While Canada is often called a pluralist state, there are no sustained studies by political scientists in which aboriginal self-government is discussed specifically in terms of the analytical tradition of pluralist thought. Aboriginal self-government is usually discussed as an issue of cultural preservation or national self-determination. Aboriginal identity is framed in terms of cultural and national traits that are unique to an aboriginal community and selfgovernment is taken to represent the aboriginal communal desire to protect and preserve those traits. Is such an understanding of what motivates aboriginal self-government accurate, or does it yield an incomplete understanding of the complex phenomenon that aboriginal selfgovernment in Canada represents? The political tradition of pluralism allows for analysis of aboriginal self-government that addresses questions left unattended by the cultural and nationalist frameworks. Pluralism is often viewed as a public arrangement in which distinct groups are given room to live side by side, characterized by mutual recognition and affirmation. At the same time, there are different faces of pluralist theory and each addresses questions about the recognition and affirmation of aboriginal self-government in different ways. Those three contemporary faces can be distinguished by the labels communitarian, individualist, and relational. The major hypothesis advanced is that aboriginal self-government is better understood if an "identification" perspective on aboriginal identity is adopted as opposed to a "cultural" or "national" one and if that perspective is linked to a relational theory of pluralism as opposed to a communitarian or individualist one. The identification approach examines aboriginal identity not in terms of cultural and political traits, but in terms of identification with, and political commitment to, an aboriginal community. Relational pluralism in turn, examines the challenge of aboriginal self-government in terms of power differences within aboriginal communities and between aboriginal and Canadian governments. Applying these approaches to aboriginal politics in Canada confirms their suitability. Contrary to what previous scholarship has assumed, aboriginal self-government should not be seen primarily as a tool to preserve cultural and national differences as goods in and of themselves. The politics of aboriginal self-government should be seen as involving demands to equalize current imbalances in power so that aboriginal communities and the individuals within them can construct aboriginal identities according to their own design.

The nation-state has for a long time appeared to have eluded the attempts of scholars to encapsulate its essence in theory. Rather than propose another attempt at encapsulation, this dissertation represents a form of geographical supplementation to these efforts. As a work of geography it focuses on the negotiation of nation-states, and, in doing so, traces a double displacement of encapsulation. Primarily, the four major studies comprising the dissertation represent geographical research which, using a wide range of archival and contemporary media material, makes manifest the irreducible complexity of the negotiations in, over and between nation-states at the end of the twentieth century. Focused on Canada and the USA, these studies trace how a diversity of cultural as well as political-economic processes come together in the inherently geographical negotiations of First Nations struggles, Canadian constitutional politics, continental free trade developments, and American patriotism. These are negotiations where no one process fully encapsulates an explanation of the events and where their collective but contested territorialization calls out for an open-ended and anti-essentialist analysis. Secondarily, while the dissertation's first and more central work of displacement is enabled by poststructuralist critiques of essentialist explanation, its other displacing effect comes in the form of a geographical deconstruction of so-called poststructuralist theory itself. This represents an attempt to turn the elusive nature of the nation-state vis-a-vis theory into a living and politicized site for investigating the limits of poststructuralist theorizing. Overall, the geographical investigations of the dissertation illustrate the value of anti-essentialist arguments for furthering geographical research into the nation-state while simultaneously calling these epistemological innovations into geographical question. Using such questioning to critique the limited geographical representation of the nationstate, it is concluded that geographers cannot not persistently examine such limits.

The eastern Miami Indians have been involved in an intense, dynamic process of cultural definition during the past fifteen years. Adding to the nucleus of retained culture, the Miami are selecting particular aspects from both their traditional ideological and material pasts while they are simultaneously incorporating new ideas and practices in order to define Miami identity. The eastern Miami process of cultural revitalization, currently characteristic of many Indian tribes, has manifested itself in various ways. There are many variables involved in determining the cultural revitalization process specific to the Miami. Of particular interest are the manifestations of cultural revitalization and its relationship to political processes. / Department of Anthropology

Today we are witnessing an increased demand for Aboriginal people to assume teaching roles previously held by white Western people in their communities (L. McAlpine, personal communication; Matthew, 1982). To date, there is little research documenting the teaching strategies of different Aboriginal peoples in Canada. The present study documents Cree and Mohawk teachers' beliefs about and use of play as an educational strategy at the primary and early elementary levels, and contrasts this with three non-Aboriginal teachers working in the same communities. Nine Aboriginal teachers were interviewed regarding their beliefs about play as an educational strategy; seven of these teachers were also videotaped teaching. A coding scheme was used to analyse the teachers' videotaped lessons. Similar data were obtained for the non-Aboriginal teachers. The Cree and Mohawk teachers held similar beliefs about play as an educational strategy; their beliefs differed from those of the non-Aboriginal teachers. In terms of their use of play, some differences between the Cree and Mohawk teachers were found; differences between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal teachers also surfaced. Results support the notion that Aboriginal teacher may differ from non-Aboriginal teacher's in their beliefs about play, and that Cree and Mohawk teachers themselves may use different patterns of play in their lessons.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-148) / Microfiche. / iv, 148 leaves, bound 29 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. [452]-472.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. [140]-143.

Thesis (M.S. - Agricultural Economics)--University of Arizona, 1985. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-115).

Thesis (M.A. - Anthropology)--University of Arizona. / Bibliography: leaves [82-83].