<p> Researchers have found that minorities suffering from traumatic stress report increased levels of stress in the absence of supportive and committed work environments; however, a paucity of empirical research exists for First Nations Peoples (FNP). The purpose of this quantitative correlation study was to examine the nature of the relationship between FNP's associated symptoms of historical loss, assessed by the Historical Loss and Associated Symptoms Scale, and organizational commitment, as measured by the Three Component Employee Commitment Survey. A total of 118 residential school survivors completed surveys. Correlation analysis was used to determine the significance of historical loss in relation to organizational commitment among survivors. Results showed an inverse relationship between affective commitment and associated symptoms of historical loss and between continuance commitment and associated symptoms. No statistically significant correlation was found between normative commitment and historical loss or associated symptoms. Findings can help inform targeted engagement, recruitment, and retention initiatives designed to accommodate FNP perspectives and experiences into organizational culture and systems. Implications for positive social change include better understanding of factors impacting career progression among FNP, such as organizational commitment. Results may also inform culturally safe interventions that help FNP to be successful.</p>

<p>This thesis explores the American Civil War in Indian Territory, focusing on how clashing visions of sovereignty within the Five Tribes&mdash;Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole&mdash;led to the one the most violent and relatively unknown chapters of the Civil War. Particular attention is paid to the first two years of the war, highlighting why the Five Tribes allied with Confederacy, and why those alliances failed over time. Chapter One examines Indian Territory as a borderland, unveiling how various actors within that borderland, including missionaries, Indian agents, white neighbors in Arkansas and Texas, and Indians themselves shaped Native American decision-making and convinced acculturated tribal elites to forge alliances with the Confederacy. These alliances, however, did not represent the sentiments of many traditionalist Indians, and anti-Confederate Creeks, Seminoles, and African-Americans gathered under the leadership of dissident Creek chief Opothleyahola. Cultural divisions within the Five Tribes, and differing visions of sovereignty in the future, threatened to undermine Indian-Confederate alliances. Chapter Two investigates the Confederacy&rsquo;s 1861 winter campaign designed to quell Opothleyahola&rsquo;s resistance to Confederate authority. This campaign targeted enemy soldiers and civilians alike, and following a series of three engagements Opothleyahola&rsquo;s forces were decisively defeated in December. During this campaign, however, schisms with the Confederate Cherokees became apparent. In the weeks that followed, Confederate forces pursued the men, women, and children of Opothelyahola&rsquo;s party as they fled north across the frozen landscape for the relative safety of Kansas. The military campaign waged in 1861, and the untold suffering heaped upon thousands of civilians that winter, exposes how a hard, violent war rapidly emerged within the Confederate borderland, complicating historians&rsquo; depiction of a war that instead grew hard over time. </p><p> Chapter Three documents the return of Federal forces to the borderland via the First Indian Expedition of 1862. Although the expedition was a military failure, the sudden presence of Union forces in the region permanently split the Cherokee tribe into warring factions. The Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole tribes spent the next three years fighting their own intra-tribal civil wars. Moreover, the appearance and retreat of Federal forces from Indian Territory created a geopolitical vacuum, which would be filled by guerrilla violence and banditry. The failure of either Confederate or Union forces to permanently secure Indian Territory left Indian homelands ripe for violence and lawlessness. The thesis concludes by evaluating the cost of the conflict. One-third of the Cherokee Nation perished during the war; nearly one-quarter of the Creek population died in the conflict. By war&rsquo;s end, two-thirds of Indian Territory&rsquo;s 1860 population had become refugees. Urged to war by outsiders and riven with their own intra-tribal strife, Native Americans of the Five Tribes suffered immensely during the Civil War, victims of one of the most violent, lethal, and unknown chapters in American history. </p>

<p> This study examines the tradition of beaded capes among the Lower Colorado River Yuman groups, with the goal of understanding the meaning and cultural significance that the capes held in the past and continue to hold for those that wear and create them today. Questions posed by this study ask how and to whom do beaded capes hold meaning; and why were the beaded capes overlooked by collectors if they are culturally significant? As a marker of River Yuman identity and artistic expertise, the lack of historic beaded capes that are held within museum collections is surprising, with only twenty-two museums across the United States and Europe housing a composite total of fifty-eight River Yuman beaded capes. This study attempts to answer the proposed questions by conducting interviews with River Yuman beadworkers and community members, regarding their perspectives on the meanings and symbolism presented by beaded capes, and the cultural significance of these items. In contrast, this study examines the views of Euro-American collectors that were collecting beaded capes in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries when others were not. An understanding of outsider perspectives and motivation for collecting beaded capes is achieved through analysis of collector's field notes, journals, and museum accession files. Combining ethnography, archival research, and museum collections-based research, this study seeks to present a more detailed understanding of the River Yuman beaded cape as a marker of gender and ethnic identity. This research addresses the existing voids in knowledge about the cultural significance that the beaded capes hold for Quechan (Yuma) and Pipa Aha Macav (Mojave) people, and introduces that information to outsiders, creating a record of the views of River Yuman community members on the contemporary meanings that the beaded capes hold.</p>

<p> Grounded in the transformative paradigm (p. 35), this study asked, &ldquo;In what ways might a group of non-Natives be individually and socially transformed by encountering the Bear River Massacre from within Indigenous Worldviews?&rdquo; The methodology incorporated Indigenous Worldviews and ceremonial processes (Wilson, 2008) into Queensland University&rsquo;s Indigenous Australian Studies&rsquo; model (Mackinlay &amp; Barney, 2010), interweaving transformative learning processes with Indigenous elements such as a traditional Shoshone sweat lodge, visiting a massacre site, and listening to a Shoshone elder. During ceremonially centered mini retreats data was collected via individual journals, group email and process notes, art-based expressions, videotaping, individual and group written evaluations and surveys, and follow up interviews. Findings established &ldquo;perspective transformation&rdquo; (King, 2009) in 80% of participants within the dimensions of better understanding the Bear River Massacre, the Shoshone people, the colonization process, and the loss of their own Indigenous roots. Follow-up interviews revealed that 87.5% of respondents believed that the integration of Indigenous elements into the project impacted their learning experience &ldquo;a great deal.&rdquo; 87.5% reported sustained behavioral x change in relation to the topic and 71% stated they wanted to get to know Native people and culture better. In addition, 43% stated they were interested in obtaining a public Presidential apology to Native people. Unconscious shadow transference material (Romanyshyn, 2007) emerged and was discussed from a depth psychology perspective. Limitations to this study include sample size and lack of funding. The theoretical development of ceremonial research potentially expands this method into other areas of inquiry.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 1582. Adviser: Dianne Harris. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 392-436) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 1847. Adviser: Timothy R. Pauketat. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-227) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2727. Adviser: Frederick Hoxie. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 217-226) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> The transformative benefits of cross-cultural interaction and the &ldquo;disruption&rdquo; caused by the confrontation with injustice, poverty and culture shock for students through immersion experiences are well-documented. In contrast, however, there is very little research that documents the experience of host communities - those into whom the traveler is immersed. What is the experience of individuals from these host communities? What is the value or significance to them of hosting educational travel groups? What opportunities exist for educational travel programs to be venues for decolonization and social justice work that is mutually beneficial to student groups and host communities? This project is a phenomenological study consisting of in-depth interviews with six native or indigenous community partners who worked with two high school educational travel programs&mdash;one internationally and one domestically. Participants reported a clear understanding of their co-educational role and attached broader global and spiritual significance to that. A number of recommendations emerged for building mutually beneficial relationships in the context of educational travel.</p>

<p> To recall on the past through oral tradition is a source of strength, so why not study the stories and actions of female Native leaders today by analyzing the stories and artifacts they leave behind. With the current political climate, it has become opportunistic and necessary to redefine identity, to challenge the dominant narrative, to question history and plan for the future through critical engagement of the present. This research will provide other Native women leaders, writers, poets and storytellers inspiration and confidence in their current actions and skills, as they are tools in resisting and surviving the various systems meant to exclude and terminate their voice and identity. Although there are many different approaches to understanding the use of storytelling as a tool of activism when occupying a liminal space, I focus on these three areas: the liminal spaces Native people occupy force us to constantly negotiate our identity and voice as a Native person, the use of a modern movement like Standing Rock as liminal space platform, and the application of storytelling a tool of activism. I was drawn to using Standing Rock as a platform for study of liminal space for the complex yet inclusive nature that drew in activists like myself from all walks of life. What I was most interested in were my fellow Native sisters, the female leaders in Indian Country that were present at Standing Rock using their statues and platforms to discuss issues otherwise forgotten through their strengths of storytelling. I want to know how they used storytelling as a tool of activism, how they connected to their perceived audiences and created an urgency to act and if there were any issues of the past resolved in the efforts of the present found within their writings. The communication strategies of storytelling within a liminal space like Standing Rock, provides an opportunity for the reclaiming of Native identity by Native people, as seen with the recognition of the Water Protector identity, and the engagement of new ideas and possibilities in solving complex socio-political, environmental-cultural issues.</p><p>

<p> Stereotypes of Indigenous peoples, formed according to Western notions of cultural hierarchy, as savage, exotic, and only existing in a distant past, are still prevalent in the popular imaginary. These stem from misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Indigenous peoples that developed after contact between Indigenous peoples and European settler communities, and exist in concepts such as the noble savage, the wild heathen, or the vanishing Indian. In this thesis I argue that contemporary artist Gregg Deal (Pyramid Lake Paiute) successfully challenges and disrupts such stereotypes by re-channeling their power and reappropriating them through his strategic use of humor and irony in performances, paintings, and murals. Through these tools, Deal is able to attract audiences, disarm them, and destabilize their assumptions about Indigenous peoples. I frame Deal&rsquo;s use of humor and irony outside the trickster paradigm, drawing instead on Don Kelly&rsquo;s (Ojibway) theorization of humor as a communicative tool for making difficult topics accessible, and Linda Hutcheon&rsquo;s theorization of irony as a discursive strategy for simultaneously presenting and subverting something that is familiar. </p><p> In a second line of argument, I foreground Deal&rsquo;s agency as an artist through analysis of his strategies to reach audiences and gain visibility for his art. Contemporary Indigenous artists are often excluded from mainstream art institutions, and can struggle to find venues to exhibit their work. I argue that Deal&rsquo;s strategic use of public space and the internet to show and publicize his art is significant. It has helped him to reach audiences and gain recognition for his work. He now exhibits and performs in university and state museums. I argue that the authority of museum space, in turn, gives him a greater opportunity to disrupt stereotypes and educate people about misperceptions of Indigenous peoples.</p><p>