The concern of this thesis is the position of people of alternative genders in Coast Salish culture, not only in the past, but in the present. How were individuals with such a difference treated? What forces constrained them? What factors afforded them opportunity? Were such genders even recognized? With these questions in mind, field work was conducted with the permission of the Std: Id Nation throughout the summer of 1998. This paper is based on interviews conducted then and subsequent interviews with people from other Coast Salish groups. In addition, local ethnographic materials—with reference to field notes whenever possible—and traditional stories were analyzed from the perspective of Coast Salish epistemology. Alternative genders need to be understood foremost in the cultural contexts in which they occur, only then can comparisons proceed from a secure foundation. Research revealed a paradoxical situation. Oral traditions in which the alternately gendered are despised, occur side-by-side with traditions in which such people were honoured for the special powers they possessed. Individuals and families operated in the space generated by this paradox, playing the "serious games" to which Ortner alludes (1996:12-13). The absence of a "master narrative" in Coast Salish culture accounts for some, but not all of these contradictions. Equally relevant are persistent patterns of secrecy, personal autonomy, kin solidarity, differential status, and differential gender flexibility that both restrict the social field and offer stress points that were, and are, manipulated in individual and collective strategies. Given a world view in which transformation was the norm, and in which the disadvantaged could become powerful overnight by revealing the power they had hidden, some alternatively gendered people were able to maximize their potential and become significant forces. No formal roles offered sanction, instead an ad hoc approach marked the response to alternative genders and the outcome rested on the position of the individual and her/his family, and their ability to maneuver within multiple constraints. It was this potential to transform a stigmatized status into an honoured role that made the position of the alternatively gendered paradoxical.

The concern of this thesis is the position of people of alternative genders in Coast Salish culture, not only in the past, but in the present. How were individuals with such a difference treated? What forces constrained them? What factors afforded them opportunity? Were such genders even recognized? With these questions in mind, field work was conducted with the permission of the Std: Id Nation throughout the summer of 1998. This paper is based on interviews conducted then and subsequent interviews with people from other Coast Salish groups. In addition, local ethnographic materials—with reference to field notes whenever possible—and traditional stories were analyzed from the perspective of Coast Salish epistemology. Alternative genders need to be understood foremost in the cultural contexts in which they occur, only then can comparisons proceed from a secure foundation. Research revealed a paradoxical situation. Oral traditions in which the alternately gendered are despised, occur side-by-side with traditions in which such people were honoured for the special powers they possessed. Individuals and families operated in the space generated by this paradox, playing the "serious games" to which Ortner alludes (1996:12-13). The absence of a "master narrative" in Coast Salish culture accounts for some, but not all of these contradictions. Equally relevant are persistent patterns of secrecy, personal autonomy, kin solidarity, differential status, and differential gender flexibility that both restrict the social field and offer stress points that were, and are, manipulated in individual and collective strategies. Given a world view in which transformation was the norm, and in which the disadvantaged could become powerful overnight by revealing the power they had hidden, some alternatively gendered people were able to maximize their potential and become significant forces. No formal roles offered sanction, instead an ad hoc approach marked the response to alternative genders and the outcome rested on the position of the individual and her/his family, and their ability to maneuver within multiple constraints. It was this potential to transform a stigmatized status into an honoured role that made the position of the alternatively gendered paradoxical. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

The cooperative enterprise has seemed, to many contemporary 'green' theorists, to be a socially sustainable economic alternative to conventional corporate capitalism, based on the ideas of grassroots participation, democracy, egalitarianism, community, social equity and empowerment. I argue, however, that there has been no attempt in 'green' thought to analyze gender relations within the cooperative enterprise. Instead, 'green' theorists view the cooperative as a homogeneous social entity with a shared subjectivity; and assume that the cooperative's 'sustainable' attributes - decentralized, democratic, and equitable principles - will ensure gender equity and empowerment through social sustainability. Reviewing 'green' theories of cooperatives and social sustainability, this thesis challenges 'green' interpretations of participation and social sustainability that ignore members' gendered identities, relations, and interests, particularly in resource-dependent communities. 'Green' definitions of participation have tended to narrowly focus on access to the cooperative without paying attention to cooperative member dynamics. By focusing attention on the nuances of participation and the implications for equity and empowerment, this thesis explores the complexities and contradictions of gender and participation as they apply to a mixed-gender community resource cooperative on Malcolm Island, British Columbia. Using a labour-knowledge-authority framework, the case study of the Malcolm Island Community Resource Cooperative (MICRC) illustrates that while the cooperative may be socially sustainable according to 'green' community and social economic ideals, actual participation in the cooperative enterprise is more complex, contradictory, and gendered than 'green' thought has typically assumed.

The cooperative enterprise has seemed, to many contemporary 'green' theorists, to be a socially sustainable economic alternative to conventional corporate capitalism, based on the ideas of grassroots participation, democracy, egalitarianism, community, social equity and empowerment. I argue, however, that there has been no attempt in 'green' thought to analyze gender relations within the cooperative enterprise. Instead, 'green' theorists view the cooperative as a homogeneous social entity with a shared subjectivity; and assume that the cooperative's 'sustainable' attributes - decentralized, democratic, and equitable principles - will ensure gender equity and empowerment through social sustainability. Reviewing 'green' theories of cooperatives and social sustainability, this thesis challenges 'green' interpretations of participation and social sustainability that ignore members' gendered identities, relations, and interests, particularly in resource-dependent communities. 'Green' definitions of participation have tended to narrowly focus on access to the cooperative without paying attention to cooperative member dynamics. By focusing attention on the nuances of participation and the implications for equity and empowerment, this thesis explores the complexities and contradictions of gender and participation as they apply to a mixed-gender community resource cooperative on Malcolm Island, British Columbia. Using a labour-knowledge-authority framework, the case study of the Malcolm Island Community Resource Cooperative (MICRC) illustrates that while the cooperative may be socially sustainable according to 'green' community and social economic ideals, actual participation in the cooperative enterprise is more complex, contradictory, and gendered than 'green' thought has typically assumed. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

This thesis represents a selective consideration of the relationships between gender, space and the law in early twentieth century Vancouver, based largely on the cases of sexual violence against women heard before the B.C. Supreme Court in the years between 1915 and 1925. Within these parameters, constructions of space and gender are addressed at three levels. Part one considers how both women and men were situated within early twentieth century legal discourse in the context of trials for sexual violence. Part two suggests how gendered understandings of urban space in early urban Vancouver were produced and reinforced within, and beyond, legal discourse. Finally, part three situates these processes within a wider context of statemaking in early twentieth century British Columbia. It is argued that legal processes were one mechanism by which space in fledgling Vancouver was coded in gendered and sexualized terms, and further, that these social meanings of space were fundamentally bound up with prevailing conceptions of race and class.

This thesis is an investigation of the gendered, classed and racialized identities associated with living a traditional family life in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia in the 1 990s. It has two entry points. The first is a focus on gendered identities that are the result of “old” ideals in a “new” cultural and geographical context: what identities result when traditional ideals of motherhood, fatherhood and homeownership are played out in a context where the ideals are being questioned, the ability to live these ideals limited and the surrounding landscape does not seem to reflect these notions? I use the heuristics of “new traditionalism” and “declining fortunes” to understand this interpretation and reinscription of the “old” within the “new”. The second entry point is a concern with place: how, in the 1990s, are white, middle-class familial identities gendered and experienced in and through place, and specifically suburban environments? Building upon Doreen Massey’s rethinking of the notion of place, I define place as a constellation of social and cultural relations in a particular site and examine some of the ways that places and identities are articulated. The thesis is based on archival work and in-depth interviews with residents in two neighbourhoods in the Municipality of Surrey, an outer suburb of Vancouver, British Columiba. Through an analysis of the planning of Surrey I show how the construction of Surrey as suburban set the limits of possibility and impossibility for identity there, deeming some identities “natural” and others peripheral. An examination of residential location decisions demonstrates that spatially demarcated neighbourhoods were desired and reconstructed and that the meanings of places within Surrey (what I term symbolic geographies) and distancing from a familial and racial other were important in the process. By exploring the multiple linkages between gender, class and home I show how images of place, and especially the house and the neighbourhood, are part of situating the self. Through a focus on the tensions between new traditionalist ideals and practices, I suggest that cultural meanings circulating within specific places influence the experience of gendered subject positions and both exacerbate and smooth over tensions within new traditionalism. In an investigation of the links between religion, gender difference, new traditionalist convictions, and place, I highlight how religious networks involve a different relation to place compared to other residents. I conclude that traditional models of family and gender (new traditionalism) remain pervasive signposts, and underlain by a relation to feminism, but are modified in response to the pressures of homeownership and different economic positionings (understood in terms of the discourse of declining fortunes). This modification is also class and place specific; the ability to live an idealized new traditionalist life is dependent upon the “possibility” of a male breadwinner wage and the meanings circulating within the residential neighbourhood.

This thesis represents a selective consideration of the relationships between gender, space and the law in early twentieth century Vancouver, based largely on the cases of sexual violence against women heard before the B.C. Supreme Court in the years between 1915 and 1925. Within these parameters, constructions of space and gender are addressed at three levels. Part one considers how both women and men were situated within early twentieth century legal discourse in the context of trials for sexual violence. Part two suggests how gendered understandings of urban space in early urban Vancouver were produced and reinforced within, and beyond, legal discourse. Finally, part three situates these processes within a wider context of statemaking in early twentieth century British Columbia. It is argued that legal processes were one mechanism by which space in fledgling Vancouver was coded in gendered and sexualized terms, and further, that these social meanings of space were fundamentally bound up with prevailing conceptions of race and class. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

This thesis is an investigation of the gendered, classed and racialized identities associated with living a traditional family life in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia in the 1 990s. It has two entry points. The first is a focus on gendered identities that are the result of “old” ideals in a “new” cultural and geographical context: what identities result when traditional ideals of motherhood, fatherhood and homeownership are played out in a context where the ideals are being questioned, the ability to live these ideals limited and the surrounding landscape does not seem to reflect these notions? I use the heuristics of “new traditionalism” and “declining fortunes” to understand this interpretation and reinscription of the “old” within the “new”. The second entry point is a concern with place: how, in the 1990s, are white, middle-class familial identities gendered and experienced in and through place, and specifically suburban environments? Building upon Doreen Massey’s rethinking of the notion of place, I define place as a constellation of social and cultural relations in a particular site and examine some of the ways that places and identities are articulated. The thesis is based on archival work and in-depth interviews with residents in two neighbourhoods in the Municipality of Surrey, an outer suburb of Vancouver, British Columiba. Through an analysis of the planning of Surrey I show how the construction of Surrey as suburban set the limits of possibility and impossibility for identity there, deeming some identities “natural” and others peripheral. An examination of residential location decisions demonstrates that spatially demarcated neighbourhoods were desired and reconstructed and that the meanings of places within Surrey (what I term symbolic geographies) and distancing from a familial and racial other were important in the process. By exploring the multiple linkages between gender, class and home I show how images of place, and especially the house and the neighbourhood, are part of situating the self. Through a focus on the tensions between new traditionalist ideals and practices, I suggest that cultural meanings circulating within specific places influence the experience of gendered subject positions and both exacerbate and smooth over tensions within new traditionalism. In an investigation of the links between religion, gender difference, new traditionalist convictions, and place, I highlight how religious networks involve a different relation to place compared to other residents. I conclude that traditional models of family and gender (new traditionalism) remain pervasive signposts, and underlain by a relation to feminism, but are modified in response to the pressures of homeownership and different economic positionings (understood in terms of the discourse of declining fortunes). This modification is also class and place specific; the ability to live an idealized new traditionalist life is dependent upon the “possibility” of a male breadwinner wage and the meanings circulating within the residential neighbourhood. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate