This qualitative research study Tipachimowin: Students and Professors Share Stories about their Winnipeg Education Centre Experience is a study of selected Aboriginal students and professors who were involved with the Winnipeg Education Centre (WEC) program. WEC is an inner city teacher education program that started in the late 1970s, though this study’s focus is in the1980s. During that era, there was an influx of students who attended the program to address the need for more Aboriginal teachers in Manitoba and to address poverty in low income communities (Clare, 2013; Poonwassie & Poonwassie, 2001). The participants shared stories of their life journeys and educational experiences related to their participation as students of WEC. They described the impact the teacher education program had on their lives. This study also explored the pedagogy and teaching methodology of two professors who taught at WEC during the 1980s.

A Muskego Inninuwuk methodology provided the foundation to explore experiences of individuals who possess both Indigenous (Cree) and non-Indigenous ancestry in the development of their identities. Natural conversations facilitated sitting with and listening to Cree Elders and engaging with mixed-ancestry Cree individuals about the stories of their identities. The overall goal was to create space for individuals to express impacts of systems, relationships and ways to come to understand their overall wellbeing and connection to ancestors through stories of identity. Elders shared stories of disconnection and intergenerational experiences that caused diversion from the natural progression of Cree identity development as impacts of colonization. They also shared their stories of re-connection and healing. Common experiences mixed-blood Cree participants highlighted: the impact of colonization on their understanding and expression of themselves as individuals and as members of community, the complexity of their experiences of identity, and how wellbeing is connected to healing. Stories shared processes of healing, decolonization and resurgence of Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing in reclamation of self.

This practicum project uses a holistic approach for the culturally sensitive design of a housing option for Indigenous post-secondary students. This project addresses the role that interior design can play in creating a supportive work-live environment. The proposed student accommodations will differ from what is offered at the University of Manitoba campus by incorporating design elements that will: reflect Indigenous cultural values; use a holistic approach to space planning; offer flexible space options that supports community ties and relationship building; create designs that speak to the local cultures; and honour the past students of the Canadian residential school system.

The thesis that follows is a work of historical fiction, depicting a time and place four hundred years ago. It was written with a point of breaking down social barriers, classifications, and stereotypes. Although binary classifications may be useful for their simplicity, the exclusionary paradigm is unfit to handle the complexity of history, of life. The very nature of the paradigm chafes against relational principles – which are fundamentally grounded upon the notion that everything and everyone is intimately related – and held as truth by many Indigenous nations. In this project, it was a goal to eliminate these categorical distinctions by telling a story with dynamic characters that challenge standard conceptions of ‘good or bad’ and ‘right or wrong’, and that interact closely with the historical record.

The direction of this research is directed by the question ‘How well is co-management working?’ within the context of the arrangements between government agencies and an Indigenous organization. The Girringun Aboriginal Corporation represents the interests of nine Traditional Owner groups and has been involved in working through regional natural resources and protected areas partnerships with government over many years. These partnerships include an Indigenous ranger unit, Australia’s first Traditional Use of Marine Resources Agreement, and the plans for an Indigenous Protected Area, which will be the first over a mainstream multi-tenure area, as well as the first to incorporate both land and sea country. Girringun country is located in Northern Queensland Australia, at the coastal interface of the Wet Tropics and Great Barrier Reef eco regions, which are World Heritage Areas represented by their respective authorities. Other tenures include public freehold lands, State forests and reserves, and National parks.

This qualitative research was conducted within Alberta’s Isga Nation, specifically Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation and Paul First Nation in central Alberta, Canada. The Isga are located in a hub of industrial activity such as oil drilling and development, sour gas drilling, coal mining, agriculture, and forestry. Despite the whirlwind of industrial activity surrounding them, the Isga people continue to carry out their traditional harvesting activities in and around Alberta, Canadas’ foothills and Rocky Mountains. The research objective was to better understand environmental impacts and changes in Alberta’s Isga Nation. More specifically, document concerns traditional land use harvesters have about: i) the decline in the health and abundance of medicines and berries; ii) the state of health the waterfowl and other wildlife are in; iii) testimony that industrial activity is causing environmental degradation; iv) the health of our lakes and rivers; and v) and worries about how the continuation of the Isga way of life will be affected in the future. The methods, or Isga ways of knowing provide first hand knowledge that the Isga are forced to seek areas outside their traditional harvesting territory to seek medicines and berries; that the wildlife, particularly moose, are showing abnormalities when they are harvested; that the health of the rivers and lakes is rapidly decreasing; and that the survival of the Isga way of life is being threatened today. Moreover, Isga voices will illuminate that their traditional territory is rapidly decreasing in environmental health and abundance because of oil drilling and development, sour gas drilling, coal mining, agriculture, and forestry.

The community of Aklavik, North West Territories, was known as the “Gateway to the North” throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century. In 1959, the Canadian Federal Government decided to relocate the town to a new location for a variety of economic and environmental reasons. Gwitch’in and Inuvialuit refused to move, thus claiming their current community motto “Never Say Die”. Through a series of interviews and participant observation with Elders in Aklavik and Inuvik, along with consultation of secondary literature and archival sources, this thesis examines ideas of the impact of mission hospitals, notions of health, wellness and community through an analysis of some of the events that transpired during this interesting period of history.

The work at hand traces the trajectory of one particular iteration of decolonization praxis, from its origins in pre-colonial Andean thought through to the consciously traditional collective life being forged by six Quechua communities in Qosqo, Perú. It diverges from other investigations of Indigenous praxes by undertaking a purposefully non-comparative analysis of both the concepts and strategies employed, as well as of the consonances and tensions between the two. The case study detailed here offers a rebuttal to prior theories of an Indigenous political absence in the Peruvian highlands through offering evidence of a uniquely Andean place-based politics. It details efforts to revitalize and repatriate the cultural landscape of the Quechua ayllu, drawing on a variety of tactics to assert the primacy of the relationship between Andean Peoples and Andean lands. This is decolonization as relocalization, wherein the near-ubiquitous ‘local’ of non- and anti-state discourses is reconceptualised as ‘emplacement.’ / Graduate

The ability of Indigenous peoples of Canada to manage their environment according to their own laws and values has been usurped by the imposition of colonial frameworks. Indigenous people in Canada, like many other Indigenous groups, are seeking to reassert their ability to carry out their ancestral relationships with their territories, and are recovering and improving their systems of governance in order to do so. This research explores the relationships between frameworks for Indigenous governance developed by the National Centre for First Nations Governance and Indigenous and non-Indigenous theories of sustainability in both theory and practice. The author concludes that Indigenous governance and sustainability are interlinked: Indigenous visions of a sustainable future underpin the development of governance, and effective governance is required in order to give effect to community aspirations of sustainability. / Graduate

New directions contained in section 2(2) of the Canada National Parks Act 2000 and section 4 of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Conservation Act 1987 pose a strong challenge to the 21st century concept of the national park. Section 2(2) states: “For greater certainty, nothing in this Act shall be construed so as to abrogate from the protection provided for existing aboriginal or treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada by the recognition and affirmation of those rights in section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982”. Section 35 reads: “The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.” In Aotearoa New Zealand, section 4 of the Conservation Act 1987 (the umbrella statute to the National Parks Act 1980) states: “This Act shall so be interpreted and administered as to give effect to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”. These sections demand respect for Indigenous peoples and their relationships with land encased in national parks. This challenge frames the primary questions explored in this study. They are: if there is a new commitment to recognising Indigenous peoples in law, what ought this to mean in the context of owning and managing national parks? Or, to situate the question more theoretically, and examine it through the lens of law and geography: if law made colonial space permissible, what are the implications if contemporary law recalibrates its orientation to space and belatedly recognises Indigenous place? Interwoven into exploring these core questions are themes of national identity, peoples’ connections to land, the resilience of Indigenous laws, and the power of state law to re-imagine its foundations. Legislation, case law, and national park policy plans constitute the mainstay of the primary sources for this study. This thesis concludes by observing that while significant legislative and policy movement has occurred in recognising the special relationship Indigenous peoples have with lands within national parks, the process of reimagining healthier relationships has only just begun. Law needs to shift significantly more towards recognising Indigenous place and, in turn, Indigenous knowledge systems to achieve full and final reconciliation. / Graduate