This study examines the way that Native women incorporate the history of
colonization into the way that they think about, and organize against, family violence in
Vancouver's urban Aboriginal community. Using Melucci's (1989) model of collective
action, this thesis focuses on the social process behind Native women's organized resistance
to domestic violence. This thesis studied family violence intervention programs among
Vancouver's Aboriginal organizations in order to understand the underlying process of
negotiation between collective identity, solidarity, and environment.
The study was divided into two levels: the organizational and individual. The thesis
studied the narratives, or discourse of both organizations and individuals who delivered
family violence intervention projects to the urban Native community. On the organizational
level, data consisted of promotional texts that were produced by the organizations (posters,
leaflets, brochures). The texts were then subjected to a content analysis, to identify the
frequency of rhetorical devices, and then a rhetorical analysis, to see how these concepts were
used. On the individual level, data was collected by means of loosely-structured interviews
that asked questions about why participants were involved in family violence intervention.
Nine interviews were collected from individuals who worked the organizations sampled. A
rhetorical analysis of the interviews was also conducted, and compared with organizational
discourse.
The study found that the anti-violence movement among Vancouver's urban Native
women was articulated primarily through the rhetoric of healing through cultural identity and
spirituality. Both on the organizational and the individual levels, violence against Aboriginal
women was explained as a result of the colonial process. The low status of Native women
was linked to the oppression of First Nations people. "Healing" from the destructive cycle of
family violence involved recovering "traditional" ethnic and gender identities, which in turn
involved raising the status of women in Aboriginal communities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/4743 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Anderson, Allyson Kathlena |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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