While many prevention and intervention strategies have been applied towards indigenous Pacific Island communities, these populations continue to observe upward trends in health disparities and documented shortfalls in the literature of culturally competent and sensitive practices. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to gain more understanding and insight of these communities through the conceptualizations of historical trauma (HT) and posttraumatic growth (PTG) theories. The central research question for this study examined how indigenous Pacific Island 3rd-generation adults described and perceived their experiences of intergenerational HT and potential growth. This study utilized a purposeful and criterion sample of 10 indigenous Pacific Island adults, between 18-32 years old, who participated in a project over 10 years ago. In the project, indigenous elders used the cultural tradition of oral storytelling, shared accounts of HT onto school aged children. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and qualitatively coded and analyzed using a modified thematic approach. Key findings indicated intergenerational HT effects as it related to participants' thoughts and feelings with concurrent positive experiences of increased values and engagement. The results also indicated PTG changes in appreciation of life, relating with others, personal strengths, new interests, and spiritual growth. Positive social change is implicated through the empirical evidence to inform researchers, policymakers, educators, and practitioners for further action, studies, and application of the culturally competent and sensitive strategy of shared familial oral traditions of storytelling as a means of preserving a community's history, found to increase PTG and reduce health disparities.

The thesis applies a modification of the concept of landscape to embody physical settings, social behaviour and affixed meanings. The argument focuses on both how a specific environment was created as well as perceived on four Estonian islands from the late seventeenth century until the present. Islands have clear natural boundaries, and thus they comprise well-defined entities. Physical environment is seen as an important factor in the formation of home and identity. Island life in Estonia was on the background of complicated power relations dominated by foreign ruling classes less restricted, and historically the islanders had better opportunities for gaining a livelihood. They were thus part of a common Baltic Sea world often passed by in native Estonian research, which has concentrated on mainland farming traditions. Living conditions on the islands were drastically changed by Soviet occupation after the Second World War when they came to belong to the strictly regulated border area towards the West. The occupation is seen as a focal point of the thesis lending it a before and after perspective. The local variation was great and therefore island communities and landscapes are critically examined in a long-term perspective focusing on settlement history, the outward signs of belonging to a place (kinship, way of doing things, skills, dialect, humour, traditions) and on landscape biography. It is argued that constant change was accommodated in the mental picture, but an abrupt one caused an idealisation of national cultural values. The mythical elements are examined after first establishing the content of the islescapes of home and of popular islescapes of the 1930s. At present, people are in the process of renewing contacts and revising their islescapes of memory and imagination into possible futures.

The purpose of my study was to explore the experiences of senior island high school students and their participation in extracurricular activities. I investigated a rural island high school, located on the west coast of Canada, by conducting interviews of senior high school students to reveal their experiences with extracurricular activities available at the school. Using a qualitative case-study design, I provide recommendations for improving access to extracurricular activities. My results support literature finding that voluntary participation in extracurricular activities positively affects student academic standing, and that recognized school excellence improves student culture. I also found that organizational efforts and transparency in programming are needed to entice nonparticipants to become involved. Through comparative reflective analysis, I determined that word-of-mouth was a primary source of extracurricular promotion; however, this was found to create tiers of social groups, which in turn prevented access to the extracurriculum. Participants also indicated that a longer timetabled school day was a barrier to participation, and that active community volunteering efforts in the operation and offering of extracurricular activities were limited. My research is aimed at enabling educational practitioners to improve access to extracurricular activities in an island high school environment. / Graduate

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este estudo visa discutir as relações socioespaciais dos povos indígenas que vivem na terra Indígena de São Marcos, mais especificamente na área conhecida como baixo São Marcos e que está localizada na região sul da terra indígena. Ou seja, de forma analítica será compreendida a relação dos povos indígenas com o meio físico em que vivem, configurando uma transformação no espaço, através das ações humanas, mediadas pela cultura. A presente dissertação de mestrado vem a colaborar com esforços teórico analíticos, segmentado em discussões teórico comparativo e fundamentado nas premissas teórica da geografia e antropologia que trabalham com a temática que envolve territorialidade e espacialidade dos indígenas na formação de paisagens culturais para compreensão da organização dos indivíduos no espaço geográfico através de suas territorialidades. Quanto ao objetivo deste trabalho, se busca uma compreensão sobre a temática do calendário cultural ao qual se baseia em uma proposta teórico-metodológica da construção do mesmo e que envolve a sistematização e compreensão das relações sociais, espaciais, ambientais, econômicas e culturais existente na comunidade indígena da Ilha ao qual foi possível a partir de um estudo exploratório que utilizou como procedimento metodológico a revisão da literatura em livros, artigos científicos e pesquisa em campo. Com base nestas discussões, a presente pesquisa conclui que as relações socioespaciais dos povos indígenas que habitam a comunidade da Ilha tem se modificado e adquirido novos aspectos que incluem costumes e modo de vida do homem da sociedade nacional e que fica expresso a exemplo, em suas lavouras de melancia que tem caráter comercial e não mais só para sua subsistência. E dentro do projeto de construção do calendário cultural o cultivo da melancieira se tornou a atividade escolhida para se tornar o objeto de estudo dessa dissertação.

The cooperative enterprise has seemed, to many contemporary 'green' theorists, to be a socially sustainable economic alternative to conventional corporate capitalism, based on the ideas of grassroots participation, democracy, egalitarianism, community, social equity and empowerment. I argue, however, that there has been no attempt in 'green' thought to analyze gender relations within the cooperative enterprise. Instead, 'green' theorists view the cooperative as a homogeneous social entity with a shared subjectivity; and assume that the cooperative's 'sustainable' attributes - decentralized, democratic, and equitable principles - will ensure gender equity and empowerment through social sustainability. Reviewing 'green' theories of cooperatives and social sustainability, this thesis challenges 'green' interpretations of participation and social sustainability that ignore members' gendered identities, relations, and interests, particularly in resource-dependent communities. 'Green' definitions of participation have tended to narrowly focus on access to the cooperative without paying attention to cooperative member dynamics. By focusing attention on the nuances of participation and the implications for equity and empowerment, this thesis explores the complexities and contradictions of gender and participation as they apply to a mixed-gender community resource cooperative on Malcolm Island, British Columbia. Using a labour-knowledge-authority framework, the case study of the Malcolm Island Community Resource Cooperative (MICRC) illustrates that while the cooperative may be socially sustainable according to 'green' community and social economic ideals, actual participation in the cooperative enterprise is more complex, contradictory, and gendered than 'green' thought has typically assumed.

The cooperative enterprise has seemed, to many contemporary 'green' theorists, to be a socially sustainable economic alternative to conventional corporate capitalism, based on the ideas of grassroots participation, democracy, egalitarianism, community, social equity and empowerment. I argue, however, that there has been no attempt in 'green' thought to analyze gender relations within the cooperative enterprise. Instead, 'green' theorists view the cooperative as a homogeneous social entity with a shared subjectivity; and assume that the cooperative's 'sustainable' attributes - decentralized, democratic, and equitable principles - will ensure gender equity and empowerment through social sustainability. Reviewing 'green' theories of cooperatives and social sustainability, this thesis challenges 'green' interpretations of participation and social sustainability that ignore members' gendered identities, relations, and interests, particularly in resource-dependent communities. 'Green' definitions of participation have tended to narrowly focus on access to the cooperative without paying attention to cooperative member dynamics. By focusing attention on the nuances of participation and the implications for equity and empowerment, this thesis explores the complexities and contradictions of gender and participation as they apply to a mixed-gender community resource cooperative on Malcolm Island, British Columbia. Using a labour-knowledge-authority framework, the case study of the Malcolm Island Community Resource Cooperative (MICRC) illustrates that while the cooperative may be socially sustainable according to 'green' community and social economic ideals, actual participation in the cooperative enterprise is more complex, contradictory, and gendered than 'green' thought has typically assumed. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate