The drinking water contamination tragedy in Walkerton, Ontario during the spring of 2000 led to many changes in water management for the province. Among these changes has been the increased use of the multiple barrier approach (MBA) to safe drinking water as the basis of water management for communities throughout Ontario. The MBA is also used in the management of water for First Nations communities throughout Ontario and Canada. Literature on water quality management for First Nations suggests that despite these changes, many communities continue to face challenges for ensuring the safety and quality of their drinking water supplies. Fort William First Nation, Gull Bay First Nation, and Mattagami First Nation, were selected for this study in order to investigate the use of the MBA in these communities. Data was collected using key informant interviews with representatives of institutions that affect water management for the case study communities, direct observations during visits to two of the communities and attendance at a First Nations water policy forum, and through a review of recent reports and publications on safe drinking water for First Nations. The research has provided insight into the challenges that the case study communities face for ensuring safe drinking water under the MBA, as well as opportunities that exist to address those challenges. The findings suggest that the MBA currently does not meet the unique needs of some First Nations communities. They also suggest that specific adaptations of existing water management strategies to the MBA framework may lead to a more effective approach to ensure safe drinking water for First Nations communities. This thesis focuses on several key ways to make these changes: Strengthen public involvement and awareness; Introduce effective legislative and policy frameworks; Encourage research, science and technology for First Nations’ water management; Allocate sufficient financial resources to First Nations to recruit, train and retain qualified water managers and maintain drinking water infrastructure, and; Increase efforts to ensure that water management goals are supported by local and indigenous traditional knowledge, beliefs and perspectives.

This thesis analyses the struggle over rights to benefits and ownership of plant genetic resources and the global regime complex on the management of plant genetic resources, and how different regimes concerning these resources cooperate or stand in opposition to each other. Because of changes in US patent law and the establishment of TRIPS, patent claims over plant genetic resources has increased dramatically globally. This, amongst other things, in turn has lead to the acrimonious negotiations of access and benefit sharing arrangements within the framework CBD. The objective of this thesis is to examine the interaction between the international regimes regulating genetic resources and intellectual property and to analyse how these regime interactions, affect the protection of traditional knowledge held by local communities, indigenous peoples and small farmers in developing countries. The thesis concludes that it exists several regime interactions that are disruptive and undermine the possibility of protecting traditional knowledge from misappropriation. It is further concluded that modifications of the existing IPR regimes, on the disclosure of inventions, with a certificate of legal provenance, securing FPIC, MAT and benefit sharing, may serve as one brick in the wall that protect traditional knowledge from misappropriation through wrongly granted patents. But a certificate of legal provenance will not do the work alone. To protect traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources in the long term bio-cultural solutions which sustains the entire community where traditional knowledge is embedded is needed.

Traditional food knowledge (TFK) refers to a cultural tradition of sharing food, recipes and cooking skills and techniques and passing down that collective wisdom through generations. The value of this knowledge is hidden in a global food system offering an abundance of commercial convenience foods. This study defines TFK and explores its value to assert space for its recovery and renewal. Using Trevor Hancock’s research on healthy communities and models, such as the Mandala of Health (1985), traditional food knowledge will be analyzed for its potential to contribute to individual and community ecosystem health. The role of traditional food knowledge is examined with respect to promoting biocultural diversity and improving the capacity for food production among citizens. Food diversity is an important component of human nutrition and can be an indicator for a bioculturally diverse region. Studies on biocultural diversity recognize the close connection between cultural and biological diversity. Only recently have the losses in cultural heritage, such as traditional food knowledge garnered academic and policy attention. Traditional food knowledge can be one means of asserting cultural identity and can be a way to connect people to the natural world. Transmitting this knowledge is one important means of fostering sustainable livelihoods, ecosystem health and enhanced individual and community capacity. Traditional food knowledge can provide an individual with the capacity to prepare meals that are nutritious, safe and culturally relevant. This skill can support adaptation to altered food environments, such as is the case for immigrants and indigenous populations. The food system itself has rapidly changed with global industrialization, urbanization and cultural homogenization; and traditional food knowledge is no exception. The distinct expressions of taste and place are facing a continuity gap when traditional food knowledge is not passed forward, but rather sidelined as an abstract, historical concept. This study takes a qualitative case study approach exploring the concept of traditional food knowledge. The existing literature is compared to the lived experience of immigrants and their families in the Canadian suburban context, specifically in Mississauga, Ontario. This study explores the relevance and value of traditional food knowledge to Indonesian-Chinese New Canadians, their families and the wider community. Despite the colossal challenges posed by a global food industry, there are personal and community benefits to gaining or relearning traditional food knowledge. The community capacity increases with a greater number of skilled practitioners and educated consumers. Informal sharing of the cultural life skills engages people from various walks of life as they learn about, and from, each other. Governance that enables and sustains this type of community exchange will require changes to ensure equitable support for the opportunity for such informal learning and capacity building to occur among all citizens.

The drinking water contamination tragedy in Walkerton, Ontario during the spring of 2000 led to many changes in water management for the province. Among these changes has been the increased use of the multiple barrier approach (MBA) to safe drinking water as the basis of water management for communities throughout Ontario. The MBA is also used in the management of water for First Nations communities throughout Ontario and Canada. Literature on water quality management for First Nations suggests that despite these changes, many communities continue to face challenges for ensuring the safety and quality of their drinking water supplies. Fort William First Nation, Gull Bay First Nation, and Mattagami First Nation, were selected for this study in order to investigate the use of the MBA in these communities. Data was collected using key informant interviews with representatives of institutions that affect water management for the case study communities, direct observations during visits to two of the communities and attendance at a First Nations water policy forum, and through a review of recent reports and publications on safe drinking water for First Nations. The research has provided insight into the challenges that the case study communities face for ensuring safe drinking water under the MBA, as well as opportunities that exist to address those challenges. The findings suggest that the MBA currently does not meet the unique needs of some First Nations communities. They also suggest that specific adaptations of existing water management strategies to the MBA framework may lead to a more effective approach to ensure safe drinking water for First Nations communities. This thesis focuses on several key ways to make these changes: Strengthen public involvement and awareness; Introduce effective legislative and policy frameworks; Encourage research, science and technology for First Nations’ water management; Allocate sufficient financial resources to First Nations to recruit, train and retain qualified water managers and maintain drinking water infrastructure, and; Increase efforts to ensure that water management goals are supported by local and indigenous traditional knowledge, beliefs and perspectives.

W. E. B. Du Bois‘ legendary reflections on the ―peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one‘s self through the eyes of others‖ has been applied almost exclusively to the souls of African American people (Du Bois 1903). This thesis shows how the concept of double-consciousness is alive in the stories told by Native Americans. I draw upon data from two websites that have recorded the stories told by ―exemplary indigenous elders, historians, storytellers and song carriers‖ and their oral traditions that serve the ―purpose of cultural preservation, education, and race reconciliation‖ (Wisdom of the Elders, 2009). From that population, I chose one hundred and three stories for my sample in this study. Employing qualitative methodology – thematic analysis, grounded theory, and narrative analysis - I examine these stories for the ways in which they claim to present a more satisfying identity for Native people than the myths, formula stories, and stereotypes of Native Americans that circulate through the dominant culture. They construct subversive stories that arise from their double-consciousness and challenge hegemonic concepts of Native identity, nature, and knowledge. This research will begin to fill the large gap in sociological literature on Native Americans in general and Native Americans in particular, while offering a novel application of ―double-consciousness,‖ a foundational concept in critical race theory.

Indigenous peoples worldwide are engaged in the process of rebuilding and re-empowering their communities. They are faced with challenges emerging from a history of physical, spiritual, emotional, and economic colonization, challenges including a degraded resource base, lack of infrastructure, and consistent pressure on their land tenure and ways of life. These communities, however, continue demonstrating profound resilience in the midst of these challenges; working to re-empower and provide for the contemporary needs of their people in a manner grounded in supporting bio-cultural integrity; the interconnected relationship of people and homeland. At the same time, in response to contemporary environmental degradation, the fields of resilience science, adaptive management, and ecological engineering have emerged, the recommendations of which bear remarkable similarity to Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies, and governance structures. The relationship between these fields and Indigenous epistemology, underscored by experience in the field, has led to the conceptualization of bio-cultural engineering design; design that emerges from the inter-relationship of people and ecology. The biocultural engineering design methodology identifies the unique cosmological relationships and cultural underpinnings of contemporary Indigenous communities, and applies this specific cultural lens to engineered design and architecture. The development of resilience principles within the fields of architecture and engineering have created avenues for biocultural design to be translatable into engineering and architectural design documents, allowing access to large scale financial support for community development. This method is explored herein through literature and analysis of practical application in several different Indigenous communities and nations. This method lends itself to future research on biocultural design processes as a source of technological and design innovation as Indigenous communities practice placing their values and cosmologies at the center of development decisions, as well as comprehensive start-to-finish documentation of the methodology applied to diverse engineered applications, including water systems, energy systems, and building construction.

This project explores the Ktunaxa Nation's creation stories in order to understand the significance of these narratives in the formation and maintenance of the Ktunaxa culture. These stories inform and support the Ktunaxa ways of knowing, their worldviews, their history pre- and post-contact, and their connection to the geography of the Ktunaxa territory. Performance theory has been used to identify the ways in which the stories were shared during the filming of this project, and narrative inquiry has been used to draw out the creation story's central themes and how they relate to the ethnophilosophy of the Ktunaxa people --the interdependence of humans with all of creation; lessons from the animals including Skincu¢ the Coyote; the trauma of residential schools and the impact that has had on the culture and stories of the Ktunaxa; the landforms within the territory; and the responsibilities of all human beings according to these teachings. The research reflections identify truths that emerged through the ceremony of storytelling--rules to live by, ways to approach those within and outside the culture, lessons about being part of a community, and how to pattern the people and the culture off of the surrounding wildlife and geography. These lessons and stories relate to and support the culture of the Ktunaxa, past and present, by providing a connection to the Ktunaxa landscape and all that is within it, and anchors the culture with stories of that place that have been told for many thousands of years. Finally, this project discusses how Aboriginal worldviews contribute to and nourish the field of communication studies.

Connections to the Land: the Politics of Health and Wellbeing in Arviat, Nunavut is about traditional knowledge as process. The thesis examines the relationships between Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) [“the Inuit way of doing things”; traditional knowledge (TK);], Inuit perceptions of health and wellbeing and the land; and what the relationships mean for integrated coastal and ocean management. Among Arviat Inuit (Arviarmiut), IQ, health and wellbeing and the land are tightly interconnected. When one relationship is stressed, disruptions occur throughout the whole system. IQ is embedded in Inuit perceptions of health and wellbeing, and to be healthy, Inuit maintain they must interact with the land in Inuit ways. In 2004, issues surrounding the nature of IQ, its control, production, documentation and legitimation were contested by Arviarmiut. Inuit strongly resented input from academics, resource managers, scientists or other southern “experts”. Arviarmiut sensitivities regarding IQ were in part the result of the rapid social change that had occurred over the last half century. Social systems suffered upheaval as colonial processes and institutions impacted values, networks, families and identity. The rate of change did not allow for time for traditional systems to adapt, and aspects of social change happened out of sync with each other resulting in dysfunction. Arviat’s history of relocation, uneven social change and expanded communication ability all affected the formation of IQ. Through participatory research, participant observation, interviews and network-building with Inuit organizations, the research explores IQ as process and the interconnections with the land and wellbeing. It recommends greater integration of Inuit into resource management planning and decision-making in ways consistent with IQ; and allowing Inuit to decide what processes and policies are most appropriate for them.

Connections to the Land: the Politics of Health and Wellbeing in Arviat, Nunavut is about traditional knowledge as process. The thesis examines the relationships between Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) [“the Inuit way of doing things”; traditional knowledge (TK);], Inuit perceptions of health and wellbeing and the land; and what the relationships mean for integrated coastal and ocean management. Among Arviat Inuit (Arviarmiut), IQ, health and wellbeing and the land are tightly interconnected. When one relationship is stressed, disruptions occur throughout the whole system. IQ is embedded in Inuit perceptions of health and wellbeing, and to be healthy, Inuit maintain they must interact with the land in Inuit ways. In 2004, issues surrounding the nature of IQ, its control, production, documentation and legitimation were contested by Arviarmiut. Inuit strongly resented input from academics, resource managers, scientists or other southern “experts”. Arviarmiut sensitivities regarding IQ were in part the result of the rapid social change that had occurred over the last half century. Social systems suffered upheaval as colonial processes and institutions impacted values, networks, families and identity. The rate of change did not allow for time for traditional systems to adapt, and aspects of social change happened out of sync with each other resulting in dysfunction. Arviat’s history of relocation, uneven social change and expanded communication ability all affected the formation of IQ. Through participatory research, participant observation, interviews and network-building with Inuit organizations, the research explores IQ as process and the interconnections with the land and wellbeing. It recommends greater integration of Inuit into resource management planning and decision-making in ways consistent with IQ; and allowing Inuit to decide what processes and policies are most appropriate for them.

This thesis examines the extent to which the Karuk Tribe has participated in natural resource management regulatory processes, using the Klamath River Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) process as a particular case study for evaluation. One of the most effective ways that the Tribe participates in the TMDL process is through the rigorous adoption of the technical tools of regulatory science. Collaboration with nontribal organizations is also used to build capacity for participation. The Tribe’s active participation in the TMDL process has in turn shaped the process, making it more inclusive of tribal values and traditional knowledge, improving overall scientific inquiry, and facilitating increased cooperation among tribal and non-tribal resource managers. At the same time, the Tribe’s participation in the process remains “uneven,” underscoring the ongoing challenge of making regulatory processes that recognize the legitimacy of tribal knowledge and values.