The “colonial wall” is the analogy drawn between a visible, physical barrier designed to confine, control, and contain a nation and a psychological barrier designed to control, confine, and contain a nation by internalized colonialist subjugation or colonizer domination. This thesis answers the question, “How are colonial policies and ideologies internalized by Indigenous and Settler populations to maintain the relationship of domination and oppression in modern society?” The secondary questions explore how colonialism is perpetuated by both colonizer and colonized and ask if there are situations occurring in society today to indicate a correlation to the Indigenous Seven Prophecies and Eighth Fire Prophecy. Research constitutes a review of literature to explore the questions from thematic categories that emerged from the analysis: economics, epistemology, politics, and patriarchy. There are numerous literary contributions on the colonial phenomenon but few offered explanations about how it affected the psychology of a colonized individual or even how cognitive function is affiliated with acts of domination that affect the psyche of the colonizer. This thesis documents and offers emerging theories on how colonial policies and practices are taken up to influence the dyadic relationship between Settler peoples and Aboriginal populations in Canada today. / Graduate / 0740 / 0452 / 0631 / brenda_st_germain@shaw.ca

States increasingly rely on ambient environmental monitoring systems to provide information on environmental conditions in order to make science-based decisions on resource management. This kind of monitoring relies on a network of state and intergovernmental agencies to generate indexes, thresholds, and indicators to assess the status of air, water, and biodiversity. As a result, these thresholds and indexes generate representations of environmental change, and they establish acceptable limits on pollution. However, in settler states like Canada, there are often major gaps in how First Nations experience environmental change compared to the agencies that produce the science. In recent years, monitoring has taken on a new importance because the findings from these agencies contribute to understanding how industrial development impacts First Nations’ treaty rights. Many First Nation communities have called for greater say in government agencies and have advocated for indicators that represent both their basic environmental concerns and their treaty rights. Using oil sands monitoring agencies as a lens, this dissertation examines the politics of environmental knowledge production between Indigenous groups and the state. I employ the “logic of elimination” concept from settler colonialism studies to explore the extent to which Indigenous groups have been incorporated in research design, decision-making, and the establishment of environmental thresholds. I use interviews, participant observation, and a Q-method survey to develop an understanding how settler colonialism functions not only through policies and legislation, but also scientists’ positionalities. The findings from this research demonstrate that monitoring agencies have no uniform policies to guide how they work with First Nations. Because of this, agencies have continually engaged with First Nations as stakeholders—not rights holders. This designation places First Nations on the same level as other interest groups and limits their abilities to shape what is monitored and how thresholds are set. As a result, the stakeholder position offers few avenues for First Nations to ensure treaty rights are considered in monitoring activities. / 10000-01-01

In this thesis I explore the relationships between post-secondary education in the field of international development, and the maintenance and practices of white settler-colonialism at home and abroad. My method is to search for recurring present and absent themes found in French and English course syllabi of the Canadian Master’s Program in Globalization and International Development of the University of Ottawa. Through search strings in 81 syllabi of four mandatory courses taught over an 8-year period, 2007-2015, I find that colonialism is little mentioned, and when it is, it is usually either as something of the past or something geographically distant. I conclude that, for students, academics and others to address settler-colonialism as an obstacle to decolonization, requires (1) acknowledging their current role in naturalizing settler-colonialism, (2) denaturalizing the logics of settler-colonialism, and (3) working to deliberately give up on white settler futures, while other futures (Indigenous futures) are flourishing through the process of decolonization. While this content analysis is only a small and possibly ungeneralizable example of higher education and its simultaneous potential for colonization and decolonization, it nevertheless represents an addition to the few applications of the theoretical field of settler-colonial studies and of its material implications.

Les structures du colonialisme d’occupation au Canada perpétuent encore aujourd’hui les dépossessions des Autochtones au bénéfice des occupant·es, ainsi que les tentatives de substitution des occupant·es aux peuples autochtones, suivant ce que Patrick Wolfe appelle une logique de l’élimination. Il ne suffit pas de déclarer notre reconnaissance du territoire autochtone. À titre de Zhaaganaash (occupante blanche sur un territoire Omàmìwinini/algonquin non cédé), il m’incomberait de « participer au processus de décolonisation », suivant l’appel à la justice 15.2 de l’ENFFADA (2019). Toutefois, la logique coloniale, incluant une épistémologie de l’ignorance, conditionne la population générale à naturaliser les hiérarchies désirées et à « ne pas voir » la violence coloniale — historique et contemporaine — au Canada. Alors que mon projet initial visait à cultiver des possibilités de subjectivité occultées par le patriarcat, à la lumière de la pensée de Luce Irigaray, mes études féministes m’ont fait voir l’urgence de la décolonisation. Je vois dans la pensée philosophique de Luce Irigaray une dimension déconstructrice (de la constitution du sujet, de son discours, et de ses « projet[s] téléologiquement constructeur[s] » d’un monde à son image et selon ses intérêts) et une dimension reconstructrice de possibilités alternatives (fondées sur ses concepts de la limite, l’intervalle, l’efflorescence, et l’éthique de la différence sexuelle, entre autres). Plus je lis son œuvre, et plus je lis de perspectives autochtones diverses, plus je vois comment les processus théoriques que décrit Luce Irigaray sont opérationnalisés contre les peuples autochtones sous le colonialisme d’occupation au Canada, et comment certaines nouvelles possibilités imaginées par Luce Irigaray — notamment pour les femmes — exist(ai)ent déjà, concrètement, chez certains peuples autochtones au Canada. Je soutiens que certaines théories irigaréennes sont ouvertes à des prolongements anticoloniaux et décolonisateurs utiles pour ouvrir la réceptivité d’occupant·es, au-delà des fragilités blanches et occupantes, à diverses perspectives autochtones essentielles au désapprentissage de nos aveuglements coloniaux et à la culture de subjectivités relationnelles qui sont spécifiquement décolonisatrices selon la définition de Tuck et Yang (2012). Le colonialisme d’occupation étant trop complexe pour s’expliquer à partir d’une seule théorie (Wolfe, 2006), mon projet consiste à développer un cadre d’analyse multidisciplinaire (incluant, mais non limité à la philosophie irigaréenne), dont la loupe de sélection se constitue de diverses perspectives autochtones. J’explore ce que voudrait dire la décolonisation en termes concrets dans mon quotidien de Zhaaganash.

This thesis explores the phenomenon of Indigenous/non-Indigenous allyship. In this thesis, Indigenous child welfare leaders were interviewed regarding their perspectives on allyship and were asked to identify non-Indigenous leaders whom they consider allies. Through a storytelling methodology, these non-Indigenous leaders were interviewed regarding their journeys to allyship. As the researcher I employed thematic analysis of the interviews conducted to determine if there are patterns that suggest a process through which a non-Indigenous person becomes an ally. Analysis of the literature and the interviews conducted suggest critical processes that non-Indigenous leaders have undergone, and comprise a series of steps, in the journey to allyship. The research questions addressed in this thesis are: (1) Are there process patterns or themes that emerge with the phenomenon of allyship? (2) Is there a framework that can be identified that can inform a settler leader’s journey to becoming an ally? The research findings suggest that there are essential process patterns that emerge with the phenomenon of allyship. Further, the findings suggest there is danger in suggesting a sequential or linear process for this journey of head, heart and spirit. / Graduate / 2020-12-19

This dissertation uses storytelling to examine the nature of settler colonial relations (SCRs) in Canada. It examines testimonies about land use in settler Canada from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). Utilizing a combined Tribal Critical Race Theory (TCRT) and Critical Race Theory (CRT), this study compares testimonies about land use from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples and asks the question what, if anything, does this comparison tell us about settler Canada? The comparison reveals how settler Canada depends on the liberal racialization of Indigenous peoples’ national identity. To undertake this comparison I narrated the RCAP testimonies into small stories and analyzed their morals, or the point of these stories, using dialogical narrative analysis. The narrated stories laid bare a stark contrast in the way Indigenous peoples spoke of their social relations with the land and the way non-indigenous Canadians spoke of theirs. This study demonstrates how the narrated testimonies from Canadians, or what are referred to as cultural narratives in the language of CRT, are about land use that racialized the national identity of Indigenous peoples through the discourse of the liberal order, whereas the narrated testimonies from Indigenous peoples, considered as counter stories in this study, contradict the cultural narratives and reveal a national identity rooted in language, spirituality, the Creator, and the consequences for Indigenous peoples from settler colonial relations. The narrated counter stories in this study not only contradict the cultural narratives from settlers by describing the consequences of settler colonial relations but they also provide a blueprint in a narrative sense to decolonize land use in contemporary settler Canada. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This dissertation explores the importance of colonial carcerality to International Relations and Canadian politics. I argue that within Canada, practices of imprisonment and the production of carceral space are a foundational method of settler colonial governance because of the ways they are utilized to reorganize and reconstitute the relationships between bodies and land through coercion, non-consensual inclusion and the use of force. In this project I examine the Treaties and early agreements between Indigenous and European nations, pre-Confederation law and policy, legislative and institutional arrangements and practices during early stages of state formation and capitalist expansion, and contemporary claims of “reconciliation,” alongside the ongoing resistance by Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. I argue that Canada employs carcerality as a strategy of assimilation, dispossession and genocide through practices of criminalization, punishment and containment of bodies and lands. Through this analysis I demonstrate the foundational role of carcerality to historical and contemporary expressions of Canadian governance within empire, by arguing land as indispensable to understanding the utility of imprisonment and carceral space to extending the settler colonial project. In particular, in this dissertation I focus on demonstrating the relationships between historical and contemporary logics, institutions, and everyday practices of imprisonment and carcerality, and the role they play in the reproduction and maintenance of settler colonial governance within the Canadian context. The central contribution I make in this project is the concept of ‘colonial carcerality,’ which I argue is a governance strategy that relies on inflicting ongoing harm to land, and to Indigenous, gender non-conforming and poor people of colour through criminalization. Drawing on the concept of colonial carcerality provides a framework to understand land as integral to the production of carceral space through the racialized, gendered, sexualized and classed hierarchies that make Canada possible as a settler state within empire. I show how that the criminalization of Indigenous persons through relationships to land occurs alongside the production of settler innocence, and that a carceral apparatus is produced through the preservation white heteropatriarchy alongside the subjugation of land. Drawing from the contributions of Indigenous resurgence and Indigenous feminist literature, this concept provides a theorization of carceral space beyond governance that highlights ongoing harm to land, waters and other living beings as a condition of possibility for carcerality within settler colonialism. It further draws from these insights to begin to imagine possibilities for restorative justice that value the life of all living beings as an entry point into understanding decolonial abolition within the settler colony. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

In the face of catastrophic climate change, scholars and activists have sought to fundamentally transform the existing food system in the United States. One solution being offered, repeasantization, seeks to reinvigorate the idea of the small farm accompanied by principles of ecological production. While invoking the term "peasant" promises something potentially new in the US context, where the farmer is hegemonic, this movement could end up reenacting the failures of the homesteading and back-to-the-land movements which reconstituted settler colonial and capitalist relations in the US imaginary. Using literature from peasant studies, development studies, and Marxist theory, I develop a theoretical orientation towards this potential problem which focuses on how the ideas of the peasant and the farmer are part of a dialectic which has regularly reinforced the existing dominant paradigm. Imagining a new way of thinking, I introduce the concept of the "peasant+ imaginary" in order to outline the ways that the general way of thinking about farming and farmers in the US serves the ideological function of 'othering' alternative practices and subjectivities. Through a historiography which focuses on the structural logic and compulsions of settler colonialism and capitalism, I reconstruct the history of the peasant-farmer dyad in the US context. Through a critical discourse analysis of Farmers' Bulletins, I also show how the United States Department of Agriculture reinforced a settler-capitalist farmer subject-formation in the interest of a "national agriculture" which served to marginalize Black, Indigenous, and non-capitalist ways of being. This dissertation is my contribution to literature which seeks to reimagine the US food system, with the goal of creating a truly sustainable agriculture which nourishes the land and the people who work and live on it. / Doctor of Philosophy / In the face of catastrophic climate change, scholars and activists have sought to fundamentally transform the existing food system in the United States. This dissertation seeks to reinvigorate the idea of the small farm in the US by paying attention to important concerns related to environmental justice. Using writings from a range of scholarly disciplines, I develop theory which focuses on how the ideas of the peasant and the farmer are part of an often problematic relationship in the popular imagination. Imagining a new way of thinking, I introduce the concept of the "peasant+ imaginary" in order to outline the ways that current thinking about farming and farmers in the US often reinforced existing "us versus them" thinking, sidelining alternative, more ecological practices. By highlighting three key moments in US agricultural history and excerpts from United States Department of Agriculture's Farmers' Bulletins, I show how the structural logics and compulsions of settler colonialism and capitalism reinforce conventional ways of thinking about agriculture. I also show how the project of building a "national agriculture" after the Civil War served to marginalize Black, Indigenous, and non-capitalist ways of being. This dissertation is my contribution to literature which seeks to reimagine the US food system, with the goal of creating a truly sustainable agriculture which nourishes the land and the people who work and live on it.

Canadian processes such as the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and Comprehensive Land Claims as well as flashpoint events (Simpson & Ladner, 2010) such as the Kanien’kehaka resistance at Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke (the “Oka Crisis”) and more recently, the Idle No More movement, signal to Canadians that something is amiss. What may be less visible to Canadians are the 400 years of colonial oppression experienced and the 400 years of resistance enacted by Indigenous peoples on their lands, which are currently occupied by the state of Canada. It is in the context of historical and ongoing Canadian colonialism: land theft, dispossession, marginalization, and genocide, and in the context of the overwhelming denial of these realities by white settler Canadians that this study occurs. In order to break through settler Canadian denial, and to inspire greater numbers of white settler Canadians to initiate and/or deepen their anti-colonial and/or decolonial understandings and work, this study presents extended life narratives of white settler Canadians who have engaged deeply in anti-colonial and/or decolonial work as a major life focus. In this study, such work is framed as living in Indigenous sovereignty, or living in an awareness that we are on Indigenous lands containing their own protocols, stories, obligations, and opportunities which have been understood and practiced by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. Inspired by Indigenous and anti-oppressive methodologies, I articulate and utilize an anti-colonial research methodology. I use participatory and narrative methods, which are informed and politicized through words gifted by Indigenous scholars, activists, and Knowledge Keepers. The result is research as a transformative, relational, and decolonizing process. In addition to the extended life narratives, this research yields information regarding connections between social work education, social work practice, and the anti-colonial/decolonial learnings and work of five research subjects who have, or are completing, social work degrees. The dissertation closes with an exploration of what can be learned through the narrative stories, with recommendations for white settler peoples and for social work, and with recommendations for future research. / February 2017

This thesis explores and seeks to unsettle the tenacity of white settler privilege in child and youth care (CYC). I first acknowledge the significant leadership of Indigenous and nonwhite activist-scholars to address the ongoing overrepresentation of Indigenous families across colonial systems in which CYC practitioners work. This qualitative study interrogates how white settler CYC practitioners approach issues of colonial and systemic racialized violence targeting Indigenous children, youth, families, and communities. Experienced, politicized frontline practitioners working in the CYC field were invited to examine how they understand, name, reproduce, contest, and struggle with white settler privilege in their practice. My study findings are organized along four themes that attend to systemic issues and the difficulty of challenging dominant white norms and conventions in the CYC field: (1) working in colonial violence and racism; (2) white settler fragility; (3) power and privilege; and (4) troubling allyship in the CYC field. The findings explore the complex individual and collective ethical responsibilities of white settler CYC practitioners and formulate responsive, embodied ethics rooted in solidarity and an anticolonial, antiracist, intersectional praxis. / Graduate / 2020-09-04