Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Education in the Department of Philosophy of Education at the University of Zululand, 1989. / The area of concern in this study is the impact of indigenous African education in attitudes towards authority. Questions this study seeks to answer are: 1. Why was there respect for authority in African society before the influence of other cultures? 2. Why did attitudes towards authority change in African society after the influence of Western culture? 3. What can be done to improve the situation? Society is in a dilemma. The study tries to investigate the degree of deterioration of order and discipline in African society as a result of negative attitudes towards authority. The youth have gained the upper hand with the old (adults) and parents relegated to the background as they are accused of accepting the status quo. Political organisations have found a fertile milieu in the school arena and pupils are extremely politicised as never before. The school situation in some areas is chaotic with unrest being the order of the day. This situation is aggravated by the apartheid system of South Africa where the Africans are the disadvantaged group politically, educationally and economically. A literature review and interviews will be of great assistance in the investigation. This study falls within the scope of philosophy of education since it aims at revealing underlying causes of changes in attitudes towards authority as a result of indigenous as well as Western education.

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Cardiovascular diseases are major causes of mortality and hospitalization for adult Indigenous peoples. Historical, socio-economic, environmental and cultural risk factors have been identified in the literature and new evidence is emerging regarding culturally relevant health promotion approaches for Indigenous peoples at risk of developing or currently experiencing cardiovascular disease. Self-management of care is considered a central component to effective cardiovascular disease management. This approach requires a working knowledge and understanding of cardiovascular disease medications, and an ability to effectively communicate with healthcare practitioners. Another important associated risk factor for Indigenous peoples with heart disease, is the gap between patient - practitioner understanding of heart disease. The biomedical perspective supported by Western scientific evidence, makes little room for Indigenous knowledge. Indigenous peoples may wish to include Indigenous knowledge and/or Traditional Medicine in their self-care approach. The findings of this research demonstrates that Indigenous peoples primarily have a biomedical understanding of their heart disease and most are unaware of how various socio-historical and socio-cultural factors such as the negative inter-generational impact of residential school and contemporary experiences of oppression and discrimination are linked to their heart disease. This situation can be attributed to an Indigenous knowledge diaspora experience that includes the severance of access to Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous languages during the residential school period and the dominance of biomedicine in health care delivery. The concept of ‘diaspora health literacy’ is critically discussed as a potential tool to address the Indigenous knowledge diaspora barrier. It is proposed that Indigenous peoples with heart disease can enhance their self-care when culturally relevant health literacy approaches are available to them. In turn, healthcare practitioners can broker an ‘Indigenous therapeutic relational space’ with their Indigenous patients by initiating a culturally relevant health literacy assessment and a harmonized implementation model. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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In this dissertation I argue that Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics is our best understanding of morality, but that as it stands it has some serious deficiencies that need to be overcome before it can live up to its own promise. In particular, its insistence that facts, norms and self-expressions constitute the full range of validity claims available to us privileges Western voices in discourse, and undermines its own principles of equality and coercion-free dialogue. According to Habermas, others who do not utilise validity claims in the same way that Western speakers do are merely blurring the lines between these three categories and hence fall short of the ideal practices of discourse. In other words, they are less than fully rational. Rather, I argue that these three categories do not exhaust the full range of possible reasons. I suggest that we ought to understand statements that do not fit as one of these kinds of validity claim as instances of different kinds of claims entirely. Instead of being a confused blurring-of-the-lines, expressions on the part of indigenous and “traditional” societies that do not conform to Habermas’ categories of fact, norm or self-expression are just as likely to be instances of an expanded ontology of reasons that are equally legitimate. After examining some alternative explanations regarding claims that do not fit into Habermas’ categories, I finally suggest and describe a different, place-based kind of validity claim that I refer to as “ecological truth”, and suggest that it shows up the limitations of Habermas’ ontology of reasons. Ecological truth is a potential kind of reason available in discourse that is rooted in a close intertwining of practices and communities with particular ecologies and environments. This kind of reason cannot be subsumed into the categories of fact, norm and self-expression. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation argues for a method of resolving moral disagreement by the exchange of reasons by those affected by the disagreement under certain conditions. However, it suggests that typical Western accounts of the varieties of reasons admissible in these kind of conversations is limited, privileges Western ways of looking at the world, and devalues non-Western and, in the focus of this dissertation, particularly indigenous worldviews. As such, a fuller and more just account of reason is needed, one that includes the kinds of reasons used by all, if we are to have just, fair and equitable conversations in order to resolve moral disagreements.

<p> At Home in Stories asks how stories contribute to addressing the problem of becoming at-home for an exiled people or person. This question is set in the context of the internal exile experienced by First Nations and immigrant communities as a result of the dominance of Empire, nation-building, resource extraction and consumer-culture stories. How do members of an exiled community remember their story and continue their history in the face of and in response to all that estranges and threatens to erase them as a people? How do exiles write their stories to develop their own particular identity in contrast to a dominant story? Through close textual analysis I trace how these questions are imaginatively taken up in the following contemporary Canadian fictional stories: Margaret Laurence's The Diviners, Rudy Wiebe's A Discovery of Strangers, Eden Robinson's Monkey Beach, and Shelley Niro's It Starts With a Whisper and Suite: INDIAN. </p> <p> Drawing on critical work from fields including Indigenous Studies, hermeneutics, M.M. Bakhtin's philosophy of language, and postcolonial and postmodern theories, I explore the relationship between home-making and storytelling by highlighting three aspects of becoming at-home. Humankind is born into and a part of a particular ecological household made up of the relationships that sustain life in a specific locale, in itself a story-soaked place; becoming at-home includes cultural belonging whose integrity is marked by boundaries and a cultural hearth-fire; finally, as different cultures share the same land, developing a sense of mystery that indwells difference between peoples is crucial. </p> <p> This thesis takes up the ability of stories to get at the complexity of the meeting between different persons and cultures, the ways in which dominant stories silence the many non-human and human voices that make up life on earth, and how through their alternative vision other stories provide counter narratives to this silencing. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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There have been rising concerns about the lack of accessible mental health services for members of Indigenous communities impacted by colonialism. Previous research highlights a scarcity of Indigenous therapists and not much is known about the multicultural competencies of non-Indigenous therapists providing services to Indigenous clients. As such, this thesis research inquires about the lived experiences of non-Indigenous therapists in relation to the gaps and challenges they experience in their multicultural competencies when working with Indigenous clients. An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach was used to inform data collection and analysis. Participants included three psychotherapists who were interviewed using a semi-structured protocol to learn more about gaps and challenges for the following categories of multicultural competence found in the literature: cultural awareness of self, cultural awareness of other, cultural knowledge, cross-cultural skills, and culturally sensitive alliance. Themes were generated for each category from the analysis of interview transcripts as follows: cultural awareness of self (i.e., Awareness of normative Whiteness, Reflecting on marginalized identity, Observing others' lack of self-awareness); cultural awareness of other (i.e., Idiosyncratic understanding of Indigenous culture, Cautiousness surrounding essentializing, Cautiousness around stereotyping, Navigating White-passing privileges, Oppressions towards Indigenous people); cultural knowledge (i.e., Educational programs and resources, Compensating through self-learning, Supervisors' knowledge, Complexity of knowledge, Understanding experiential knowledge, Discomfort with knowledge); cross-cultural skills (i.e., Tensions with Western understandings, Departing from normative practice, Caution in conversations, Repairing relational ruptures); and culturally sensitive alliance (i.e., Inner obstacles, Race-related self-conscientiousness, Trust building, Cultural empathy, Joining through similarity). Two notable themes were additionally generated outside these categories related to workplace and systemic challenges. Learning how non-Indigenous therapists make sense of their interactions with Indigenous clients by taking a closer look at gaps and challenges in therapy could inform future research, training, and practice on developing competencies that assist therapists in navigating a durable therapeutic relationship with Indigenous peoples.

The translation of research findings, and the development of products, has been identified as a research priority that may improve health outcomes for Indigenous peoples. Although knowledge translation is relatively new and emerging area in Indigenous science, Indigenous scholars have already been critical of Western defined knowledge translation theories and approaches as neglectful of Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. Within Indigenous knowledge systems, the translation of research findings is best conceptualized as a ‘sharing what we know about living a good life.’ This dissertation explores and focuses on the use of Indigenous stories and storytelling as knowledge translation products that may be better equipped to share research findings with Indigenous peoples. Grounded in an earlier study exploring experiences and responses to depression among Indigenous peoples living with HIV, this dissertation reviewed the Indigenous knowledge translation literature, adapted narrative analysis to an Indigenous context using composite character development and a scared story (i.e., Animikii and Mishebeshu), and created an Indigenized research story titled “The Wisdom of Thunder.” Meant to inspire healing, this story was also meant to create space to rethink, reorder, and re-imagine a world where HIV-positive Indigenous people and experiencing depression can learn and understand through Indigenous eyes. In ways connected to an oral body of stories, Indigenous stories, as an artful research translation practice, may make the findings of research more culturally accessible for Indigenous communities thereby promoting healing and well-being. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The sharing of research findings in cultural appropriate ways with Indigenous community stakeholders is an important endeavour. Guided by the Indigenous principle of "sharing what we know about living the good life," it is equally important that such activity be done so in ways that respect Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing. This dissertation explores and focuses on the use of Indigenous stories and storytelling as knowledge translation products that may be better equipped to share research findings with Indigenous peoples.