abstract: A disconnect exists between the perception of Indigenous women as non-leaders who lack legitimate power, and their persistent actions and beliefs that show an inherent ability to lead families, communities and cultures. Relevant literature on Indigenous women leadership has focused on displacement of women’s power and authority as a consequence of patriarchy and contextualizes the issue within deficit narratives of victimology. These accounts fail to celebrate the survivance of Indigenous women as inherent leaders charged with cultural continuance. Nonetheless, Indigenous women have persisted as leaders within advocacy, indicating a continuance of their inherent tendencies to lead their nations. “Matriarchs in the Making: Investigating the Transmission of Indigenous Resistance Through Indigenous Women’s Leadership in Activism” explores how Indigenous women demonstrate power and leadership via activism to transmit attitudes, actions, and beliefs about Indigenous resistance to Indigenous youth in the United States. A case study of Suzan Shown Harjo, a preeminent advocate for Indian rights will illustrate how Indigenous women engage in leadership within the realms of activism and advocacy. Key tenets of Indigenous feminist theory are used to deconstruct gender binaries that are present in modern tribal leadership and in social movements like the Red Power movement. Storytelling and testimony help to frame how Indigenous women activists like Harjo define and understand their roles as leaders, and how their beliefs about leadership have changed over time and movements. The study concludes with ways that Indigenous women use ancestral knowledge to envision healthy and sustainable futures for their nations. A process of “envisioning” provides guidance for future resistance via activism as guided by Indigenous women leaders. These visions will ultimately give scholars insight in how to best align their research within Indigenous feminist theory, Indigenous futurity, and women’s leadership and activism outside of academia. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis American Indian Studies 2020

Teaching indigenous knowledge (IK) to African youth has become more complicated due to a variety of reasons such as urban migration, loss of interest in it, the dominance of scientific knowledge and the technological revolution. Therefore, there is a considerable movement towards using technologies to safeguard IK before it becomes obsolete. It is noteworthy that research conducted and software development perspectives being used are mainly based on Western worldviews that are inappropriate for African socio-cultural contexts. IK holders are often not in charge of the digitisation process and merely treated as subjects. In this study, we explored a suitable development approach of a crowdsourcing task management application (TMA) as an auxiliary tool for safeguarding IK. Moreover, the study sought to provide an opportunity for the indigenous communities to make requests of three-dimensional (3D) models of their traditional objects independently. The delivered traditional 3D models are imported into the communities' IK visualisation tools used by the IK holders to teach the youth about their cultural heritage. The main objective of this study was to ascertain how the indigenous rural communities could appropriate a foreign technological concept such as crowdsourcing. This brought about our first research theme: investigating the necessary conditions to establish and maintain beneficial embedded community engagement. The second theme was to determine the suitable methods for technology co-design. Thirdly, to discover what does the communities' appropriated crowdsourcing concept entail. We applied a consolidated research method based on Community-based CoDesign (CBCD) extended with Afrocentric research insights and operationalised with Action Research cycle principles of planning, action and reflection. CBCD was conducted in three cycles with Otjiherero speaking indigenous rural communities from Namibia. Reflections from the first cycle revealed that the rural communities would require unique features in their crowdsourcing application. During the second cycle of co-designing with the ovaHimba community, we learnt that CBCD is matured through mutual trust, reciprocity and skills transfer and deconstructing mainstream technologies to spark co-design ideas. Lastly, in our third cycle of CBCD, we showcased that communities of similar cultures and knowledge construction had common ideas of co-designing the TMA. We also simulated that the construction of traditional 3D models requires indigenous communities to provide insight details of the traditional object to minimise unsatisfactory deliverables. The findings of this study are contributing in two areas (1) research approach and (2) appropriation of technology. We provide a synthesis of Oundu moral values and Afrocentricity as a foundation for conducting Afrocentric research to establish and maintain humanness before CBCD can take place. With those taken as inherent moral values, Afrocentricity should then solely be focused on knowledge construction within an African epistemology. For the appropriation of technology, we share codesign techniques on how the indigenous rural communities appropriated the mainstream crowdsourcing concept through local meaning-making. CBCD researchers should incorporate Afrocentricity for mutual learning, knowledge construction, and sharing for the benefit of all.

In this thesis have been included six novels of the indigenous type that represent four countries of Latin America: Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. This type of novel contains elements of social protest, and therefore it is appropriate to examine the problem of the "indio" or (Indian) in relation to the countries where the majority of the population is comprised of "Indians".

The people of the Tsilhqot’in Nation have, and continue to, govern their lands according to dechen ts'edilhtan, the laws of their ancestors. Through their history, their control over their lands and waters have faced opposition from outside forces which include neighbouring nations and settler governments into the colonial present. Over time, their laws have remained strong and deeply internalized, and yet have been exercised to maintain their contested control up to the present. One profound moment when Tsilhqot’in laws became apparent to outsiders was when laws relating to access to the nen (Tsilhqot’in land) effectively proved the Tsilhqot’in Nation’s claim of Aboriginal title over a portion of their territory at Canadian law in 2014. This dissertation provides a deep analysis of dechen ts'edilhtan as it applies specifically to use of and access to surface water in the Tsilhqot’in nen. The purpose is two-fold. First, to continue the ongoing work of understanding and articulating Tsilhqot’in law. Second, to facilitate the identification of possible methods through which ancestral laws may engage Canadian legal and political systems for the benefit of Tsilhqot’in people, and indeed, all Canadians. / Graduate / 2023-01-17

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of IsiZulu Namagugu At the University of Zululand, 2007. / Indigenous people today are seeking to transcend the history of pain and loss that began with the coming of Europeans into our world. In the past 500 years, our people have suffered murderous onslaughts of greed and disease. Even as history's shadow lengthens to mark the passing of that brutfal age, the Western compulsion to control remains strong. To preserve what is left of our cultures and lands, is a constant fight. Some indigenous people believe the statements of regret and promises of reconciliation spoken by our oppressors. Some have come to trust and accept the world that has been created through colonization ... But those who find sincerity and comfort in the oppressor, who bind themselves to recent promises, must yield to the assimilationist demands of the mainstream and abandon any meaningful attainment to an indigenous cultural and political reality. Thankfully, those who accept the colonization of their nations are a small minority. Most people continue to participate in, or at least support, the struggle to gain recognition and respect for their right to exist as peoples, unencumbered by the demands, controls and false identities imposed on them by others. Amid the seemingly perpetual conflict that comes with defending our ideals, there is confusion, division, and sometimes despair. Sometimes it seems we have lost our way, and then the confusion, division and despair threaten to overwhelm us again. Distracted from our goal, we wander a forest of frustration living inauthentic lives that make us easy prey for those who would enslave us. Such times constitute crises, and we are in the midst of one today.... '

The purpose of this non-experimental descriptive study was to identify the cultural beliefs and practices surrounding pregnancy. The study aims at collecting data which will function as baseline information on cultural beliefs and practices surrounding pregnancy. The study was conducted in the city of Francistown, the second largest to the capital of Botswana situated in the north-east. A structured interview guide with both open and close-ended questions was used to collect data from 230 pregnant women who were 18 years of age and above and who were willing to participate. The data was processed on computer and a statistical software package known as Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used. The study revealed that pregnant women used a combination of care givers which either included a modem midwife and an elderly woman at church or a modem midwife and a traditional midwife. This is done in order to follow the traditional and cultural beliefs surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. The majority (92.2%) of the antenatal women in this study had primary and secondary education but still follow their cultural beliefs and practices, thus education does not appear to influence cultural beliefs and practices. The most common reasons cited for adhering to the beliefs and practices were that defiance was a taboo punishable by the ancestors. This study has highlighted the cultural beliefs and practices related to pregnancy. Further in-depth investigation into the impact of these cultural beliefs and practices is needed as it is imperative to determine their impact on pregnancy and its outcome. The limitation of the study was that data was only collected in one city and therefore the results cannot be generalised to the entire population.

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