Global ETD Search

1	Beyond rights and wrongs: towards a treaty-based practice of relationality Starblanket, Gina 22 December 2017 (has links) This research explores the implications of the distinction between transactional and relational understandings of the Numbered Treaties, negotiated by Indigenous peoples and the Dominion of Canada from 1871-1921. It deconstructs representations of the Numbered Treaties as “land transactions” and challenges the associated forms of oppression that emerge from this interpretation. Drawing on oral histories of the Numbered Treaties, it argues instead that they established a framework for relationship that expressly affirmed the continuity of Indigenous legal and political orders. Further, this dissertation positions treaties as a longstanding Indigenous political institution, arguing for the resurgence of a treaty-based ethic of relationality that has multiple applications in the contemporary context. It demonstrates how a relational understanding of treaties can function as a powerful strategy of refusal to incorporation within the nation state; arguing that if treaties are understood as structures of co-existence rather than land transactions, settler colonial assertions of hegemonic authority over Indigenous peoples and lands remain illegitimate. Furthermore, it examines how a relational orientation to treaties might inspire alternatives to violent, asymmetrical, and hierarchical forms of co-existence between humans and with other living beings. To this end, it takes up the potential for treaties to inform legal and political strategies that are reflective of Indigenous philosophies of relationality, providing applied examples at the individual, intrasocietal, and intersocietal levels. / Graduate / 2018-12-18 Indigenous Governance Indigenous Feminism Treaties Indigenous-Crown Relations Indigenous Politics Relationality Indigenous Constitutionalism
2	Nêhiyaw Âskiy Wiyasiwêwina: Plains Cree Earth Law and constitutional/ecological reconciliation Lindberg, Darcy 10 August 2020 (has links) I set out on this research concerned with human relations to the ecological world, and the role of law in these relationships. As one theory of nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) law and constitutionalism enables strong kinship relations between the nêhiyawak and non-human beings and things, I explore how nêhiyaw law can be revitalized to reconcile our land relationships. Wâhkôtowin, or the overarching principle that governs our relations, ensures that wellness and good living –miyo pimâtisiwin – is not only a human objective, but shared intersocietally with non-human relations and entities. This dissertation examines the constitutive role that four areas of Plains Cree livelihood – nêhiyaw âcimowina (narrative processes), nêhiyaw âskiy (Plains Cree territory and territoriality), nêhiyawewin (Plains Cree language) and nêhiyaw mamâhtâwiwina (Plains Cree ceremony) – play in ensuring such good living. Taking a ‘law as weaving’ approach’, these areas and institutions form a web to support kind relations to our environments and ecologies. Treaties provide an integral avenue to revitalize the uses of nêhiyaw law in our land relations. Canadian constitutionalism’s primary focus on human-to-human relations, without constitutional consideration of the agency of the ecological world, has had harmful effects on the wellness of non-human beings and things. When we apply the legal and constitutive principles within Plains Cree law and constitutionalism to Treaty 6, they obligate both the Crown and peoples within Canada in the same manner. / Graduate / 2021-07-27 Indigenous Law Plains Cree Law Indigenous Environmental Law Indigenous Constitutionalism Nêhiyaw Law Plains Cree Ecological Relationships
3	Miinigowiziwin: all that has been given for living well together: one vision of Anishinaabe constitutionalism Mills, Aaron James (Waabishki Ma’iingan) 22 July 2019 (has links) Ending colonialism requires the revitalization of not only indigenous systems of law, but also the indigenous legalities of which they form part. This means that Canada’s unique form of liberal constitutionalism cannot serve as the constitutional framework within which indigenous law is revitalized. Rather, we shall have to advert to the fact that indigenous law was and is generated by unique indigenous legal processes and institutions, which find their authorization in unique indigenous constitutional orders, which are in turn legitimated by indigenous peoples’ unique and varied creation stories. Through the gifts of diverse Anishinaabe writers and orators, and through work with my circle of elders, with aadizookaanan, in community, and on the land, I present one view of Anishinaabe legality. I give special emphasis to its earth-centric ‘rooted’ form of constitutionalism, which is characterized by mutual aid and its correlate structure, kinship. In the second half, I examine the problem of colonial violence in contemporary indigenous-settler relationships. I identify two principles necessary for indigenous-settler reconciliation and I consider how commonly proposed models of indigenous-settler relationship fare against them. I conclude that one vision of treaty, treaty mutualism—which is a form of rooted constitutionalism—is non-violent to indigenous peoples, settler peoples and to the earth. Finally, I consider counter-arguments on themes of fundamentalism, power, and misreading. / Graduate Indigenous Constitutionalism Indigenous Law Legal Theory Political Theory Reconciliation Resurgence Mutual Aid Aadizookaanan Comparative Legality Anishinaabe Elders Anishinaabe Inaakonigewin Treaty Colonialism Gift Societies Earth Constitutionalism Indigenous Legal Traditions Anishinaabe Law Anishinaabe Worldview Miinigowiziwin Indigenous Legal Theory Legal Pluralism Canadian Liberalism Comparative Law Legal Anthropology Indigenous Studies Indigenous Philosophy Community-based Research Decolonization Canadian Colonialism

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