This study assesses the organization and intensity of hide processing from sequential occupations at the Late Fort Ancient (A.D. 1400-1680) Hardin Site located in the central Ohio Valley. Historical and archaeological sources were drawn on to develop expectations for production intensification: 1) an increase in production tool quantity, 2) an increase in production debris quantity, and 3) an increase in tool utilization intensity. Many Native groups situated on the periphery of early European colonies intensified hide production to meet demand generated by an emerging global trade in hides. As this economic activity intensified in the 16th and 17th centuries it incorporated and ever greater network of native communities. By documenting production intensification at the Hardin Site, this study evaluates the degree to which global markets incorporated regions beyond the colonial periphery before A.D. 1680. This study also examines the social dimensions of economic activity by asking who processed hides, who may have benefited from the products of this labor, and whether or not either of these were influenced by participation in the tumultuous interaction sphere of the eastern North American Contact Period.

This thesis studies the style of Native American portrait photographs of William S. Soule (1836-1908), John K. Hillers (1834-1925), and William E. Irwin (1871-1935), who worked in Oklahoma from 1869 to 1904. The examination of the three men's work revealed that each artist had different motivations for creating Native American portrait photographs, and a result, used a distinct style. However, despite the individual artistic styles, each artist conformed to Native American stereotypes common during the nineteenth-century. The thesis includes a discussion of the history of the area, photographer biographies, a stylistic analysis of the photographs, and how the images fit into American Indian stereotypes.

Wandering Sagebrush is a collection of eight unified short stories. The main themes of the thesis include: the struggle of identity and how one finds the people and places to call family and home. The stories focus on family we make, family we lose, family we choose, and the decisions one makes in the name of family.

La situation économique, sociale et politique des nations autochtones au Canada et leur relation avec les nations non-autochtones présentent des similarités avec les anciennes colonies européennes. Peut-on qualifier cette relation de « coloniale » ? Cette interrogation est primordiale, vu les aspects immoraux et illégaux que prit la colonisation. Nous parcourrons la pensée d’auteurs reliés au libéralisme, au nationalisme autochtone et à l’interculturalisme et nous choisirons ce dernier comme angle d’approche. Nous élaborerons ensuite le concept de colonisation interne et nous le confronterons au cas des autochtones. Puis, nous présenterons les motivations à la décolonisation ainsi que la composition d’un hypothétique État postcolonial canadien et de nations et communautés autochtones décolonisées. Finalement, nous analyserons la démarche judiciaire, la négociation d’ententes d’autonomie gouvernementale, la mobilisation des masses et l’approche des word warriors, l’objectif étant d’évaluer jusqu’à quel point ces moyens s’inscrivent dans un éventuel processus de décolonisation des nations autochtones. / The social, political and economic situation of the aboriginal nations in Canada and their relations with non-aboriginal Canadians exhibits parallels with the European colonies of the past. Are there enough of these to identify the contemporary Canadian case as "colonial"? The question is a fundamental one, given the illegal, not to mention immoral, features of colonialism. In order to answer it, this memoire explores the writing of liberal, nationalist aboriginal, and "intercultural" thinkers, and concludes in favour of the latter. Then, using the intercultural approach, the concept of "internal colonialisation" is developed and applied to the case of Canadian aboriginals. This is followed by arguments in favour of their decolonialisation as well as a hypothetical account of a postcolonial Canada. Finally, a number of strategies for bringing the latter about are evaluated: the legal justice route; negotiation over governmental autonomy; mass mobilisation; and the "word warriors" approach.

Les populations autochtones canadiennes ont un passé difficile qui influence leur vécu actuel. Les recherches canadiennes et ailleurs dans le monde s’entendent sur la surreprésentation des enfants autochtones en protection de l’enfance. Au Canada, la surreprésentation s’explique présentement par la présence de conditions de vie dégradées plutôt qu’en raison d’un traitement différentiel des services de protection à l’égard des enfants autochtones. La présente étude ajoute aux connaissances sur les mauvais traitements et la réponse des services de protection de la jeunesse aux enfants autochtones québécois en s’intéressant à trois questions : leur surreprésentation, leurs différences par rapport aux autres enfants et les prédicteurs du placement. D’abord, à partir des données administratives de la protection de la jeunesse, la surreprésentation des enfants autochtones est évaluée à trois étapes des services : les signalements retenus, les situations fondées et les placements. Les enfants autochtones et les autres enfants sont comparés sur un ensemble de caractéristiques personnelles, familiales, parentales des signalements et des services rendus. Les prédicteurs du placement des enfants desservis par la protection de la jeunesse sont enfin vérifiés, en portant une attention particulière à l’importance du statut autochtone dans cette prédiction. Les résultats révèlent une augmentation de la surreprésentation des enfants autochtones d’une étape à l’autre des services de protection considérés. Ces enfants ont plus souvent des conditions de vie difficiles et sont confrontés à davantage de facteurs de risque que les autres enfants. Le statut autochtone est important dans la prédiction du placement, même après l’ajout d’un ensemble de caractéristiques pouvant contribuer à la prédiction. La complexité d’accès aux services de première ligne dans les communautés autochtones ou l’influence d’une variable non considérée, telle la pauvreté matérielle et économique, constituent de possibles explications. Les implications pour la recherche et la pratique sont discutées. / Canadian Aboriginal populations have for a while experienced difficulties that influence their actual lives. Research in Canada and elsewhere in the world acknowledges the overrepresentation of aboriginal children in child welfare services. In Canada, the overrepresentation of aboriginal children in child welfare services is mostly explained by the existence of risky life conditions rather than by the hypothesis of differential treatment of aboriginal children by child welfare. The actual study adds knowledge concerning child maltreatment in the aboriginal children population and the way Québec child welfare responds to aboriginal children by an examination of their overrepresentation, their differences with other children and the predictors of out-of-home placement. Using administrative data of Québec child welfare services, the overrepresentation of aboriginal children is first verified at three steps of the child welfare trajectory: the retained reports, the substantiated cases and the out-of-home placements. Aboriginal children are compared with other children on personal, family, parental and services characteristics. Predictors of out-of-home placement for children receiving child welfare services are finally investigated, with a specific attention to the aboriginal status in that prediction. Results reveal an increase in the overrepresentation of aboriginal children as they progress in the different steps of child protective services trajectory. These children live more often with hard life conditions and have to face more risk factors than other children. The importance of aboriginal status in out-of-home placement decisions remains substantial, even when many other characteristics increasing out-of-home placement risks are added. The complexities to access primary care in aboriginal communities or the influence of an unmeasured variable, such as material or economic poverty are possible explanations. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Cette recherche se penche sur l’impact des facteurs de contexte et des facteurs individuels sur les conditions socioéconomiques des résidants des collectivités des Premières Nations du Québec et des résidants des communautés situées à proximité. Des régressions logistiques sur les données censitaires de 2001 ont été réalisées afin de répondre aux questions d’étude. Quatre dimensions, inspirées de l’indice de bien-être (IBC), ont été étudiées : l’activité, le logement, le revenu et la scolarité. Les résultats de recherche montrent que les deux types de facteurs contribuent à l’explication des inégalités sociales. Plus spécifiquement, les inégalités scolaires apparaissent principalement déterminées par les facteurs de contexte bien que les facteurs individuels, tel que l’âge et le genre, soient aussi déterminants. Ces dernières surviennent en amont des inégalités d’emploi et de revenu et expliquent celles-ci. De plus, les inégalités relatives au logement sont expliquées par l’emplacement spatial et le type de communauté de résidence. Par ailleurs, l’ethnicité des répondants ne joue pas un rôle de premier plan dans l’explication des disparités observées, une fois les autres caractéristiques contrôlées, ce qui ne signifie pas qu’il n’existe pas d’inégalités entre Amérindien et non-Amérindien. En fait, des chances différenciées persistent lorsque les autres caractéristiques sont contrôlées. Ainsi, les résultats mettent en évidence l’utilité de déplacer le point focal de la recherche quantitative sur les conditions autochtones du principal fait d’être Amérindien ou non vers un éventail plus large de déterminants. / This research assesses the specific contribution of individual and contextual factors in explaining the socioeconomics discrepancies between members of First Nations communities and those of communities located nearby. Using logistic regression on 2001 census data, four dimensions of socioeconomic conditions, largely inspired by the Community Well-Being Index (CWB), are assessed: employment, housing, income and education. The results of the study show that social inequalities appear correlated to both types of factors. Educational inequalities are primarily due to contextual factors even if individual factors, such as age and gender, also play a role in determining the odds of living social inequalities. Educational inequalities precede employment and income inequalities and, to some extent, explain them. Moreover, housing inequalities are mainly explained by spatial location and residence in a First Nations community Furthermore, the ethnicity of respondents does not play a major role in explaining the discrepancies, once other characteristics are taken into account. This does not mean that social inequalities do not exist between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians. Actually, significant differences between these two social categories are observed even when other characteristics are controlled for. Thus, the results of this study point out to the fact that the focus of quantitative research on Aboriginal people’s conditions should be put on additional predictors of inequalities besides “aboriginality”. Also, the review of literature shows a lack of research on social inequalities within First Nations communities in Canada.

Bouleversements démographiques, pressions assimilatrices, défaites militaires et rivalités territoriales : ce mémoire étudie les transformations que connaît la société Cherokee sous l’impulsion de ces forces au cours du «long XVIIIe siècle» qui débute avec l’intensification des contacts avec les colons anglais vers 1700 et qui se termine avec la déportation des Cherokees vers l’Indian Territory, dans l’actuel Oklahoma, à la fin des années 1830. Son regard porte principalement la centralisation des institutions politiques, la transformation des règles qui définissent l’appartenance à la nation, et l’évolution des rôles des genres dans la famille et dans l’économie pendant la période entre la signature du traité de paix de 1794 et l’adoption par les Cherokees d’une Constitution fortement inspirée de celle des États-Unis, en 1827. / Demographic shifts, pressures to assimilate, military disasters, and territorial rivalries : this thesis studies how Cherokee society was transformed by these forces during the «long 18th century» that began with the intensification of contacts with European settlers in the early 1700s and that ended with the Cherokees’ removal to the Indian Territory (located in today’s Oklahoma) in the late 1830s. It focuses on the centralisation of political institutions, the transformation of the rules governing tribal membership and acceptance, and the changing roles of men and women in the family and in the Cherokee economy, primarily between the signing of the 1794 peace treaty with the United States and the adoption of a Constitutional government by the Cherokee Nation in 1827.

This thesis explores the trickster character through the lens of his role as a cultural hero. The two characters that I chose to examine are from North American myth, specifically Winnebago Hare and Brer Rabbit. These two characters represent the duality of the trickster while simultaneously embodying the lauded abilities of the hero. Through their actions these two characters shape culture through the very action of disrupting societal norms.

According to the Office of Educational Research and Improvement: A Project of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research, graduation rates for Native Americans from both secondary and post secondary institutions are dismally low at 58% and 7%, respectively. Some research addresses cognitive preference and other ethnic identity, but research animating the cognitive preference---ethnic identity interplay for high school students is absent. These limitations in access to educational opportunities lead to abbreviated quality life experiences and a restriction in individual efficacy and collective agency. The following project assessed ethnic identity using Phinney's Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure and cognitive preference using Kolb's Learning Styles Inventory version 3.1. The research used both the aforementioned metrics to analyze cognitive preference and ethnic identity for 73 high school participants through the use of both categorical and continuous variables. Analytical procedures utilized descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, bivariate correlation, and analysis of variance. This research confirmed that Anglos and Native Americans have statistically different cognitive preferences, and those preferences were correlated with their ethnic identity. It is recommended that education better meet the needs of the Native American student by emancipating them from an educational system founded and perpetuated on an orientation to the majority's cognitive preference by including multiple information acquisition and processing modalities. Including a range of cognitive preference pedagogies in the classroom will lead to a more equitable educational landscape where the Native American student has the opportunity to be a more successful student.

Native American women and children suffer from domestic violence at an alarming rate on and off Indian reservations in the United States. Often these families that are impacted by domestic violence are involved in the state/county child welfare system. This study was to gain knowledge about Native American tribal child social workers experiences and challenges with co-occurrences of domestic violence and child maltreatment cases. This study used an exploratory, qualitative design with a phenomenological approach by collecting data through face-to-face and over the phone interviews with four Native American tribal child social workers from four different tribes across the nation. This design allowed participants the opportunity to provide a more in-depth explanation from their own personal experiences regarding their experiences and challenges working with domestic violence and child maltreatment cases. The study found that there is a need for state/county social workers to have a better understanding of the historic and current experiences of Native people from a cultural, spiritual, and socioeconomic perspective through effective and consistent training on the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The study also found, that there is a need for state/county administration and social workers to build relationships with tribal child social workers in order to provide culturally competent and effective policies and services to serve Native American communities.