to the Indian Residential Schools. I then explore the relationship between resentment and different kinds of responsibility, including the responsibility to relinquish inappropriate resentment and the responsibility to give resentments uptake. I conclude that focusing on the resentments that persist in indigenous-settler relations, and specifically the collective resentments that dominate the political landscape, brings us a lot further in understanding how to move from hostility and hopelessness toward peaceful coexistence.

Solid waste management (SWM) is a growing problem in developing countries around the world. In Guatemala, indigenous communities, which are predominantly rural and remote, are particularly hard hit by a lack of basic SWM services. Todos Santos, situated in the Cuchumatanes mountain range of northwestern Guatemala, is one such community. As projects developed, planned, and implemented from 'the top down' continue to be ineffective, the literature provides little insight about remote communities' perspectives on exactly what issues SWM creates, influences, and exacerbates, and how they might respond to these concerns themselves. Using a participatory systems approach, this study investigated the systemic structures and behaviours that maintain and exacerbate SWM challenges in Todos Santos, and where key places (leverage points) to intervene in the system may exist. The study presents a wide selection of locally appropriate SWM solutions to target these leverage points in the form of four future scenarios These scenarios act as a step-wise implementation plan for gradual implementation in the community, each building upon the previous, ultimately reaching a community-defined vision for SWM.

Aboriginal educations is an ambiguous field of study that presents many challenging dilemmas for educators today. A major part of this ambiguity stems from the tendency to emphasize traditional cultural values, Aboriginal identity, and experiences as distinct and unique, and therefore essentially different from mainstream approaches to education. By drawing upon the memories and narrative of my own Metis family as well as the history and memories of the people of the Kainai community from the Blood Reserve in Alberta, I confront some of these dilemmas in both personal and collective ways. Following Eduoard Glissant, Francoise Lionnet, and Mark Zuss, I explore the character of the Kainai community as a tetissage of texts and genres which overlap, interact, juxtapose, and mix the textual contributions of an elder, a student, and a teacher (myself) to create a more complicated portrait of the Kainai community that stretches beyond the 'us versus them' binary. These texts are then interpreted using a (post)colonial framework largely based upon the works of Frantz Fanon, Gerald Vizenor, Homi Bhabha, and Neal McLeod. / vi, 206 leaves ; 29 cm.

In light of the recognition of continuing Indigenous sovereignty by the Supreme Court of Canada and the requirement that that sovereignty and de facto Crown sovereignty be reconciled within a shared constitutional order, Canada needs a new approach to negotiating the exercise of Indigenous sovereignty. Any new approach must be built around a coherent understanding of the Constitution as a whole, most importantly the constitutional principle of reconciliation and the other unwritten principles articulated by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Reference re. Secession of Quebec. The four unwritten principles which the Supreme Court of Canada identified in the Quebec Secession Reference do not represent a barrier to the exercise of Indigenous sovereignty, if interpreted in light of the reconciliation principle. Indeed, the principles of federalism and the protection of minorities support the protection of distinct Indigenous political and legal institutions. Because they are exercising a continuing sovereignty, rather than an aboriginal right as that term is currently understood under section 35, Indigenous peoples also need not return to traditional forms of governance in their entirety in a modern self-government regime; they may also adopt more or less of the Euro-Canadian forms with which they have become familiar as citizens of Canada, such that modern Indigenous institutions could be quite consistent with mainstream understandings of the four unwritten principles of the Constitutions. As with other institutions of governance, Indigenous peoples have long traditions of dispute resolution that they could draw upon in the context of the modern exercise of their sovereignty. Nor do Indigenous peoples need to return to these traditional methods in their entirety, either; again, they could adopt elements of Euro-Canadian legal traditions. There are numerous precedents around the world for Indigenous legal institutions that combine elements of Indigenous customs of dispute resolution and common-law judicial structures. What is important is that Indigenous peoples have the right to design their own institutions for the interpretation, as well as the creation, of law and the resolution of disputes if they are to exercise their sovereignty within the Canadian constitutional and political system as a third order of government. / Thesis (Master, Law) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-24 08:41:11.447

I hypothesize that specific aspects of education are central to the revitalization of culture amongst Aboriginal peoples in Ontario, and that this revitalization is integral to cultural continuity. I will show the relationship between key aspects of education and cultural revitalization as I track and assess the impacts of Ontario's high school Native Studies suite of courses. The key aspects are: the ability to generate and control content, the content itself (who it targets and serves and how it is applied) and how innovative ideas are implemented, through what processes and with whose help. Recent trends emerging from the analysis of Ontario Ministry of Education (OME) data on the implementation of its suite of ten Native Studies high school courses suggest that the consistent efforts of several generations of First Nations, Métis and Inuit educators working behind the scenes since the late 1960s have resulted in significant and meaningful increases in the number of Native Studies courses offered, the number of schools and school boards offering them, and the number of students enrolling. Considering the context of Aboriginal education in Ontario since the 1960s these general results may certainly be interpreted as progressive. I discuss seven catalysts that have had an indisputable influence over the ability of Indigenous educators to exercise an increasing degree of control over the Ontario Ministry of Education Native Studies curricula. While acknowledging the perspectives of scholars such as Taiaiake Albert, Maria Battiste, Pamela Palmater and Marie Brant-Castellano who argue for “Indian control of Indian education” based on the inherent right of Indigenous peoples to self-government - enshrined in Canada’s “Constitution Act” (1982) - my findings indicate that, given the resources and opportunity to lead the creation of Native Studies courses in Ontario, many Indigenous educators, leaders and communities have opted to take proactive roles in the process, all the while participating in the struggle for the Indigenous constitutionally-inherent right to control all aspects of their education. I argue that we are seeing a resurgence of Indigenous cultures in Canada, and more particularly in Ontario. / Thesis (Master, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2012-04-18 18:20:07.041