The human rights abuses and resource exploitation of Aboriginal people in Canada's colonial past and neocolonial present has left a legacy of inequitable health and social conditions that contribute to increased perinatal risk factors. The complex "system" of administration, governance and health services delivery impedes program innovation and responsiveness alienating relationships between Aboriginal people, health care providers and organizations. These dynamics underlie the problems of poor access to, participation in, and outcomes of care during pregnancy among Aboriginal women and families. The study used a critical postcolonial stance and an emancipatory methodological approach to describe community-based stakeholders' perspectives on their experiences improving care for pregnant and parenting Aboriginal women and families. Phase I exploratory interviews with 16 First Nations community, policy, and health service leaders and providers identified Aboriginal 'innovator' organizations for participation in phase II. Two Aboriginal health care organizations in one region of British Columbia participated in the comparative case study. Data were collected through exploratory interviews and small group discussions with 57 people, document review and researcher field notes and were analyzed using the interpretive descriptive method. Seventy three people participated, with 60 percent self-identified as Aboriginal and 90.4 percent women. Results show that Aboriginal parents' experience, and therefore the intention of care must be situated within an understanding of colonial and neocolonial relations, especially the intergenerational impact of residential schools; safety in health care relationships and settings; and responsiveness to peoples' experiences, priorities and capacities. Care for pregnant and parenting Aboriginal people involves multiple stakeholders who may hold different views of health care roles, relationships and decision-making. While the two cases shared a similar vision of roles and relationships, differences in processes of health system change, and in the governance models impacted the Aboriginal organizations' experiences of improving care for pregnant and parenting Aboriginal people. Greater stakeholder involvement in governance of care may enhance Aboriginal organizations' capacity to achieve safe and responsive care. This can contribute to moving forward from the intergenerational impact of residential schools, toward Aboriginal peoples' vision for strong and healthy children, families and communities.

We stand witness at the dawn of the 21st century to increasing tensions between Aboriginal people in Canada, and the Canadian state, largely as a result of conflict over natural resources. Do these conflicts imply that we are unable to understand each other? Does the meaning of our words get 'lost in translation' as it crosses the space between us? If this is so, then how can we envision dialogue between the two craft depicted in the Kaswentha, when---from a Canadian perspective---we don't understand the words each of us is using? When we don't understand the meaning of 'sovereignty' from the perspective of an Aboriginal participant in the dialogue, how can we understand what possibilities of cooperation are open to us? The Mi'kmaq, in their own traditions and 'worldview', clearly articulated their own understanding of 'sovereignty' based on their traditions of political thought and action. Through their economic, legal, spiritual, political and 'environmental' articulations, the Mi'kmaq projected their understanding of 'sovereignty' into the creation of relationships with the French, Jesuit and English immigrants which arrived on their shores. Through an analysis of these articulations, we gain a new appreciation for Mi'kmaq sovereignty---one founded on the concept of sharing. The three pillars of continuity, responsibility---for themselves and their 'extended European kin'---and relationship-building characterized this shared space within which the Mi'kmaq founded their relationship with their blue-eyed 'kin'. In all of its aspects---environment and land; spiritual, political and legal; and economic---Mi'kmaq sovereignty was about the paths and passes that allowed them to build relationships with others. Indeed, in its content and structure, Mi'kmaq sovereignty was, and is, shared sovereignty---an idea that opens our minds to a new way of understanding the political landscape of 21st century Mi'kma'ki. Drawing on this concept of shared sovereignty, ideas with respect to the co-management of natural resources are discussed. These ideas draw to a conclusion the thesis, and open avenues for further research and reflection on the place of Aboriginal political thought in the foundations of political culture in Canada.

To better understand the relationship to Otherness, postcolonial translation theorists have examined cultures that are far away in space or time. This dissertation takes an alternative approach by examining a contemporary, nearby Other, that is Native People who have been dominated over in a system that has "translated" them. This study analyzes a set of institutional representations of Canada's First Peoples. Its goal is to shed light on how these representations create a frame of reference that impacts public discourse about these people. Particular attention is paid to movements of consolidation , displacement, or subversion exercised within these frameworks. The review starts by recalling the historical conditions governing the first representations of Native People. It continues by analyzing the representations produced among the spheres of greatest influence: the legal, educational, museological, and linguistic institutions. How do the earliest colonial representations continue to filter through in present-day legal texts? How to educate tomorrow's decision makers about historical and current Native realities? How do museums construct the population's views of these realities? What is the status of Native languages against that of the two "official" languages of colonization? What support do Native languages receive, to allow them to assume their role in education and the development of Native identities, or for defining what is modern? These are the questions that each chapter explores and answers. The creation of the Dominion of Canada put the last touch to the definition of "Indians" as persons. Henceforth, power relations between First Peoples and colonizing forces became asymmetrical, and Canadian institutions got considerable powers of influence, not only over representations of the Native Other, but also over the production and reproduction of these representations. It is important that the subject, who reads and interprets Otherness through the symbolic representations that impact his/her frame of reference, be conscious of the predominance, in public discourse, of representations projected by institutions. This dissertation has attempted to uncover the competing power relations that are at work in representing Native People, while focusing on the position of people who represent, and on the position of those who are represented. This has led us to foreground areas of possible intervention favouring the recognition of Native people in Canada.

This dissertation examines the evolution of development practices in a Native American community by looking at how participation becomes more or less present in local-level decision-making. By using education as a lens to track changes in development practices, I describe the challenges and opportunities that arose for a small-scale development enterprise - referred to as 'the Nonprofit'- as it negotiated program implementation with various different players and stakeholders. I analyze how different strategies were developed and adopted during the first three years of the Nonprofit's operations to show how it gradually became more structured as development programs expanded from the community to the district.

Iroquoian philosophy and political thought survived solely in the minds of old men and women at the end of the nineteenth century. These ideas endure today because of ethnographers who patiently transcribed the elder’s oratory. One such ethnographer was a Tuscarora tribal member named John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt (1857-1937). Hewitt was a linguist who worked at the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology for fifty-one years and dedicated himself to preserving Iroquois thought. He was self-educated and became expert while assisting other staff ethnologists. Hewitt’s “Iroquoian Cosmology Parts I & II” (1903, 1928,) sealed his reputation as the leading Iroquois scholar of his day. In spite of this accomplishment, Hewitt’s reputation faded quickly after his death. This dissertation seeks to understand why Hewitt decided to withhold some material from publication, and looks towards Hewitt’s complicated relationship with the Iroquois – for whom he was both a fellow tribal member and a professional ethnographer – for the probable answer. Finally, I re-evaluate Hewitt’s place in the field of Iroquois Studies as the last of a group of notable self-trained ethnographers and examine the lasting impact of his work on contemporary Tuscaroras and other Haudenosaunee people.

Using Indigenous epistemology blended with qualitative methodology, I spoke with forty-five Indigenous people about navigating the problematic processes for multiple American Indian identities within different contexts. I examined Indigenous identity as the product of out-group processes (being invisible in spite of the prevalence of overt racism), institutional constraints (being in the unique position where legal identification validates Indian race), and intra-ethnic othering (internalizing overt and institutionalized racism which results in authenticity policing). I find that overt racism becomes invisible when racist social discourse becomes legitimized. Discourse structures society within the interactions between institutions, individuals, and groups. Racist social discourse becomes legitimized through its normalization created within social institutions--like education, media, legislation, and family. Institutions shape social norms to make it seem right to enact racial violence against, and between, Indigenous Peoples, using stereotypes, racist labels, and laws that define "Indian" race by blood quanta. Ultimately, Indigenous Peoples can reproduce or contest the legitimized racism of Western social norms. Therefore, this work explores the dialectical and reciprocal relationship between notions of structure and agency as represented in negotiations of Indigenous identity.

An escalating environmental phenomenon is transpiring across global shorelines. Sea level rise and other factors effecting coastal geomorphology have not only resulted in significant land loss but loss of historical communities. Coastal Terrebonne Parish, located in southeastern Louisiana, experiences a complexity of detrimental factors. Communities with similar stories of diaspora and social marginalization have settled the region. For centuries, they have largely maintained their distinctive cultural identities, through deep rooted social networks and resiliency, are now jeopardized due to an increasing loss of place. The intent of this research is to propose alternative methods of mitigation to affected communities by evaluating case studies of community relocation, gathering empirical information and providing relevant recommendations. Accounting for the potentially significant loss of cultural fabric, additional mitigation techniques, such as cultural documentation, are discussed. / 0 / SPK / archives@tulane.edu

In the United States, the large number of incarcerated individuals presents heavy social and economic burdens. To lessen these strains, many criminal justice agencies utilize risk assessment to determine which individuals are at a higher risk of recidivating and allocate limited intervention resources accordingly. To ensure these interventions are being delivered to those persons most in need, these risk assessment instruments must be tested for predictive validity. The present research seeks to revalidate one such risk assessment tool, the Level of Service Inventory Revised (LSI-R), on an adult offender population of a Midwest state. Additionally, this research expands on previous LSI-R validation studies by assessing the predictive validity of the LSI-R on an understudied population, Native Americans. The analyses utilized in this research include univariate descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation, and Receiver Operator Characteristic/Area Under the Curve analysis. Results are presented. Policy implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Internalizing disorders can have negative effects ranging from diminished self-esteem to suicidal thoughts and behaviors . Native American children and adolescents often face pressures that put them at increased risk for the development of internalizing disorders, yet research within this population is almost nonexistent. Given the serious implications of and the lack of research on internalizing disorders among this minority group, the present study was designed to provide information on the rate of internalizing symptoms in a sample of Native American adolescents, and provide normative data utilizing this sample for the Internalizing Symptoms Scale for Adolescents. Data were collected using the Internalizing Symptoms Scale for Adolescents, the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale, the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children. Findings indicate that the Native American sample of adolescents are endorsing clinically significant levels internalizing symptoms at rates similar to those found in the general population.

A basic health and lifestyle questionnaire was given to a convenience sample of 103 Ute elders, age 50 and older. Fifty-three percent reported being diagnosed with diabetes. The mean BMI (body mass index) was 33.31 (SD=8.72). For descriptive purposes, BMI was divided into three categories: less than 25, 25-29.99, 30 or above. Eleven percent were in the BMI category of less than 25. Thirty percent of Ute elders reported a BMI between 25-29.99. Fifty two percent had a BMI of 30 or above. Diabetes rates among this Ute elder sample were significantly lower with a lower income, lower education level, older age, higher BMI, and having a family history of diabetes. A binary logistic regression revealed family history (Exp [B]=3.06; p Based on this survey, the Ute Tribe should focus future wellness programs on prevention and control of diabetes and obesity among their tribe. Prevention for these chronic diseases needs to begin with the youth as well as with the older members of the tribe. Currently, the Ute tribe has two programs to treat and prevent diabetes among their tribe. The Diabetes Prevention and Control Program is a clinic to provide intervention for those Ute members with diabetes. It also provides a small gym furnished with exercise equipment for members of the tribe to use at no cost to them. The other program for the youth of the tribe teaches about the importance of nutrition and exercise in their lifestyles. Future programs should expand upon existing programs in attempts to reach the whole tribe.