This documentary study sought to determine the relevance of the James Bay Cree's cultural values and practices to their policy-making process as school committee members. The Cree's formal school system, for which they have full responsibility, is based on the values and practices of non-native society. / Using the historical method, both primary and secondary sources were searched for relevant information concerning Cree culture and its distinguishing characteristics. Evidence of a distinct egalitarian society, practicing consensus, reciprocity and communal land use was found. Sources also indicated the continuing existence and adaptability of Cree values and practices despite prolonged interaction with non-native society. / This thesis proposes that these cultural values and practices predispose the Cree to be effective school committee members. The study provides data for a possible future ethnographic study of Cree school committee participation. Further research could also focus on the policy-making process required of Cree school board members.

South Africa officially emerged from apartheid in 1994. Almost a decade later we are still confronting the persisting legacies of apartheid. One of them is the separate spaces that were designed to foster delineated ethnic and racial identities. In the past, enforced separation encouraged the perpetuation of different cultural spheres. Now spaces have been made more permeable, but the ' officially' sanctioned identities still persist. At state level, the discourses of ' non-racialism ' and ' Rainbow Nation' are dominant, but at the local level, the old categories of Indian, Coloured, White and Black are often aggressively asserted. It is suggested that, although apartheid has ended, there exists in contemporary South Africa a heightened sense of ethnic identification. Indians in contemporary South Africa grapple with questions of their identity, their ' place' in the new South Africa, and (like other minority groups) express anxiety about being part of the majority of South African society. This disssertation examines a broadly defined Indian cultural sphere in Durban, in particular a public sphere related to media and religion, where old Indian identities retain currency and, at the same time, new articulations of identity are constantly being made. The role of public discourses in shaping such identities is examined in detail using data collected through interviews with Indian cultural leaders and media communications between 1999 and 2001. An interrogation of discourses prevalent in the public sphere exposes the inherent contradictions and complexities of attempts to (re)create such "essentialised" identities. This paper demonstrates that Indian-ness is a highly contested and hybrid identification. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

The radical transformations attendant upon the imposition of colonial rule on the Siksikaitsitapi or Blackfoot of northern Alberta and southern Montana are examined in this dissertation in order to emphasise the threads of continuity within a tapestry of cultural change c.1870-1920. The dissertation traces cultural persistence through the analysis of texts of history and literature that constructed Blackfoot subjectivity in the half-century following the end of traditional lifeways and settlement on three reserves in Canada and one reservation in the United States of America. This interdisciplinary thesis has been undertaken jointly in the School of History and Philosophy, and the School of English, Media and Performance Studies. It combines the tools of historical research and literary criticism to analyse the discourses and counter-discourses that served to construct Blackfoot subjectivity in colonial texts. It engages with the ways in which the Blackfoot navigated colonisation and resisted forced acculturation while adopting strategies of accommodation to ensure social reproduction and even physical survival in this period. To this end, it presents four case studies, each focusing on a discrete process of Blackfoot cultural transformation: a) the resistance to acculturation and cultural revitalisation as it relates to the practice of Ookaan (Sun Dance); b) the power shifts ushered in by European contact and the intersection between power and Blackfoot dress practices; c) the participation of Blackfoot "organic intellectuals" in the construction of Blackfoot history through the transformation of oral stories into text via the ethnographic encounter; and d) the continuing links between Blackfoot history and literature, and contemporary fictional representations of Blackfoot subjectivity by First Nations authors. This thesis acknowledges that Blackfoot history and literature have been constructed through a complex matrix of textual representations from their earliest contacts with Europeans. This dissertation is a study of the intersection between textual representations of the Blackfoot, and resistance, persistence and cultural revitalisation 1870-1920. It seeks to contribute to debates on the capacity of the colonised Other to exercise agency. It engages with views articulated by organic intellectuals, and Blackfoot and other First Nations scholars, in order to foster a dialogue between Blackfoot and non-Blackfoot scholarship.

Thesis (M.J.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 154-157). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 531-592). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-194). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-107). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.Arch.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 80-81). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 1923.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.