This thesis paper was written to meet the requirements for a master's degree in the Studies in Policy and Practice Program through the University of Victoria. British Columbia. A grounded theory was developed studying lateral violence as a process in First Nations institutions in Coast Salish territory. The research question was how does lateral violence function as a process in First Nations institutions? To answer this question, one-on-one interviews were conducted, digitally recorded, transcribed, and analysed using grounded theory techniques. What came from the research findings was a theory on the effects of fear based learning on lateral violence. This research paper looks at the evolution of fear based learning from the Indian Residential School system, into the home of First Nations people, and it's progression from the home into community, and into First Nations institutions. Nine properties of fear based learning were identified. This project contributes as a solution to lateral violence the process of identifying conditions for the perfect storm. Identifying conditions for the perfect storm help administrators navigate developing episodes of lateral violence. Furthermore, this project contributes framing solutions within the Coast Salish cultural and political act of witnessing. Witnessing is seen as providing a cultural foundation for justice. / Graduate

This thesis examines the impacts of indigenous dispossession from lands and resources by utilizing a concept in ecology, that of ecological keystone species, and extending it to species that play a key, characterizing role in a particular culture or society. A storytelling methodology is used to determine the presence of cultural keystones in stories and place names of Tla'amin peoples, a Northern Coast Salish group whose traditional territory is located along the coast 130 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, British Columbia. I extend the storytelling methodology to encompass film and video projects that exhibit characteristics of Fourth World Cinema and discuss how such films can be used to empower indigenous communities and reclaim cultural and political rights.

Coast Salish coiled basketry has been a much-neglected area of research. Previous investigations into this topic have been primarily concerned with geo-cultural distributions, and discussions pertaining to stylistic attributes. In recent years several scholars have turned their attention to the topic of Salish weavings, but they have focused their efforts quite narrowly on textiles made from wool and other similar fibres to the exclusion of weaving techniques such as basketry which utilise local roots and barks. This thesis will focus exclusively on one type of Salish basketry - coiled basketry. In this thesis I explore different ways of identifying, or "knowing", Coast Salish coiled cedar root basketry. I specifically focus on Sto:lo basketry and identify three ways in which Sto:lo basket makers "know" these objects. First I discuss the Halkomelem terminology and what insights it provides to indigenous classification systems. Secondly, I situate coiled basketry in a broader Coast Salish weaving complex in order to discuss how basketry is influenced by other textile arts. This also enables me to explore how Sto:lo weavers identify a well-made object. In the final section I discuss ownership of designs by individuals and their families. This research draws primarily from interviews conducted with Sto:lo basket makers between May and September 2000 in their communities and at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. It is supplemented by interviews with basket makers from other Salish communities and by the ethnographic literature on this topic.

This thesis focuses on the production and display of weavings made by a small number of Musqueam women, who in the 1980s began weaving in the tradition of their ancestors. It addresses the way in which these weavings, positioned throughout Vancouver and worn in public settings, build a visual presence to counter the exclusion of Coast Salish cultural representations from the public construction of history in Vancouver and the discourse of Northwest Coast art. The Vancouver International Airport and the Museum of Anthropology at the University o f British Columbia both share with Musqueam a history of place. A distinct relationship fostered between Museum staff and members of the Musqueam community has yielded several exhibits since the first, Hands of Our Ancestors: The Revival of Weaving at Musqueam, opened in 1986. The presence of Musqueam material at the Museum is part of an extensive history of interaction and negotiation between Canadian museums and the cultural communities whose histories, traditions and material culture are represented - a history which encompasses issues of representation, authorship and authority. The Vancouver International Airport is also situated on Musqueam traditional territory. Designed by representatives from the Musqueam Cultural Committee and the Airport project team, the international arrivals area features works of contemporary Musqueam artists which are intended to create a sense of place with an emphasis on the distinctiveness of its location. Travelers cross several thresholds in the terminal - the sequence o f these crossings carefully choreographed so that deplaning passengers pass from the non-space of international transience to a culturally specific space marked by Musqueam's cultural representations, and then past Customs into Canada. Certain incidents at these sites indicate that visibility and self-representation do not in themselves answer the problems of power and history. When the Museum of Anthropology hosted a meeting for leaders of the Asia Pacific Economic Community in 1997, a newly implemented protocol agreement between Musqueam and the Museum was broken; and in a number of instances, achievements at the Airport have also been impaired. Despite these limits, weavings are not examples of token native inclusion as some critics argue. Rather, they are cultural representations strategically deployed by the Musqueam community. Enlarged from traditional blankets to monumental hangings, these weavings participate with other more recognized monumental Northwest Coast forms. They are visual, public signifiers of Musqueam identity which, without violating boundaries between public and private knowledge, carry messages from the community to a broader audience - messages intended to mark Musqueam's precedence in Vancouver's past as well as to claim visibility in the present.

This study addresses the question of the nature of indigenous people's connection to the land, and the implications of this for articulating these connections in legal arenas where questions of Aboriginal title and land claims are at issue. The idea of 'place' is developed, based in a phenomenology of dwelling which takes profound attachments to home places as shaping and being shaped by ontological orientation and social organization. In this theory of the 'senses of place', the author emphasizes the relationships between meaning and power experienced and embodied in place, and the social systems of property and territory that forms indigenous land tenure systems. To explore this theoretical notion of senses of place, the study develops a detailed ethnography of a Coast Salish Aboriginal community on southeast Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Through this ethnography of dwelling, the ways in which places become richly imbued with meanings and how they shape social organization and generate social action are examined. Narratives with Coast Salish community members, set in a broad context of discussing land claims, provide context for understanding senses of place imbued with ancestors, myth, spirit, power, language, history, property, territory and boundaries. The author concludes in arguing that by attending to a theorized understanding of highly local senses of place, nuanced conceptions of indigenous relationships to land which appreciate indigenous relations to land in their own terms can be articulated.

Thesis (Ph. D)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 291-325).

This thesis focuses on the production and display of weavings made by a small number of Musqueam women, who in the 1980s began weaving in the tradition of their ancestors. It addresses the way in which these weavings, positioned throughout Vancouver and worn in public settings, build a visual presence to counter the exclusion of Coast Salish cultural representations from the public construction of history in Vancouver and the discourse of Northwest Coast art. The Vancouver International Airport and the Museum of Anthropology at the University o f British Columbia both share with Musqueam a history of place. A distinct relationship fostered between Museum staff and members of the Musqueam community has yielded several exhibits since the first, Hands of Our Ancestors: The Revival of Weaving at Musqueam, opened in 1986. The presence of Musqueam material at the Museum is part of an extensive history of interaction and negotiation between Canadian museums and the cultural communities whose histories, traditions and material culture are represented - a history which encompasses issues of representation, authorship and authority. The Vancouver International Airport is also situated on Musqueam traditional territory. Designed by representatives from the Musqueam Cultural Committee and the Airport project team, the international arrivals area features works of contemporary Musqueam artists which are intended to create a sense of place with an emphasis on the distinctiveness of its location. Travelers cross several thresholds in the terminal - the sequence o f these crossings carefully choreographed so that deplaning passengers pass from the non-space of international transience to a culturally specific space marked by Musqueam's cultural representations, and then past Customs into Canada. Certain incidents at these sites indicate that visibility and self-representation do not in themselves answer the problems of power and history. When the Museum of Anthropology hosted a meeting for leaders of the Asia Pacific Economic Community in 1997, a newly implemented protocol agreement between Musqueam and the Museum was broken; and in a number of instances, achievements at the Airport have also been impaired. Despite these limits, weavings are not examples of token native inclusion as some critics argue. Rather, they are cultural representations strategically deployed by the Musqueam community. Enlarged from traditional blankets to monumental hangings, these weavings participate with other more recognized monumental Northwest Coast forms. They are visual, public signifiers of Musqueam identity which, without violating boundaries between public and private knowledge, carry messages from the community to a broader audience - messages intended to mark Musqueam's precedence in Vancouver's past as well as to claim visibility in the present. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

Coast Salish coiled basketry has been a much-neglected area of research. Previous investigations into this topic have been primarily concerned with geo-cultural distributions, and discussions pertaining to stylistic attributes. In recent years several scholars have turned their attention to the topic of Salish weavings, but they have focused their efforts quite narrowly on textiles made from wool and other similar fibres to the exclusion of weaving techniques such as basketry which utilise local roots and barks. This thesis will focus exclusively on one type of Salish basketry - coiled basketry. In this thesis I explore different ways of identifying, or "knowing", Coast Salish coiled cedar root basketry. I specifically focus on Sto:lo basketry and identify three ways in which Sto:lo basket makers "know" these objects. First I discuss the Halkomelem terminology and what insights it provides to indigenous classification systems. Secondly, I situate coiled basketry in a broader Coast Salish weaving complex in order to discuss how basketry is influenced by other textile arts. This also enables me to explore how Sto:lo weavers identify a well-made object. In the final section I discuss ownership of designs by individuals and their families. This research draws primarily from interviews conducted with Sto:lo basket makers between May and September 2000 in their communities and at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. It is supplemented by interviews with basket makers from other Salish communities and by the ethnographic literature on this topic. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

Colonization within Indigenous territories has impacted Indigenous governance structures and women in leadership in different ways. In order to best understand the violence, displacement and oppression that Coast Salish women face today we need to focus on the ways that the state has attacked the powerful role that si´em slheni´ (honoured and respected woman) held within her socio-political societies prior to contact. I use an historical institutional analysis to draw out the ways that history has impacted Coast Salish people. I also utilize Diane Million’s Felt Theory (2008) by weaving Coast Salish women’s stories, experiences, and understandings of colonization within their own ancestral territories. The research question at hand is: How have Coast Salish si´em slhunlhéni´ (honoured and respected women) been impacted due to colonization historically and how are these impacts still affecting our slhunlhéni´ and our communities today? In asking this question, I hope to urge the reader to engage a territorially-based approach in dealing with the violence and displacement that Indigenous women in Canada face today. I aim to do so by illustrating what an approach based in Coast Salish history and governance would look like. I argue that if we do not choose to take up a territorial based approach, we are only furthering the erasure and silencing of Indigenous womanhood denying its resurgence. I highlight how settler statecraft has played out in Coast Salish territory and explore the myriad of ways that racist ideologies and colonial violence have taken shape within Coast Salish territories. To do so, I examine the different ways that the state has attempted to control and pathologize coastal people and illustrate the shift that has occurred in moving from Coast Salish economies to capitalism. Ultimately, I demonstrate the multi-faceted approach taken by legislative discrimination that was fueled by ideological racism that the settler colonial project depends upon in order to maintain control over Indigenous lands, waters, and people. By examining these issues, I highlight how the settler project was able to weaken slhunlhéni´ role and therefore firmly establish itself within Coast Salish territories Finally, I turn to present day reality in Coast Salish territory and argue that while there are ways the state, settlers and Indigenous people living within Coast Salish territories are attempting to address the wrongs of colonization, Coast Salish women’s voices and roles are being left out of decolonial discourse and actions. In order to liberate Coast Salish women, we need to turn back to our ancestral ways and for those who are not a descendant to these territories one must work to understand what your responsibility is to the local people and women of these lands. In this way, centering a territorially based approach to governance in all acts of resurgence and decolonial action allows for Coast Salish women to maintain authority, therefore empowering these women. Centering local laws and governance will center Indigenous women, lifting them from the displaced positions they find themselves in today. / Graduate