Recent reports indicate that the nutritional status of native Indians is poorer than that of the general population. The culture of native Canadians is currently in a state of transition, with many factors affecting traditional life patterns, producing rapid changes in lifestyles. The present study was undertaken in order to gain fuller understanding of those problems related to food intake and the influence of social and cultural factors. By use of a 24-hour recall, the nutrient content of diets of 144 individuals living at three reserves adjacent to urban centres was compared with diets of 105 individuals at four relatively isolated Indian reserves. Interviews were conducted with 92 women from the seven reserves and information regarding food beliefs, shopping habits, meal planning, food practices, as well as selected socio-economic and family variables, was collected. In addition, data on food prices and foods available in local stores was gathered. Analysis of nutrient intake data showed that low intakes were frequent for calories, calcium, iron and vitamin C. Low caloric intakes were observed for adolescents and most adults, regardless of reserve location. Calcium intakes were lowest on isolated reserves, while iron status was poorest in non-isolated communities. Vitamin C intakes on isolated reserves were considerably lower than on non-isolated reserves. Rank correlation coefficients using Kendall's tau beta demonstrated that several independent variables were related to the dependent variable, food practices of the female household head. These included the location of the reserve, education of respondents, the women's attitudes toward nutrition, household size, and the level reached on the household facilities scale. The most significant factor related to food consumption was isolation (p<.001), with diets in urban areas being more adequate than those in rural areas. Overall food selection was poorest in isolated reserves, notably Babine and Fort Ware. The items most often in short supply were dairy products, fresh meats and fresh fruits and vegetables. Food costs were also highest in the most isolated reserves. It was concluded that food practices of native Indians are poorer at isolated reserves than at those adjacent to urban centres. Indications are that this is a consequence of the interaction of a number of factors: high food prices, poor selection, unemployment, inadequate housing and household facilities, depleting natural food resources, a lack of food/nutrition information, as well as a lack of involvement in health-related programmes. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

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This is a heuristic study about successful Ethiopian refugees in British Columbia. Heuristic research is another building block of phenomenological inquiry; it permits the researcher to discover his/her lived-experience within the phenomena. This research explores and discovers the lived-experiences of participants as articulated feelings and views on their sense of identity. Each participant's stories stand for the realities of who they are and how they made the transition of reconstructing their identity as a means of assimilating into Canadian society. Furthermore, their stories describe the patterns and processes of negotiation and re-negotiation of their identity in order to become successful in their new social environment. This research highlights ten participants' processes of adapting into a new environment, reconstructing their identity, and embracing change. Although the explored experiences represent only those who made a successful transition and reached a high degree of adaptation and assimilation in Canadian society, the results of this study provide a deeper understanding of Ethiopians in general, the integral role of culture, and its influence on individual identity to most immigrants. The study provides imperative information, as told by Ethiopians, to community, practitioners, professionals, and scholars as well as adds new knowledge about the complexity of Ethiopian immigrants' stories as no one had asked them before this study. The study found that participants whose tribal background was considered to be of a minority and experienced oppression and discrimination by the dominant tribe in Ethiopia, coped well with reconstruction of identity as well as with barriers in the Western world. Those who were rooted from the dominant tribe in Ethiopia, experienced adaptation and assimilation in the Western world difficult and at times intolerable. Similarly, the individual definitions of success and failure are associated with the strength of, or in-depth knowledge of one's sources of identity and the degree of connectedness and interdependency. The findings are comparable to explanations of identity patterns (individual, cultural, social, and political) found in similar studies of immigrants or refugees. However, one may notice that none of the participants in this study were from the same tribe and each participant's experiences and meanings either in Ethiopia or Canada are different. Nonetheless, the general sense of identity, roles, and influences of community found in this study validated the explanations and definitions posited in the literature (i.e., associated factors for self definition as well as influences on social and cultural identity). Furthermore, the extracted meanings also have confirmed sources of identity as being congruent to the adopted theory of this research as it linked to their roots, exposure to diversity, and creativeness not only in determining their skills of accepting or rejecting their new social, cultural, and economic values, but also allowing them to select (filter) values and beliefs that are desirable to become a member of the community in their new country. / Graduate

Graduation date: 1969

This thesis examines the past, present and future development and nature of Aboriginal archives and archiving in British Columbia, set in Canadian and international perspective. The thesis focuses on Aboriginal archives in BC because the higher number of First Nations there than elsewhere in Canada makes it one of the most prominent and important areas of Aboriginal archiving activity in the country. The thesis begins with an introduction to the holistic ways in which Aboriginal people in Canada traditionally recorded, preserved, and communicated knowledge and history over time, and thus the methods by which they “archived” up to the mid-twentieth century, in contrast to and compared with Euro-Canadian traditions of archiving. It then goes on to explore the various forces that directly and indirectly disrupted the processes by which Aboriginal culture and knowledge, and thus memory and identity, were transmitted from one generation to the next. As a result of these forces, and the inevitable intertwining of Aboriginal and Euro-Canadian cultures and worldviews, Aboriginal people increasingly found themselves having to access Euro-Canadian archives or establish their own along similar lines. In BC, where historically very few treaties were signed, the documentation created in the context of land claims and treaty negotiations in particular meant that such records were couched in occidental rather than Aboriginal people’s own cultural terms and thus demanded corresponding storage and use methods. Thus, the thesis suggests that such new approaches to Aboriginal archives and archiving were a “reactionary” or defensive response to legal, political, and social requirements and forces, rather than simply as a basis for communicating and recording a traditionally “holistic” sense of culture, memory, and identity. And, as will be seen, this reactionary response was not limited to BC, but would reveal itself concurrently in the rest of Canada, and in other colonised countries such as Australia and the United States. With the results of a questionnaire responded to in Australia, Canada, and the U.S., the thesis then presents comparative national and international approaches to, experiences with, and views on Aboriginal archives and archiving. With these explorations in hand, the thesis concludes with the suggestion that Aboriginal archiving is now coming full circle, returning to its holistic roots, having been positively influenced by the power inherent in the reactionary approach, but also newly challenged with varying issues. At the same time, Aboriginal archiving has challenged and contributed to a redefinition of traditional, Euro-Canadian notions of archiving, and thus pushed the boundaries of archiving as we know it. / February 2009