abstract: The Yavapai-Apache Nation represents one American Indian tribe whose experiences of historical trauma and alternative responses to historical trauma is not fully understood. This study sought to explore the presence of historical trauma among individuals who did not directly experience events of historical trauma, and ways those individuals have dealt with the possible impact of historical trauma. The foundation of this research reflected that pathological outcomes may not be universal responses to historical trauma for a sample of Yavapai-Apache Nation college graduates, as evidenced by their academic success, positive life outcomes, and resilience. The study utilized Indigenous methodologies and conversational and semi-structured interviews with Yavapai-Apache Nation co-researchers and four central themes emerged. The first theme of Family indicated the Yavapai-Apache Nation co-researchers with a strong orientation toward the family. Families provided support and this positive perception of family support provided the encouragement needed to cope with various experiences in their lives, including school, raising their own families, career goals and helping to impart teachings to their own children or youth within the community. The second theme, Identity, indicated the co-researchers experienced the effects of historical trauma through the loss of language, culture and identity and that while losses were ongoing, they acknowledged the necessity of identity re-vitalization. The third theme, Survival, indicated that despite hardships, the co-researchers acknowledge survival as a collective effort and achieved by an individual’s efforts within the group. The co-researchers described their personal understanding of education and success. They also discussed how they contribute to the survival of the Yavapai-Apache Nation. The fourth theme, Intersection, indicated the co-researchers’ stories and experiences in which the themes of family, identity and survival intersected with one another. It was necessary to include this final theme to show respect for the co-researchers’ stories and experiences. Also discussed are the study’s strengths, limitations, and the implications for research with the Yavapai-Apache Nation and research with Indigenous Communities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Social Work 2018

This study investigates key components for effective Indigenous adult language learning and resulting health and wellness benefits following a Dene research paradigm with Grounded Theory applications. Eight colleagues in the Master’s of Indigenous Language Revitalization (MILR) program at the University of Victoria participated in open ended discussions on their experiences in learning their Indigenous languages as adults. These Indigenous adults reclaiming their ancestral languages report experiencing benefits related to health and overall well-being. Physical fitness and healthy weight loss, emotional healing and a greater sense of identity all surfaced for my colleagues while working towards or achieving fluency in their languages. The main methods of successful language learning used were the Master-Apprentice Program, Total Physical Response and Accelerated Second Language Acquisition. Tips for learning the languages are included. / Graduate / 2021-04-13

This thesis explores how urban Indigenous women experience reconnections to cultural identity when they take up the practice of traditional beadwork. A beading methodology was used to explore the experiences of five urban Indigenous women in Winnipeg. Within this methodology, stories and conversations about beadwork are used as a way to gather and share knowledge in research. Participants were asked to share their experience of identity reconnections through beadwork stories. The major elements of this beading methodology and its underlying theoretical, epistemological and ontological roots are told through the story of the beaded medicine bags that were created for and gifted to each participant for the knowledge they contributed to this research. The author’s own beaded medicine bag is also used as a framework for a thematic analysis and discussion of the research findings. The themes identified through this analysis suggest beading as a multi-faceted and action-oriented approach that facilitates processes of journeying, remembering, relationships, asserting the self and healing that urban Indigenous women experience through their engagement with this practice. This thesis concludes by highlighting some of the important implications of beading as an Indigenous way of knowing, being and doing in social work practice and research to promote decolonization, resiliency, wellness and healing in our work with Indigenous communities. / Graduate

Written from a nuučaan̓uł perspective this dissertation documents the reclamation of knowledge, teachings, culture, language, responsibilities, and identity through my personal (re)connection to my family’s ḥaḥuułi and hereditary home, čaačaac̓iiʕas. In specific and intentional ways my research, fieldwork, and dissertation are part of a story of reconciliation between myself and čaačaac̓iiʕas, the ḥaḥuułi that my family was dispossessed from because of the impacts of colonization. Despite the near severing of our relationship with čaačaac̓iiʕas and the near destruction of our ḥaḥuułi, čaačaac̓iiʕas is thriving and now is the time to pick up my responsibilities and begin to re-establish a relationship with the natural and spiritual worlds found there. In my research the lands, waters, skies, and natural world are not a place and/or object of inquiry, they are non-human knowledge holders and teachers. The dissertation draws upon on a diverse set of ethnographic, anthropological, and Indigenous literatures. Emphasis is placed upon the use of nuučaan̓uł scholarship, theory, and methodologies including muułmuumps (being rooted to the land), ceremony, language, song, and interviews. The research builds on four kinds of knowledge that are expressed as: 1) known knowledge; 2) incomplete knowledge; 3) unaccounted for and/or unknown knowledge; and, 4) ethnographic/anthropological knowledge. Through this theoretical platform I explore tangible and intangible cultural and hereditary forms of knowledge production. Importantly, I highlight the role of song and sound as critical vehicles through which contemporary Indigenous peoples can connect to historical places and times. I place equal emphasis on the production of sound through song as I do through the reception of song and sound through a methodology of deep listening. Song and sound play a crucial role in my research and form the basis of knowledge transfer between myself, čaačaac̓iiʕas, and my yakʷiimit kʷiyiis nananiqsu (ancestors). Furthermore, the songs shared within this dissertation are the analysis of my data and how I am choosing to disseminate that data. I argue that these connections provide ways for future agendas and aspirations for cultural resurgence and governance to emerge. / Graduate

No description available.

This Inuvialuit ‘story’ revolves around the Inuvialuit uprising and resurgence against government and industrial encroachment, and the self determination efforts to regain sovereignty of traditional territories. This ‘story’ also discusses how meaningful consultation made the Inuvialuit Final Agreement a reality, through which Inuvialuit land rights and freedoms were formally acknowledged and entrenched in the Canadian Constitution. Through meaningful consultation, Inuvialuit have become ‘meaningful participants’ in sustainable and future-making decisions of Inuvialuit nunangat (Inuvialuit lands) and waters, with respect to the Inuvialuit People and natural beings that Inuvialuit depend upon and maintain relationship with. As ‘meaningful participants’, Inuvialuit have the sovereign rights to “make meaning” and carve out a future as a sovereign nation within the country of Canada. This Inuvialuit ‘story’ is told with an informal framework through which it decolonizes academia, while also highlighting Indigenous voice through an Indigenous lens and worldview. The government and industry are called upon to meaningfully consult with Indigenous Peoples who have not only inhabited Turtle Island for millennia, but who have inherent Indigenous rights and freedoms, as Indigenous embodiment and well-being, and temporality and future-making are entangled with homelands. / Graduate