abstract: This dissertation explores complex representations of spiritual, social and cultural ways of knowing embedded within engraved ivory drill bows from the Bering Strait. During the nineteenth century, multi-faceted ivory drill bows formed an ideal surface on which to recount life events and indigenous epistemologies reflective of distinct environmental and socio-cultural relationships. Carvers added motifs over time and the presence of multiple hands suggests a passing down of these objects as a form of familial history and cultural patrimony. Explorers, traders and field collectors to the Bering Strait eagerly acquired engraved drill bows as aesthetic manifestations of Arctic mores but recorded few details about the carvings resulting in a disconnect between the objects and their multi-layered stories. However, continued practices of ivory carving and storytelling within Bering Strait communities holds potential for engraved drill bows to animate oral histories and foster discourse between researchers and communities. Thus, this collaborative project integrates stylistic analyses and ethno-historical accounts on drill bows with knowledge shared by Alaska Native community members and is based on the understanding that oral narratives can bring life and meaning to objects within museum collections. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Art 2013

abstract: Principles of climate mitigation in environmental ethics often draw on either considerations of fairness and forward-looking concerns, or on justice and backward-looking concerns. That is, according to some theorists, considerations of the current distribution of climate benefits and burdens are foremost, while others take repairing historic wrongs as paramount. Some theorists integrate considerations of fairness and justice to formulate hybrid climate principles. Such an integrative approach is promising particularly in the context of environmental harm to indigenous subsistence peoples, who are among those suffering the most from climate change. I argue that existing integrative climate principles tend not to sufficiently emphasize considerations of backward-looking justice. This is a problem for indigenous peoples seeking reparations for environmental harm and violations of their human rights. Specifically, indigenous people in the Arctic suffer a cultural harm from climate change as they lose their land, and their way of life, to erosion, cementing their status as climate refugees. I argue that the current climate situation facing Native Arctic people is unfair according to Rawls' second principle of justice. In addition, the situation is unjust as indigenous people suffer from emissions by others and few attempts are made for reparations. Thus, Rawlsian fairness combined with reparative justice provide a befitting theoretical framework. I conclude that an acceptable climate principle will adequately integrate considerations of both fairness and justice, both forward-looking and backward-looking considerations. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Philosophy 2014

This applied dissertation was designed to evaluate improving the reading performance of fifthgrade students through an afterschool reading program to determine whether it was effective in teaching Native American and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). This study compared the reading performance of fifth-grade students who struggle with reading, with those who attend an afterschool reading program, and students in both conditions were taught to apply the strategies to reading comprehension, spelling, coached reading, and vocabulary, and then practiced the strategies to independent reading performance. Reading intervention was introduced to improve students who had difficulties with learning expository reading performance. The students‟ scores on the Florida Instruction in Reading (FAIR) were used as pre-assessment data and included the instructional sequences and practices with struggling readers as well as the data collected through classroom observation. It focused on improving the fluency and the reading comprehension of these students and FAIR was used as a post-test assessment. It addressed the problem of poor reading skills of students at Southeastern Elementary School (SES). Statewide tests had shown that fifth grade students at SES were reading on a third-grade level, and these students were reading below two grade level gaps as evidenced by test scores on the FCAT. The purpose of this study was to describe and investigate the long-term impact of the program on the student, as measured by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) scores, in reading performance as well as report scores, in elementary schools in Florida

Dès le XVIIIe siècle, des Amérindiens ont raconté leur vie en s'appropriant les codes sémiotiques de la société dominante anglo-américaine blanche : l'anglais, l'écriture alphabétique, la production de textes destinés à être lus.Teintées d'une hybridité générique mêlant, souvent de manière subversive, des pratiques narratives, rhétoriques et discursives issues des mondes amérindien et anglo-américain, ces autobiographies donnent à lire pourquoi et comment leurs auteurs ont abordé le thème ambivalent de l'hybridité socio-culturelle et identitaire dans le contexte tendu de la colonisation.Dans une étude en trois parties (se présenter, se raconter, se recomposer), nous montrerons comment et pourquoi des Amérindiens ont fait le choix de s'exprimer dans des textes autobiogaphiques écrits en anglais. Nous analyseronscomment le fond et la forme interagissent pour créer une « performance » narrative, une poét(h)ique de la créolisation, de laquelle émerge une identité stylistique et conjonctive valorisante à travers les textes de cinq auteurs : les textes du Mohegan Samson Occom (1765 et 1768), les deux récits du Pequot William Apess (A Son of the Forest de 1829 et 1831, « The Experience of the Missionary » de 1833), Life Among the Piutes de la Paiute Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (1883), History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan de l'Ottawa Andrew Blackbird (1887), The Middle Five: Indian Boys at School de l'Omaha Francis La Flesche (1900). / As early as the 18th century, some Native American Indians began to give accounts of their lives in autobiographical texts using, often subversively, the semiotic codes of the white, dominant, Anglo-American society: English, alphabetical writing, texts made to be read. As hybrid compositions which combine discursive, rhetorical, and narrative practices from both the Native and Anglo-American worlds, these autobiographies also reveal how and why their authors address the ambivalent issue of socio-cultural and identity hybridity in the tense context of colonization.In a three-part rationale (to present oneself, to narrate oneself, to recompose oneself), this dissertation intends to investigate how, in these texts, the form is responsive to the content in order to create a narrative “performance,” a sort of “aesthet(h)ics” of creolization, from which spawns a valorizing stylistic and conjunctive identity. The autobiographies of five authors furnish the basis of our analysis: Mohegan Samson Occom's untitled manuscripts of1765 and 1768, Pequot William Apess's three different versions (1829 A Son of the Forest, revised in 1831, and “TheExperience of the Missionary,” 1833), Paiute Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins's Life Among the Piutes (1883), OttawaAndrew Blackbird's History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan (1887), Omaha Francis La Flesche's TheMiddle Five: Indian Boys at School (1900).

This textual record of the making of the social issue documentary film A Native American Dream examines theoretical and practical considerations of the filmmaker during the pre-production, production, and post-production stages. It also examines the disciplines of anthropology and ethnography in terms of modern documentary filmmaking and evaluates the film within these contexts.

This critical participatory ethnographic study examines the negotiation of civic identity by urban Indigenous students in public high school social studies classes, a Native youth council, and the civic environment of a school in Washington State, where the Since Time Immemorial curriculum is mandated in social studies classes. Using Safety Zone and Tribal Critical Race theories to understand the experiences of students, stories from observations, participant interviews, and focus groups are employed as data. This study found that connections between students’ land/s and Nation/s, participation in service and activism with other Nation/s, a caring teacher, family civic connections, curricula that centers American Indian history and current events, and school were vital to these negotiations. These spaces were zones of sovereignty (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2014) forwarding survivance and self-determination for students. Student understanding of the Indigenous civic constructs of sovereignty, self-determination, dual citizenship and an understanding of federal Indian policy are explored as sites where they created and sustained their own civic identities inside and outside of school.

abstract: What are possibilities for transforming the structural relationship between Indigenous peoples and settlers? Research conversations among a set of project partners (Indigenous and settler pairs)—who reside in the Phoenix metro area, Arizona or on O’ahu, Hawai’i—addressed what good relationships look like and how to move the structural relationship towards those characteristics. Participants agreed that developing shared understandings is foundational to transforming the structural relationship between Indigenous peoples and settlers; that Indigenous values systems should guide a process of transforming relationships; and that settlers must consider their position in relation to Indigenous peoples because position informs responsibility. The proposed framework for settler responsibility is based on the research design and findings, and addresses structural and individual level transformation. The framework suggests that structural-level settler responsibility entails helping to transform the structural relationship and that the settler role involves a settler transformation process parallel to Indigenous resurgence. On an individual level, personal relationships determine appropriate responsibilities, and the framework includes a suggested process between Indigenous persons and settlers for uncovering what these responsibilities are. The study included a trial of the suggested process, which includes four methods: (1) developing shared understandings of terms/concepts through discussion, (2) gathering stories about who participants are in relationship to each other, (3) examining existing daily practices that gesture to a different structural relationship, and (4) using creative processes to imagine structural relationships in a shared world beyond settler colonialism. These methods explore what possibilities unfold when settlers center their relationship with Indigenous peoples. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Social and Cultural Pedagogy 2020

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

The focus of this study was on how to help narrow the achievement gap between Native American students and their non-Native peers in an urban Oklahoma school district. A qualitative case study approach was used to answer the questions of how parents of Native American students perceive their children's academic success in reading and mathematics in Grade 1- Grade 12 and why they believe their children have consistently (or historically) performed below district, state, and national expectations in these subjects in an attempt to better understand the achievement gap. Progress reports, institutional reports, and standards-based test scores were indicative of the widening achievement gap between Native American students and their non-Native peers. Bourdieu's cultural capital theory supported by Epstein's model of parental involvement were used as the conceptual framework for this study. Six parents of Native American students in Grade 1– Grade 12 were selected as participants and were interviewed using open-ended, semistructured questions to gain insight and help to answer the research questions. The coding of collected data, an analysis of emergent themes and triangulation, peer debriefing, and member checks were all utilized as analytical procedures to ensure accuracy and credibility. Results from the study revealed that parents of Native American students perceive their students' academic success as a struggle and identify parental involvement, curriculum relatability, class size and communication among some of the barriers to their students' success. Implications for positive social change for this study included the potential to inform more effective teaching strategies for teachers who teach Native American students, inform their curriculum development, and foster the empowerment of Native American families.

Comprehensive planning can help communities engage in purposeful and sustainable land use development. Previous research has indicated that Indian reservations in the United States often face unique roadblocks to these planning efforts: checkerboard patterns of tribal and nontribal ownership, and the presence of both tribal and local governments exercising land use authority within the same shared space. These roadblocks can lead to uncooperative, uncoordinated, or unsustainable development. Despite these noted problems, there remains an important gap in the current literature regarding solutions to overcome these roadblocks. The purpose of this study was to address that gap. Guided by Forester's critical planning theory to critically examine the social and historical roots of planning within a particular community, this qualitative case study examined government records and conducted 18 interviews of tribal and local government officials. Data analysis consisted of coding data to reveal emergent themes relating to cooperative land use planning in the future. These themes included: (a) approaching planning with a regional philosophy in mind, (b) strengthening interpersonal relationships, (c) finding ways to fairly compensate each other for government services, (d) continuing to acknowledge each government's ability to govern within this shared space, and (e) refraining from asserting authority over a neighboring government. This research is an important contribution to the existing literature and enhances social change initiatives by providing guidance for tribal and local government officials to increase cooperative land use planning.