Communities around the world are confronting unique challenges to sustain their local environment, culture and identity in the face of climate change. From B.C.’s coastal communities to Arctic gateway cities in the north, UBC Vancouver sociology professor Ralph Matthews is leading teams of researchers in the study of the sociological and cultural implications of climate change through two distinct projects: The Co-Management of Climate Change in Coastal British Columbia (C5) Project and The City of Whitehorse – Climate Change and Institutional Adaptive Capacity Project.

This thesis examines the implications of three early twentieth-century First Nations collaborations that were produced in the context of salvage ethnography and attributed mainly to their non-aboriginal collaborators: Henry Tate and Franz Boas’s Tsimshian Mythology (1916), E. Pauline Johnson and Chief Joe Capilano’s Legends of Vancouver (1912), and Chief William K’HHalserten Sepass and Eloise Street’s Sepass Poems (1911-15). By using a versioning framework to attain a “fluid” reading across variants, I can identify the intercultural mediations across versions and attempt to engage in a form of digital repatriation. Through digital archives like Kimberly Christen’s “Mukurtu” project, these cultural documents can be repatriated and accessed only by those who, following cultural protocols, should have access. Ultimately, an analysis of variants suggests that while salvage ethnography privileged the non-aboriginal collaborators, the changeability of these narratives across versions functions to perpetually unfix these texts from a static concept of aboriginal identity.

The disproportionate incarceration of indigenous peoples in Canada is far more than a socio-economic legacy of colonialism. The Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) espoused incarceration as a strategic instrument of assimilation. Colonial consciousness could not reconcile evolving indigenous identities with projects of state formation founded on the epistemological invention of populating idle land with productive European settlements. The 1876 Indian Act instilled a stubborn, albeit false, categorization deep within the structures of the Canadian state: “Indian,” ward of the state. From “Indian” classification conferred at birth, the legal guardianship of the state was so far-reaching as to make it akin to the control of incarcerated inmates. As early iterations of the DIA sought to enforce the legal dominion of the state, “Indians” were quarantined on reserves until they could be purged of indigenous identities that challenged colonial hegemony. Reserve churches, council houses, and schools were symbolic markers as well as practical conveyors of state programs. Advocates of Christianity professed salvation and taught a particular idealized morality as prerequisites to acceptable membership in Canadian society. Agricultural instructors promoted farming as a transformative act in the individual ownership of land. Alongside racializing religious edicts and principles of stewardship, submission to state law was a critical precondition of enfranchisement into the adult milieu. When indigenous identities persisted, children were removed from their families and placed in residential schools for intensive assimilation. Adults and children deemed noncompliant to state laws were coerced through incarceration. Jails were powerful symbols of the punitive authority of the Dominion of Canada. Today, while the overrepresentation of Aboriginal persons in prisons is a matter of national concern, and critiques of systematic racism dismantle ideologies of impartial justice, the precise origins of indigenous imprisonment have not been identified. The DIA was so intimately invested in assimilation through incarceration that lock-ups were erected with band funds on “Indian lands” across Canada. Archival documents and the landscape of Manitoulin Island make this legal historical geographical analysis of assimilation through incarceration possible. / Thesis (Ph.D, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-28 14:23:08.969

Historically, research on Aboriginal education issues has ignored the needs of Aboriginal people and disempowered the Aboriginal community. This thesis seeks to offer a corrective to that trend. The intent of the thesis research was to establish a process for conducting educational research with one Aboriginal community - the Dakota People of Wahpeton which would enable this community to have a legitimate voice and control over future research that will be conducted on their behalf. A methodology called community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) was utilized because it provided the means for community input and direction. Through the use of CBPR, collaborative relationships were established with 20 Dakota People of Wahpeton, who were identified as the research participants. The interview was used as the primary research method. The thesis discusses how the conflict between two cultural world views - the Aboriginal view of the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota People, generally referred to as "Sioux", and the contemporary Western view - was resolved within the process of implementing the Community-Based Participatory Research methodology. This resolution of differences was accomplished by bridging, then mirroring, the methodologies and ways of gaining knowledge unique to these two respective cultural world views. Additionally, theoretical and practical suggestions are offered so that the thesis might serve as a model for Dakota-Nakota-Lakota Community-Based Participatory Research in the future. In keeping with Community-Based Participatory Research, the voice of the people will be emphasized in this thesis, through extensive use of quotes. Furthermore, the voice of the researcher will be clearly identified so that he may be held accountable for his input.

The university habitus is not comprised of neutral structures but carries with it a history of privileging certain ways of doing, learning and being. Students who identify as Aboriginal draw from a number of identities at the University that become more or less relevant depending on the context. In this narrative study, seven students who identify as Aboriginal are interviewed about their experiences at the University of Saskatchewan. As a result of these interviews, a perspective of the university takes shape where Aboriginal culture welcomes and comforts students in a supporting role but does not always seem relevant in an academic context. Connections to others and to oneself can impact a student’s engagement in classroom curricula and stereotypes about Aboriginal peoples and grades play an important role in shaping the experiences of students who identify as Aboriginal at university, their definition of success and even their decision to attend university. The “narrative of struggle” can influence students’ choices to frame themselves either in relation to a non-Aboriginal reference group or question why Aboriginal educational success is framed in terms of exceptional individual cases rather than as a group norm. While students’ experiences at the university vary, their purpose for attending university is closely connected to their identities both now and their hopes for creating a better self in the future.

From the mid 1850s through the early 1900s, the white middle and upper class inhabitants of British Columbia persevered in their attempts to solve the ‘servant problem’ and to re-create the British domestic sphere in a new land. Some families emigrated with their British servants in tow. There were repeated efforts to import English girls and women en masse. And many employers were obliged to tolerate ‘strangers’ (Aboriginal and Chinese servants) in their homes. British Columbia’s peculiar ‘servant problem’ ensured that the Imperial vision of employer-servant relations and domestic order could not be exactly reconstructed.

This research project explores the relation between the participation of First Nations women in local governance and the well-being of First Nations youth. To explore this relation, semi-structured interviews were carried out with eleven First Nations women leaders. Special attention was paid to how these women conceptualized their relationships with youth and the differing approaches the women took to connect youth with their culture. The research aimed to identify: (1) the historical, social, and cultural influences that supported or challenged these women’s participation in government and their ability to influence youth; (2) how the women’s interest in the well-being of youth was influenced by their gender, family, and cultural roles; and (3) how these women described their contributions to the health and well-being of youth. Results point to four main themes that underpin the women’s activities as they relate to youth health and well-being: Identity, Relationships, Living in Two Worlds, and Holistic Caregivers.

In the study of the economic and labour history of the West Coast Native people of British Columbia most research has centered on activities such as fishing, farming and forestry. This thesis turns the attention from what was primarily men's work in the dominant society to the Coast Salish wool working industry where women worked with the help of their children and husbands. I examine the significant economic and cultural contribution Coast Salish woolworkers had on West Coast society, the meeting place woolworkers' sweaters provided between the Coast Salish and the newcomers and the changes which took place in the industry during the last century. This story includes many voices most of which are recorded in newspapers, correspondence and journals, and in the memories of those that lived and worked in the industry.

This research is based on the voices of the Hul’q’umi’num’ Sul-hween/Elders who participated on this project. They are of the Coast Salish people, specifically from the Hul’q’umi’num’ Treaty group area. The Sul-hween/Elders have significant concerns regarding the struggles that face the younger generations that surround them. They are concerned with the changes that are occurring in their culture and the fundamental principles of Snuw’uyulh. The Sul’hween/Elders discussed the effects of colonization and western society, what Snuw’uyulh means the importance of Snuw’uyulh and the teaching and learning style of Snuw’uyulh. The Sul-hween/Elders described the methods by which Snuw’uyulh can accompany and navigate an individual through childhood, puberty, parenting, grief and death. Snuw’uyulh is fundamental for unity, communication and family protocol.

Through a qualitative, interdisciplinary inquiry of six Indigenous scholars who had completed or were currently enrolled in Education. Social Work or Family Studies doctoral programs, this study explores Indigenous methodologies with a specific focus on methodologies flowing from a Nehiyaw Kiskeyihtamowin (Plains Cree knowledges). The study asked six scholars. four being of Cree ancestry, if they believed that there was a distinctive Indigenous methodological approach to research and if so what did it entail. Secondly, the study inquired into how Indigenous knowledges informed their research decisions and the applications of those decisions. Finally, given that each of these individuals were, or had been, enrolled in western doctoral programs this inquiry asks what were the challenges of using Indigenous methodologies based on an Indigenous worldview. Findings from this study include an assertion of Indigenous methodologies and that this is a relational approach to research: that Indigenous methodologies flow from an Indigenous worldview while needing to be congruent with specific cultural ways and protocols of the differing nations; that Indigenous methodologies encompass an inclusive, broad range of knowing which demands a holistic interpretation of ethical considerations; and that Indigenous methodologies includes decolonizing theory and action. In terms of application, the six individuals of this study affirm that research decisions (e.g. research methods) need to be congruent with the respective cultural epistemologies. Through their research stories. they provide examples of how they achieved this congruency in their methodology. Further, the study illustrates significant factors, such as allies, in nurturing the advancement of this approach to research in western universities. To inquire into this topic, an Indigenous methodology flowing from a Nehiyaw epistemology was used. This approach honours a relational worldview involving both the stories of the research participants as well as a reflective analysis of the researcher's experiences in relationship to kin, kith and community during this journey. To ensure congruency with Nehiyaw epistemology, internal and external efforts were made by the researcher involving her own preparations to undertake this research including adherence to cultural values and protocols. The findings of the research are presented in two manners. The primary presentation is through story which honours the interpretive, oral tradition of Nehiyaw culture. Secondly, to identify recommendations from this research, emergent themes were identified and thematically grouped.