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.

This dissertation looks at the historical and social construction of Black Bermudian identities, and how identities have been shaped in contemporary Bermuda by its education system. I grapple with, and attempt to make sense of the complexities, messiness, ambiguity, disappointments, and painful reality of Black Bermudians’ identity and cultural dynamics. It is necessary to have a total understanding of identity and its connections not only to enslavement and colonization but also the rest of the Caribbean and Africa. The present understanding creates an amputated sense of self. Through the use of three concepts: Afrocentricity, Anti-colonialism and creolization, this dissertation seeks to reunify Bermuda with the rest of the Caribbean and Africa by moving Bermuda from the peripheral of international discourses to the larger and broader discussions on African-diasporic identity. It is through the synthesis of these theories that Black Bermudian identities and how Black Bermudians self-identify are understood through their various forms of resistance to dominant narratives. The dissertation also proposes a re-examination of the role of schooling and education—through teaching curriculum, texts and pedagogical practices—in producing a particular narrative of Black identity and the implications of such knowledge in constructing Blackness in Bermuda. The dissertation note that dominant forms of knowledge and epistemological orientation can shape the way Black Bermudians tend to understand themselves in relations to their history, culture, values, worldviews, and identity. Consequently, a fragmented self or what Frantz Fanon refers to as "amputation" is produced within Bermudian classrooms. The dissertation concluded with four key steps that are essential for Black Bermudians to re-engage through counter-hegemonic knowledge that is rooted in Anti-colonial, Creolization, and Afrocentric discourses and theories.

This dissertation looks at the historical and social construction of Black Bermudian identities, and how identities have been shaped in contemporary Bermuda by its education system. I grapple with, and attempt to make sense of the complexities, messiness, ambiguity, disappointments, and painful reality of Black Bermudians’ identity and cultural dynamics. It is necessary to have a total understanding of identity and its connections not only to enslavement and colonization but also the rest of the Caribbean and Africa. The present understanding creates an amputated sense of self. Through the use of three concepts: Afrocentricity, Anti-colonialism and creolization, this dissertation seeks to reunify Bermuda with the rest of the Caribbean and Africa by moving Bermuda from the peripheral of international discourses to the larger and broader discussions on African-diasporic identity. It is through the synthesis of these theories that Black Bermudian identities and how Black Bermudians self-identify are understood through their various forms of resistance to dominant narratives. The dissertation also proposes a re-examination of the role of schooling and education—through teaching curriculum, texts and pedagogical practices—in producing a particular narrative of Black identity and the implications of such knowledge in constructing Blackness in Bermuda. The dissertation note that dominant forms of knowledge and epistemological orientation can shape the way Black Bermudians tend to understand themselves in relations to their history, culture, values, worldviews, and identity. Consequently, a fragmented self or what Frantz Fanon refers to as "amputation" is produced within Bermudian classrooms. The dissertation concluded with four key steps that are essential for Black Bermudians to re-engage through counter-hegemonic knowledge that is rooted in Anti-colonial, Creolization, and Afrocentric discourses and theories.

This thesis brings together my two study and work interests, postcolonial theory and classroom-based research, in order to explore how teacher identities are constructed within the tensions between policy and practice. I begin by arguing for the usefulness and value of postcolonial theory in interpreting empirical findings because it foregrounds the politics of representation and provides good theoretical tools for examining how modernist policy discourse constructs traditional, rural teachers as subjects of difference. I use a postcolonial view of identity and agency as being always strategic and provisional, arising out of the subject's attempts to negotiate the contradictions in western modernity's false claims to universality. This view of the subject is linked with the interactionist concept of teacher strategy as arising within sites of contradiction and constraint that are generated within the wider social structure. In my attempt to identify the primary contradictions and constraints with which teachers work, I draw on empirical work carried out in local schools and argue that for rural teachers the tensions between policy and practice hinge around the disjuncture between tradition and modernity. I use Giddens (1990) to argue that, due to its origins in the West and its history of colonialism under the guise of rationality and enlightenment, modernity . cannot be integrated with tradition but can only displace or shallowly assimilate tradition. In light of this theory, I question the assumption that an imported modernist policy discourse can be contextualised and made appropriate to South African conditions. To explore this question further, I use Durkheim (1964) and Bernstein's (1971) concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity to map the features of these two different forms of solidarity onto case studies of South African schools. These case studies reveal that policy requires traditional rural schools to undergo fundamental changes that threaten the foundations on which their cohesion and effectiveness is built, leaving many schools with a profound sense of displacement. Turning to the question of the strategies teachers use to negotiate the contradictions that arise within these "displaced" schools, I find further evidence of modernity's attempts to appropriate and shallowly assimilate traditional subjects in what I perceive as a strategy of mimicry. Arguing, with Bhabha (1984), that the strategy of mimicry is a response to, and disruption of, the western modernist discourses of rationality, democracy, meritocracy and equal opportunity on which all of modernity's promises of progress rest, I examine the particular mimetic strategy of "false clarity" (after Fullan, 1991) and suggest that the often unfounded confidence of "new outcomes-based teachers"is partly a mimicry of the false clarity of policy, and the false clarity teacher development programmes which attempt to "transfer" the abstract principles and "best methods" put forward by policy by means of "generic" skills and values which are not generic at all to rural teachers in traditional contexts, and which they then tend to shallowly and mechanically mimic. In light of this discussion, I recommend that teacher development needs to pay more attention to "the singer, not the song" (Goodson in Jessop, 1997: 242) by shifting the focus from methods and principles to teachers' subjective understandings of their own work and contexts, and by strengthening teachers' grasp and enjoyment of the formal, conceptual knowledge they teach. I also suggest that, to avoid the risk of trying to prescribe and reform teacher identities, how teachers establish their own "sense of plausibility" (Prabhu, 1990) in their own contexts should best be left to them. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.

Abstract This thesis explores Henri Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (1981) with a specific focus on the process of self-categorization. Tajfel’s theory provides the theoretical framework to understand the social category of Métis as a social group. Eight self-identified Métis adults were interviewed individually utilizing a semi-structured interview to explore their Métis self-identification and operationalize the conceptual framework. The three main research questions used to develop the conceptual framework are: 1) what are Métis characteristics?, 2) Do self-identified Métis adults evaluate the Métis group to which they identify as positive, negative or both?, 3) Do self-identified Métis adults feel like they fit in or belong to the Métis group? Both open ended and closed ended questions were used to explore Métis adults’ perspectives related to their social self-categorization. Data were analyzed; conclusions were drawn and verified utilizing the recommendations of Miles and Huberman (1994). Findings were theoretically interpreted utilizing the social identity perspective. The study’s results support the use of Tajfel’s theoretical conception of a group as a conceptual framework in understanding the experience and perspective of the Métis participants in this study.

The Canadian-descendent Old Colony Mennonites first arrived in Bolivia from Mexico in 1967. Their collective identity has been shaped by a series of migrations through several countries, including Russia, Canada and Mexico. In this thesis I look at which memories are retold and how they are used to define their identity as an anti-modern people, and vice versa, how this identity filters their memories. I also look to see what it is that the Old Colony Mennonites recall of their migration history: the years before arriving in Bolivia in the 1960s, the pioneer years and succeeding decades of life in Bolivia. In addition, I examine how they have used their history to define their worlds and how their views on technology, language, and clothing are articulated by historical accounts.

The objective of this practicum project was to address the lack of overall cohesion of identity and culture in Winnipeg’s Cultural District through the development of a Bistro and Lounge. Theoretical concepts of placemaking helped ground the design within Winnipeg and it’s performing arts community. The project investigates how the relationship between an interior and its surrounding community context might influence one another. Aspects of performance theory, used in conjunction with theories of performativity provided a framework for the design in order to relate the act of performing to the simple rituals of the everyday. Finally, the project seeks to explore the performance opportunities a bistro and lounge environment present when the private element of a dressing room is introduced in to the space. The intention of the facility is to provide the user with a place to socialize and a means to feel as though they have assumed the role of a performer for the evening. Most importantly, this facility will provide the district with another rich, cultural experience, different from what is already available.

According to self-categorization theory (SCT), environmental context is the key factor in determining whether or not a social identity will be activated. Blanz (1999) has extended SCT by suggesting that there are certain social categories (i.e., race and gender) that people will chronically use to categorize individuals. However, neither of these two perspectives addresses the notion that individuals could differ in the chronic accessibility of a given social identity. The present research explored this hypothesis. By adapting Higgins and colleagues' (1982) methodology for studying the chronic accessibility of personality traits, three studies were conducted to determine if there are differences in chronicity of female (Experiments 1 and 3) and anglophone (Experiment 2) social identities. Results suggest that individual differences in accessibility appear to exist. However, differences in chronicity of female and anglophone social identities were not related to discrimination, an important variable in social identity theorizing. Theoretical and real-world implications are discussed along with suggestions for future research.

In the years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union Central Asia has experienced wide-reaching and ongoing social change. The structures and values of all social strata have been questioned and re-evaluated in a continuing exploration of what it means to be part of the post-Soviet space. Within this space, identity formation and reformation has been a pre-eminent process for individuals, for groups of all kinds and for the newly emerging states and their leaders. Through the analysis of individual interviews and selected newspaper extracts and government policy documents this study explores the ways in which ethnic and state identities are being negotiated in Kazakhstan. Using the social identity theory framework it investigates the value and content of these identities by examining the state ideologies of language and the policies which are their expression as well as the discourses of language and identity engaged in by individuals and in the media. There is an exploration of common and conflicting themes referred to as aspects of these identities, of outgroups deemed relevant for comparison and of the roles of Kazakh and Russian in particular, alongside other languages, in relation to these identities. The study focuses on the availability to an individual of multiple possible identities of differing levels of inclusiveness. The saliency of a particular identity is demonstrated to vary according both to context and to the beliefs and goals of the individual concerned. The importance of discourse to processes of identity formation and maintenance is also described and the interaction between discourse and social context is highlighted. The ongoing construction of a Kazakhstani identity is described and the importance of group norms of hospitality, inclusiveness and interethnic accord observed. The sense of learning from other cultures and of mutual enrichment is also demonstrated. However, these themes exist in tension with those of Kazakhstan as belonging primarily to Kazakhs and of cultural oppression and loss. The multi-dimensional nature of ethnic identity is highlighted as is the difficulty, experienced by some, in maintaining a positive sense of ethnic group identity. Perceptions of the importance of language in the construction of ethnic and state identity are explored as are the tensions created by the ideological and instrumental values adhering to different languages in use in Kazakhstan.