This dissertation presents an historical analysis of teachers’ participation in policy making with specific reference to the South African Schools’ Act (SASA) of 1996. The central aim of the study was to explore the opportunities, extent and outcomes of teachers’ participation in the development of SASA and the various factors that attest to its complexity. Main argument and claims While acknowledging the broader political, ideological and economic context of teacherstate relations in policy making, this study contends that macro-forces in themselves are insufficient in explaining the dynamics of policy making and teachers’ role in it. Teachers’ participation in policy making is shaped, as powerfully, by factors such as partisan alliances and policy capacity, and by specific school contexts. Fundamental to this argument is the importance attached to the notion of ‘historical specificity’, which provides the overall thread that binds the diverse forces and factors that shaped the nature of teachers’ participation in policy making. In making the above argument, this thesis posits the following main claims: • Teachers’ participation in the development of SASA was historically-determined and shaped by the ambiguous and political nature of teacher-state relations, underpinned by ideological allegiance and flexibility. Key factors that shaped this relationship were government and teacher unions’ harnessing of the ideologies of unionism and professionalism, the ability of teacher unions’ to resist state cooptation and teacher unions’ agency in the cultivation of policy networks, especially partisan and non-partisan alliances; • Teachers’ participation was influenced by the specificity of South Africa’s transition to democracy, particularly the developmental tendency of the postapartheid education state and the politics of compromise that underpinned the Teachers’ participation in policy making: The case of the South African Schools Act vi political transition. Thus, in spite of ‘global’ forces, ‘local’ dynamics were ultimately more instrumental in determining the nature and impact of teachers’ participation in the policy making process; • The ‘stakeholder’ or ‘representative’ form of participation which characterized SASA’s development has underlined the limits of participation founded on a western, liberal model of democracy and stressed the value of direct (participatory) and deliberative models of democracy. Teachers as individuals, therefore, experience ‘dual marginalization’ in the policy arena, firstly, because state policy makers do not consult or engage them, and secondly because teacher unions themselves are often unable to adequately involve grassroots’ members in policy formulation activities within their organisations; • Teachers’ participation in the development of SASA has been dominated by the adoption of a rational and expert-driven model of policy making, wherein the views and contributions of experts are more highly valued than those of ordinary citizens, including teachers. At the same time, the study underlines the importance of a strong organisational basis for teachers’ participation in policy making, particularly the need for well-functioning organizational structures and policy expertise within the ranks of teacher unions themselves; and • Teachers’ participation in policy making is not confined to hopes of influencing policy outcomes. It is about social and policy learning and its implications for teachers’ daily practice and for the organizational development of teacher unions. Main theoretical and methodological contributions The study offers an eclectic conceptual framework for research into teachers’ participation in policy making, drawing on the disciplines of history, political science and education policy, which can be considered by researchers undertaking similar studies especially in transitional contexts. In so doing, the study makes the following contributions: Teachers’ participation in policy making: The case of the South African Schools Act vii It presents teacher unions and policy makers with a more comprehensive perspective to consider when formulating policy; It contributes a novel perspective for examining the relationship between education, civil society and the state in South Africa and countries undergoing transition worldwide; and It provides substance for comparative discussions on teachers’ participation in policy formulation globally. Finally, the study reclaims history as a method of social enquiry in policy analysis and in contrast to existing studies with its largely a-historical policy implementation bias, refocuses the empirical analysis on the policy development process and dynamics.

Following the terrorist attacks on America on 11 September 2001, the New Labour government enacted an unprecedented amount of terrorism legislation in the form of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, the Terrorism Act 2006, and finally the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008. Whilst the government viewed these terrorism laws as vital to national security, many of the measures contained in these acts, such as control orders and increased detentions, provoked intense debates over civil liberties. Much research on media-state relations in the context of responses to 9/11 have found evidence to support the elite-driven paradigm, whereby the media have been shown to fail in their adversarial ‘watchdog’ role by acting as ‘faithful servants’ (Wolfsfeld, 1997) to the political agenda. This research tested these assumptions by examining the media framing of the UK government’s legislative responses to terrorism post-9/11. In so doing, it analyses the relationship between the media and the New Labour government in the context of the policymaking process. To date, longitudinal studies that map the UK media-state nexus within the context of terrorism policymaking are lacking. This thesis therefore, addresses the lacunae in the scholarship. In terms of its theoretical framework, this thesis tests three competing models of media performance (elite-driven, oppositional and independent) on British press reporting of the parliamentary debates (Robinson et al., 2010). Methodologically, it takes an inductive approach to analysing the framing of the debates, and draws on material gleaned from interviews with four former home secretaries. The findings reveal that of the three meta-frames (national security, civil liberties and party politics), the politics frame dominated across all four case studies. Although government sources dominated the debates, the evidence suggests that they had limited influence over the news agenda, which runs contra to the elite-driven (redefined here as government-driven) hypothesis. Instead, at an aggregate level, the evidence lends greater support for the independent model. There is also evidence that some sections of the press did subject the legislation to more robust scrutiny, and thus, to some degree, fulfilled their role as political watchdogs, which supports the oppositional thesis.

Many indigenous communities perceive an intimate connection between land and religion, and land has, and continues to remain, at the heart of indigenous-state relations. This dissertation examines how philosophies of land and religion in correlation with histories of dispossession and differentiation contribute to socio-political structures that threaten the religious freedom of Aboriginal peoples and the very existence of indigenous religious traditions, cultures, and sacred sites in Canada today. Through a political-philosophical approach to ethical concerns of justice as fairness, national minorities’ rights, and religious freedom, I examine court decisions, legislation, and official protocols that shape contemporary indigenous-state relations. I identify philosophical and structural issues preventing Canada from protecting the fundamental rights guaranteed to indigenous peoples and all Canadians. More specifically, I examine the historical manifestations of concepts of land and religion in philosophies of colonization, emphasizing their effects in contemporary indigenous-state relations. I analyze the impacts of secularization, socio-economic expansion, and the dispossession of Aboriginal traditional lands on the protection of indigenous cultural rights and off-reserve sacred sites. Based on this analysis, I discuss communicative democratic theory and the potential benefits and limitations of the “Duty to Consult and Accommodate”—the most recent framework for indigenous-state relations—for the protection of indigenous religious traditions and the importance of the inclusion of indigenous peoples in administrative and decision-making processes. Finally, I explore indigenous representation, religious revitalization and the politics of authenticity, authority, diversity and cultural change.

This thesis focuses on the interrelationship between Canadian colonial histories and Indigenous healing. I begin by problematising how colonialism is invoked in contemporary scholarship on Aboriginal health and healing, and arguing for more precise historical methods and a more relational understanding of colonial processes. Historicising Indigenous agency is integral to this analysis. Whilst colonial continuities in contemporary Canadian public policy discourse is an important theme, I also attend to social movements, institutions, professions, and political and economic forces beyond the state. Indigenous healing as a socio-political movement itself has a history dating at least to the late 1960s. Urban Indigenous healing discourse is characterised by linking present-day suffering to collective historical losses, and valorizing the reclamation of Indigenous identity, knowledge and social relations. Drawing on urban Indigenous social histories from Kenora and Toronto, I consider the urban healing movement as an example of Indigenous resistance influenced by the international decolonization and North American Red Power movements, but which over time has also engaged with dominant institutions, professions, policies, and discourses, such as the concept of trauma. My analysis considers professionals and patients invoking historical trauma as political agents, both responding to and participating in broader shifts in the moral economy. These shifts have created the conditions of possibility for public victimhood to become a viable strategy for attracting attention and resources to suffering and injustice. The thesis highlights the centrality and complexity of self-determination in urban Indigenous healing, drawing on historical and ethnographic analysis from three southern Ontario cities. I analyse how the liberal multiculturalism paradigm dominant in health policy and health care settings contributes to mental health professionals’ failure to recognise Aboriginal clients and issues. I argue that characterising pan-Aboriginal and ethno-national healing as approaches in opposition to one another produces an insufficiently nuanced analysis in the context of urban Indigenous subjectivities and social relations, where both approaches are valuable for different reasons. The thesis urges greater attention to the role of languages and local histories, and to the threat which dominant policy discourses on residential schools and mental health pose to the maintenance of distinct ethno-national histories, epistemologies and traditions in urban Indigenous healing.

This thesis focuses on the interrelationship between Canadian colonial histories and Indigenous healing. I begin by problematising how colonialism is invoked in contemporary scholarship on Aboriginal health and healing, and arguing for more precise historical methods and a more relational understanding of colonial processes. Historicising Indigenous agency is integral to this analysis. Whilst colonial continuities in contemporary Canadian public policy discourse is an important theme, I also attend to social movements, institutions, professions, and political and economic forces beyond the state. Indigenous healing as a socio-political movement itself has a history dating at least to the late 1960s. Urban Indigenous healing discourse is characterised by linking present-day suffering to collective historical losses, and valorizing the reclamation of Indigenous identity, knowledge and social relations. Drawing on urban Indigenous social histories from Kenora and Toronto, I consider the urban healing movement as an example of Indigenous resistance influenced by the international decolonization and North American Red Power movements, but which over time has also engaged with dominant institutions, professions, policies, and discourses, such as the concept of trauma. My analysis considers professionals and patients invoking historical trauma as political agents, both responding to and participating in broader shifts in the moral economy. These shifts have created the conditions of possibility for public victimhood to become a viable strategy for attracting attention and resources to suffering and injustice. The thesis highlights the centrality and complexity of self-determination in urban Indigenous healing, drawing on historical and ethnographic analysis from three southern Ontario cities. I analyse how the liberal multiculturalism paradigm dominant in health policy and health care settings contributes to mental health professionals’ failure to recognise Aboriginal clients and issues. I argue that characterising pan-Aboriginal and ethno-national healing as approaches in opposition to one another produces an insufficiently nuanced analysis in the context of urban Indigenous subjectivities and social relations, where both approaches are valuable for different reasons. The thesis urges greater attention to the role of languages and local histories, and to the threat which dominant policy discourses on residential schools and mental health pose to the maintenance of distinct ethno-national histories, epistemologies and traditions in urban Indigenous healing.

Inuit exercise a significant degree of self-determination in Nunavut through the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, particularly in the area of non-renewable resource development. Self-determination is linked to both Inuit and Canadian identity and conceptualized in its democratic form as relationships of autonomy and interdependence mediated by resource management institutions. This thesis argues that democratic self-determination depends on local experiences of reciprocity and legitimate institutional representation. Nunavut’s institutional actors have the potential to establish locally acceptable norms of reciprocity and representation through (quasi-) constitutionally mandated Inuit Associations, an Inuit public government at the municipal and territorial levels, and resource co-management boards. Using a qualitative research methodology involving document analysis, semi-structured interviews and participant observation, this thesis explores how residents of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, are experiencing democratic self-determination from the perspectives of representation and reciprocity. Results indicate that conflict between municipalities and Inuit Associations over the distribution of resource benefits can overshadow attitudes of reciprocity between public and Inuit spheres. Although both Inuit Associations and public governments are seen as legitimately representing local interests in resource development, each have distinct roles: Inuit Associations negotiate Impact and Benefit Agreements with industry as a matter of right, while public government’s role is the responsible delivery of social services. The legitimacy of Inuit Associations as representatives of Inuit interests was challenged by a minority of research participants who expressed concerns about elitism and unaccountability of Inuit officials, and educational barriers to non-elite participation in decision-making. Meanwhile the criticisms registered against the public governments illustrated contemporary attitudes of resentment based on a history of colonialism and distance from centre to periphery. The Nunavut Impact Review Board was found to be a valuable mechanism for managing Inuit-state relations in its ability to foster trust, though its ability to determine the just distribution of resource benefits is circumscribed. Ultimately, this research suggests that from the perspective of reciprocity and legitimate representation, the birth of Nunavut should not be considered an end to the struggle for greater local democratic control over economic and political destinies.

Inuit exercise a significant degree of self-determination in Nunavut through the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, particularly in the area of non-renewable resource development. Self-determination is linked to both Inuit and Canadian identity and conceptualized in its democratic form as relationships of autonomy and interdependence mediated by resource management institutions. This thesis argues that democratic self-determination depends on local experiences of reciprocity and legitimate institutional representation. Nunavut’s institutional actors have the potential to establish locally acceptable norms of reciprocity and representation through (quasi-) constitutionally mandated Inuit Associations, an Inuit public government at the municipal and territorial levels, and resource co-management boards. Using a qualitative research methodology involving document analysis, semi-structured interviews and participant observation, this thesis explores how residents of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, are experiencing democratic self-determination from the perspectives of representation and reciprocity. Results indicate that conflict between municipalities and Inuit Associations over the distribution of resource benefits can overshadow attitudes of reciprocity between public and Inuit spheres. Although both Inuit Associations and public governments are seen as legitimately representing local interests in resource development, each have distinct roles: Inuit Associations negotiate Impact and Benefit Agreements with industry as a matter of right, while public government’s role is the responsible delivery of social services. The legitimacy of Inuit Associations as representatives of Inuit interests was challenged by a minority of research participants who expressed concerns about elitism and unaccountability of Inuit officials, and educational barriers to non-elite participation in decision-making. Meanwhile the criticisms registered against the public governments illustrated contemporary attitudes of resentment based on a history of colonialism and distance from centre to periphery. The Nunavut Impact Review Board was found to be a valuable mechanism for managing Inuit-state relations in its ability to foster trust, though its ability to determine the just distribution of resource benefits is circumscribed. Ultimately, this research suggests that from the perspective of reciprocity and legitimate representation, the birth of Nunavut should not be considered an end to the struggle for greater local democratic control over economic and political destinies.

In Canada, First Nations asserting authority over their lands are developing diverse strategies to overcome the state’s dogmatic insistence on jurisdictional sovereignty. This movement corresponds to the wider context of the challenges faced by indigenous people to use their own ways of knowing to resist or reformulate legal doctrines and political tenets based on colonial power. Interior Salish St’át’imc people identify themselves through a strong and ongoing social relationship with Satáqwa7, the Fraser River, and the “Valley of Plenty”— now known as the flooded Bridge River Valley – maintained through St’át’imc knowledge and cultural practice and demonstrated by talk of “the St’át’imc right to fish” and Tsuwalhkálh Ti Tmícwa (The Land is Ours). St’át’imc fishers are prepared to contest and resist any regulatory system that is understood to impact this right to fish while they advocate their own ways of sustainable fishing and water management. Based on ethnographic research in collaboration with St’át’imc people, this thesis explores some of these often successful contestations especially in the context of increasing territorial governance and by example of the rapidly transforming relationship between St’át’imc, BC Hydro and the Province of BC. Interior Salish St’át’imc people are currently navigating through a significant phase of increasing jurisdiction and authority and recognition of (unsettled) territorial property relationships. This very dynamic process is marked by strategic collaborations, compensation for ‘infringements’ on St’át’imc Title and Rights, and conservation efforts to protect their home. An important example is the changing relationship between St’át’imc people and BC Hydro – a relationship between two groups with radically different cultures and agendas: St’át’imc people in a struggle for self-determination, social justice and cultural survival and BC Hydro, a corporate culture, with the agenda to provide hydro-electric power to BC, maintain operation ‘certainty’ and to generate revenue. Exploring the different ways of relating to and acting on the land will allow for more holistic and shared cultural practices of co-governing land, working collectively, remembering history, co-existing in the present and sharing a common future according to the ethical ideals of reconciliation: accountability for wrongdoing, justice, sharing, respect, transcending of hegemonic silences and increased public knowledge. / Graduate

Many indigenous communities perceive an intimate connection between land and religion, and land has, and continues to remain, at the heart of indigenous-state relations. This dissertation examines how philosophies of land and religion in correlation with histories of dispossession and differentiation contribute to socio-political structures that threaten the religious freedom of Aboriginal peoples and the very existence of indigenous religious traditions, cultures, and sacred sites in Canada today. Through a political-philosophical approach to ethical concerns of justice as fairness, national minorities’ rights, and religious freedom, I examine court decisions, legislation, and official protocols that shape contemporary indigenous-state relations. I identify philosophical and structural issues preventing Canada from protecting the fundamental rights guaranteed to indigenous peoples and all Canadians. More specifically, I examine the historical manifestations of concepts of land and religion in philosophies of colonization, emphasizing their effects in contemporary indigenous-state relations. I analyze the impacts of secularization, socio-economic expansion, and the dispossession of Aboriginal traditional lands on the protection of indigenous cultural rights and off-reserve sacred sites. Based on this analysis, I discuss communicative democratic theory and the potential benefits and limitations of the “Duty to Consult and Accommodate”—the most recent framework for indigenous-state relations—for the protection of indigenous religious traditions and the importance of the inclusion of indigenous peoples in administrative and decision-making processes. Finally, I explore indigenous representation, religious revitalization and the politics of authenticity, authority, diversity and cultural change.

This dissertation examines two recent programs for post-secondary Islamic theological training in Europe that aim to produce a new class of professional Islamic scholars for emerging roles within European society. Graduates can use their training and new qualifications to secure advanced professional roles and leadership positions within the Muslim community and the broader society and state. In the process, these graduates develop and define an emergent institutional role for Islamic knowledge and authority in Europe. This study is based in seven months of fieldwork research in 2017 at two centers for higher Islamic education, including participant observation within classrooms and interviews with students, faculty and alumni. Founded in 2009, the Cambridge Muslim College in Cambridge, England is a small private school that provides professional training for about a dozen graduates of the many Islamic seminaries in the UK. Founded in 2012 with support from the German state, the Center for Islamic Theology at the University of Tübingen provides Islamic theological training to hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students each year, many of whom have received no prior formal Islamic education. In addition to the institutional differences between the schools, their graduates enter into different job markets. Where the British graduates must develop new entrepreneurial roles for Islamic leaders in the UK, the German graduates become the skilled workforce to meet existing demand for public school Islam teachers, academic theologians and professional chaplains. Comparing these two educational programs—one private, the other public—this dissertation explores how the position of each school vis-á-vis the Muslim community and the state shapes the construction of scholarly authority and the professional outcomes of the graduates. It finds that students at each school leverage their new authority to formulate creative programs of Islamic reform that justify and promote new roles for professional Islamic scholars within both the Muslim community and the larger society. Drawing upon current scholarship about Muslim identity, Islamic authority and secularism in Europe, this study considers how prevailing national discourses that marginalize Muslims in Europe shape students’ creative programs of reform and so also the future institution of Islamic knowledge in Europe. / 2022-09-30T00:00:00Z