This thesis explores contemporary Crown - First Nations relationships in British Columbia through a comparative analysis of the Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement and the court decision in Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia. The comparative analysis considers First Nations’ claims to land, rights and jurisdiction entering the processes of treaty and litigation with respect to how the claims are modified as a result. The reduction of land and limitations placed on claims through treaty and trial are indicative of the quality of the relationships the provincial Crown pursues with First Nations. Given the historic injustices of denying Aboriginal rights and title in BC, the province’s history of colonization requires a new relationship to be just and equitable. The Crown’s pursuit of economic certainty overwhelms the potential for justice to be achieved, which are both fundamental aspects requiring balance for a healthy relationship to be established. The outcome of the analysis reveals the Crown’s ongoing colonization of First Nations in British Columbia. As a result, this thesis attempts to offer a decolonized view of these relationships and some solutions for moving forward by placing the onus of responsibility squarely on the people of British Columbia to demand change from our provincial government. / Graduate

While it is generally agreed that First Nations in Canada are facing a housing crisis in their communities, the Canadian public has largely misunderstood what the crisis of housing is, thus frustrating efforts to improve the situation. A re-conceptualization of the problem of on-reserve housing as a crisis of governance with roots in processes of colonialism (both historical and ongoing) offers the possibility of addressing the crisis and moving forward. This research seeks to situate housing as an important site of engagement for First Nations and settler society (as important in decolonization efforts as it was in colonization) and points to the importance of relationships both within Indigenous communities and with settler society in restoring governance and improving housing. Housing has been a contested site throughout the history of First Nations-settler relations, with colonial policies focusing on reshaping how First Nations lived. These policies have been consistently resisted by First Nations. This history of struggle provides the crucial context for understanding how and why housing has reached an impasse. This impasse is illustrated by examining federal housing policy, which appears to offer increased community control over housing but does so without addressing underlying governance and capacity issues. First Nations are becoming increasingly responsible for on-reserve housing without corresponding supports or redress for the history of colonialism that has created the crisis. Current approaches to solving housing problems on-reserve are then critically assessed, focusing on policy and legislative moves toward homeownership and privatization on-reserve. I argue that this approach circumscribes self-determination for First Nations in particular ways, reducing these claims to a set of market based options. Finally, several innovative community housing initiatives are examined, moving beyond the debate to privatize. Priorities identified are consistent across the examples: housing is at the service of the community, is affordable, builds local capacity, is self-sustaining, is culturally and environmentally appropriate, and the locus of authority remains in the community. The initiatives were achieved by cultivating relationships, both within First Nation communities and with settler society. In this thesis, I suggest the importance of housing for decolonization efforts for First Nation and settler alike. / Graduate / 0334 / 0740

Empress Dowager Cixi is one of the most widely recognized leaders of late Qing China, and she has been the major subject of numerous non-fiction and academic publications in Europe and North America. This, however, does not mean that Western knowledge on Cixi is strong. Although certain books, particularly those written by Cixi’s closest associates, do provide valuable information describing who she was, most of these books, along with many others, also contain fabricated claims about her as well. As a result, falsities have become heavily intertwined with factual records of Cixi in Western publications. This thesis attempts to re-examine these Western works in order to reach a correct understanding of Cixi’s life. In particular, this study demonstrates how a few major ideological trends, such as imperialism, Orientalism, sexism, and feminism, have influenced Western publications on Cixi and brought either bias or insights into the literature on her. / Graduate / 0332 / 0578 / 0582 / dchen@uvic.ca

The “colonial wall” is the analogy drawn between a visible, physical barrier designed to confine, control, and contain a nation and a psychological barrier designed to control, confine, and contain a nation by internalized colonialist subjugation or colonizer domination. This thesis answers the question, “How are colonial policies and ideologies internalized by Indigenous and Settler populations to maintain the relationship of domination and oppression in modern society?” The secondary questions explore how colonialism is perpetuated by both colonizer and colonized and ask if there are situations occurring in society today to indicate a correlation to the Indigenous Seven Prophecies and Eighth Fire Prophecy. Research constitutes a review of literature to explore the questions from thematic categories that emerged from the analysis: economics, epistemology, politics, and patriarchy. There are numerous literary contributions on the colonial phenomenon but few offered explanations about how it affected the psychology of a colonized individual or even how cognitive function is affiliated with acts of domination that affect the psyche of the colonizer. This thesis documents and offers emerging theories on how colonial policies and practices are taken up to influence the dyadic relationship between Settler peoples and Aboriginal populations in Canada today. / Graduate / 0740 / 0452 / 0631 / brenda_st_germain@shaw.ca

This thesis explores representations of Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast within the discipline of Anthropology, with particular attention given to Hul’qumi’num’ speaking nations on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. Through a critical engagement with ethnography, linguistic, archival and oral history sources, I offer a critique of the harmful concepts of war and slave as mistranslations from Hul’qumi’num’ into English. The consequences of this mistranslation and lack of understanding permeate our social, cultural and political lives and relationships with settler society. By looking at the original Hul’qumi’num’ words, our laws, and our stories about inter-village relations, I will provide a healthy alternative understanding to the apocryphal representations of Coast Salish nations in Anthropology. I will conclude this discussion with revival of traditional Hul’qumi’num’ laws and practices of relationality and coexistence in marriage and exchanges. / Graduate / 0326 / 0740 / 0290 / flowersrachel@gmail.com

This dissertation analyzes tensions between Indigenous and Canadian authority over land and governance through a critical inquiry into jurisdiction. I examine jurisdiction in the context of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake’s territory, located about three hours north of Ottawa in the northernmost boreal region of Quebec. To undertake this study of overlapping jurisdiction, I analyze the struggle over resource management across the past thirty years on the territory and their struggle against the federal land claims policy. I map the ways in which space is differentiated under competing legal orders, where on the one hand, jurisdiction is produced by the sovereign territorial state through operations of economic and political calculation, and on the other, by the Algonquin nation through a kinship nexus of allocated hunting and trapping grounds, and by the daily caretaking practices associated with Anishnabe life on the territory. I raise questions as to how simultaneous operations of law may take place in a single area, across distinctive epistemological and ontological frameworks, and how jurisdictions are produced in this context. My dissertation examines how the Algonquins of Barriere Lake have contested the socio-spatial production of state sovereignty claims through the exercise of jurisdiction over their lands. My focus on jurisdiction in this dissertation turns our attention to the practices of settler colonial sovereignty in Canada, and especially to the role Indigenous law plays in resisting intervention on their lands. I examine the role Indigenous law plays in shaping the political economy of this country, seeking to identify whether a “distinct form of accumulation” emerges in the dialectic of settler colonialism and Canada’s staple state economy. The interpretive framework of jurisdiction allows us to examine the overlapping authority claims between Indigenous, state, regional, and private interests, and to parse out the ways in which these jurisdictional claims produce different kinds of political space.

This dissertation analyzes tensions between Indigenous and Canadian authority over land and governance through a critical inquiry into jurisdiction. I examine jurisdiction in the context of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake’s territory, located about three hours north of Ottawa in the northernmost boreal region of Quebec. To undertake this study of overlapping jurisdiction, I analyze the struggle over resource management across the past thirty years on the territory and their struggle against the federal land claims policy. I map the ways in which space is differentiated under competing legal orders, where on the one hand, jurisdiction is produced by the sovereign territorial state through operations of economic and political calculation, and on the other, by the Algonquin nation through a kinship nexus of allocated hunting and trapping grounds, and by the daily caretaking practices associated with Anishnabe life on the territory. I raise questions as to how simultaneous operations of law may take place in a single area, across distinctive epistemological and ontological frameworks, and how jurisdictions are produced in this context. My dissertation examines how the Algonquins of Barriere Lake have contested the socio-spatial production of state sovereignty claims through the exercise of jurisdiction over their lands. My focus on jurisdiction in this dissertation turns our attention to the practices of settler colonial sovereignty in Canada, and especially to the role Indigenous law plays in resisting intervention on their lands. I examine the role Indigenous law plays in shaping the political economy of this country, seeking to identify whether a “distinct form of accumulation” emerges in the dialectic of settler colonialism and Canada’s staple state economy. The interpretive framework of jurisdiction allows us to examine the overlapping authority claims between Indigenous, state, regional, and private interests, and to parse out the ways in which these jurisdictional claims produce different kinds of political space.

This thesis investigates the relationship between water resources, networks and territory under changing relations of rule in the West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories. It focuses on the creation of uneven patterns of water infrastructure development since Israeli occupation of the territory in 1967, and on their perpetration following the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority in 1995. This is produced by the interplay of three different imperatives of water resource development: a military-strategic and territorial one, represented by the Israeli Civil Administration, one based on national sovereignty over resources and universal water rights, represented by the Palestinian National Authority, and one based on technical efficiency of the sector, promoted by some international development institutions. The relative strength of these three actors in relation to each other, which in turn is influenced by the political history of the region, determines the physical outcome of water resource development.

This exegesis covers a period of research and art practice spanning from 2004 to 2007. I have combined visual arts with theoretical research practice that considers the notion of Australian colonialism via a post colonial construct. I have questioned how visual arts can convey various conditions relationships between settler and Indigenous cultures and in doing so have drawn on both personal art practice and the works of Australian artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. These references demonstrate an ongoing examination of black and white relations portrayed in art, ranging from the drawings of convict artist, Joseph Lycett, through to the post federation stance of Margaret Preston, whose works expressed a renewal of interest in Indigenous culture. In applying a research approach, I have utilised a Narrative Enquiry methodology with a comparative paradigm within a Creative Research framework, which allows for various interpretations of my themes through both text and visuals. These applications also express a personal view that has been formed from family and workplace experiences. These include cultural influences from my settler family history and settler historical events in general juxtaposed with an accumulated knowledge base that has evolved from my personal and professional experience within Indigenous arts and education. I have also cited examples from Australian colonial and postcolonial art and literature that have influenced the development of my visual language. These include applying stylistic approaches that incorporate various artistic aspects of figuration and the Picturesque and literal thematic mode based on satire and social commentary. Overall, my research work also expresses an ongoing and evolving process that has been guided and influenced by current Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian postcolonial critical thinking and arts criticism, assisting within the development of my personal views and philosophies .This process has supported the formation of a belief system that I believe has matured throughout my research and art practices, providing a personal confidence to assert my own analytical stance on colonial history.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / The contact of Ashanti with Western Civilization properly dates as far back as the 15th century when the Portuguese explorers went to Africa in search of spices and grain. But the influence which these early transients may have exerted on the Ashanti culture was insignificant when compared with the contact with the British four centuries later. This later contact marked the introduction of various social institutions, including new religious, educational, political and economic institutions. In many instances the new norms produced by them out across traditional kinship obligations and consequently produced new attitudes and values which led to change in the social structure. The primary purpose of this thesis is to formulate certain hypotheses which will explain social interaction. It shall attempt to show the functional relationship between a given economic institution and kinship organization. As an index of Western Civilization. therefore, it shall use only two general characteristics of western economic institutions, competition and individualism. And as an index of culture change it shall use the changing kinship system of the Ashanti society.