Graduate Theses & Dissertations

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gi-mi-ni-go-wi-ni-nan o-gi-ma-wi-win zhigo o-gi-ma-win (The gifts of traditional leadership and governance)
ni' o-nah-ko-nah ah-di-so-kah-nahg zhigo di-bah-ji-mo-wi-nan g'dah mi-kwe-ni-mah-nahn obwandiacbun (nigig), tecumthabun (mizhibizhi), miinwaa shingwaukbun (ah-ji-jawk) (I ceremonially call upon the stories, the sacred and spiritual narratives and stories of personal experience... In the spirit of obwandiac, tecumtha and shingwauk) gi-mi-ni-go-wi-ni-nan o-gi-ma-wi-win zhigo o-gi-ma-win (The gifts of traditional leadership and traditional governance) explores anishinabe o-gi-ma-wi-win (traditional leadership and to be esteemed) from the point of view of obwandiac (nigig) in 1763, tecumtha (mizhibizhi) and shingwauk (ah-ji-hawk) in 1812 and 1850 respectively. It also examines the political and social significance of anishinabe o-gi-ma-win (traditional governance) and the n'swi-ish-ko-day-kawn anishinabeg o'dish-ko-day-kawn (Three Fires Confederacy) during the time of these esteemed leaders. The use of our ah-di-so-kah-nahg (sacred and spiritual stories), di-bah-ji-mo-wi-nan (stories of personal experience and reminiscences) and ah-way-chi-gay-wi-nan (moral stories) provides the opportunity to show how anishinabe people used different narratives to ah-way-chi-gay-win (teach by telling stories). In listening to these personal and intimate stories we have an opportunity to understand and explore these concepts of o-gi-ma-wi-win (traditional leadership and to be esteemed) and o-gi-ma-win (traditional governance). The first layer to this distinct way of knowing embodies anishinabe nah-nah-gah-dah-wayn-ji-gay-win (how we come to think this way about our reality and epistemology) and is expressed to us within our gah-wi-zi-maw-ji-say-muh-guhk (creation and stories of origin) and miskew ah-zha-way-chi-win (blood memory and the act of flowing). It states explicitly that we have always known where we came from, who we are, and how we fit into this world. anishinabe i-nah-di-zi-win (our way of being and way of life and ontology) lends voice to the second layer of anishinabe kayn-daw-so-win (traditional knowledge), which defines the responsibilities and expectations of anishinabe society, leadership and governance. Our ni-zhwa-sho gi-ki-nah-mah-gay-wi-nan (seven teachings), ni-zhwa-sho o-na-sho-way-wi-nan (seven sacred laws) and the relationship of the do-daim-mahg (clan system) are described within anishinabemowin, the language of our ceremonies and of the jeeskahn (shake tent). Harry Bone (2011)1, an elder from Keeseekoowenin First Nation suggests that ah-zhi-kay-ni-mo-nahd-a-di-sid bay-mah-di-sid (how we use our way of doing, thinking, ceremony and spirituality to find answers and methodology) represents a third layer that provides us with the ways and means to help us understand the essence of anishinabe nah-nah-gah-dah-wayn-ji-gay-win (how we come to think this way about our reality and epistemology and i-nah-di-zi-win (our way of being and way of life and ontology). This represents the literal and metaphoric o-dah-bah-ji-gahn (sacred bundle) and traditional approach that provides this narrative with the means to explore the ideas of leadership and governance from within a traditional construct. He adds that our spirituality and manitou kay-wi-nan (ceremonies) will be clearly defined and shared within this o-dah-bah-ji-ji-gahn (sacred bundle). It helps establish the spiritual core for this narrative. These anishinabe approaches to methodology (intimate conversations, family history and ceremony) are used to tell a story that mirrors the academic construct of interviews and document analysis. Therefore, the o-dah-bah-ji-gahn (sacred bundle) provides the nay-nahn-do-jee-kayn-chi-gayd (to dig around and research) tools to have this discussion exploring the traditional construct of anishinabe o-gi-ma-wi-win (traditional leadership and to be esteemed) and o-gi-ma-win (traditional governance). Lastly, it is important to understand that this traditional approach shows how these narratives are in-and-of-themselves powerful strategies in understanding anishinabe ah-yah-win (way of being and existence) and gah-gi-bi-i-zhi-say-mah-guhk (history). mii i'i-way anishinabe i-zhi-chi-gay-win (This is the anishinabe way) zhigo mii'iw eta-go o-way neen-gi-kayn-dahn zhigo ni-gi-noon-dah-wah (This is as much as I know and have heard) 1 Bone, Harry (Personal Communication) 2011. Author Keywords:
Sinaakssin (writing/picture)
Assimilative policies limit and disrupt the inclusion of Aboriginal values in most Aboriginal services today. This art-based, qualitative research study approaches that issue, and using symbolism and story a sample scenario was created to demonstrate the impact of assimilative policy on Aboriginal service delivery in a storyboard format. The storyboard was then presented to four traditional thinkers who contemplated the issues therein, and as they deconstructed, considered, and conferred they resolved the matter and produced four distinct models. Imagery is relied on as a traditional means of communication to capture and convey the research issue as a painted story. This research tested the viability of using imagery as a storyboard methodology for solving social issues. By using this approach this dissertation sought to answer the question, does Indigenous knowledge have the power to change the systemic structures that surround our services. For the analysis, did the three Indigenous knowledge paradigms effectively assist in determining the nature of the Indigenous knowledge applied? Author Keywords: collective community subjectivity, Indigenous methodology, paradigms, story, symbolic communication, symbolic representation
Maintaining Balance in Times of Change
Abstract Maintaining Balance in Times of Change: An Investigation into the Contemporary Self-Regulatory Dynamics that Operate in and around First Nations Traditional Healing Systems The evolution of health regulation processes in Canada has focused on the development of standards of practice premised upon the principle of `do no harm' and the approval of these by government regulatory agencies. This thesis examines three emerging communities of practice that bring traditional indigenous knowledge and indigenous healers forward into health care and their approaches to regulation. The results indicate that surrounding contexts of meaning influence understandings about self-regulation and that these understandings are dynamic because contemporary practices of First Nations traditional healing can occur in different contexts. The study cautions that unless we remain close to these `healer centred' contexts, there is no guarantee that the self-regulatory value systems stemming from modern Western medical communities of practice will not be applied by default or that the emerging `integrative' models of self-regulation developed between governments and First Nations will continue to reflect First Nations' understanding of self-regulation. Author Keywords: health and wellness, indigenous, self-determination, self-regulation, traditional healing
Energy Resilience in Northern Communities
This project examines the factors for success of alternative energy initiatives in remote northern Indigenous communities, and the link between northern community energy and resilience. The case study, in the Gwich’in village of Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, focuses upon a biomass boiler district heating project that provides renewable heat fuelled by local wood chips, and the willow harvesting initiative that supports it. Data was collected by interviews and participant observation in Fort McPherson and Yellowknife, and by analysis of resilience, community energy, and biomass literature. Success factors identified include the importance of aligning energy systems with local cultural identity, traditional values and connection to landscape, values often under-represented in financially-driven energy decisions. Autonomy and self-reliance are shown to be critical factors in northern community energy decisions, related to well-being, pride in place and enhanced resilience. Community resilience is revealed as a key component of northern community energy success. Author Keywords: Energy, Indigenous, Northern, Renewable, Resilience, Sustainable
Re-Living the Residential School Experience
The residential school legacy is one of the darkest chapters in Canadian history. From the mid-1850s to 1996, thousands of Aboriginal children were taken from their homelands and placed in residential schools. Taken against their will, many dreaded attending these schools. Some attended for as long as ten to fifteen years, only to be strangers in their own communities upon their return. In the past thirty years, survivors began disclosing the loneliness, confusion, fear, punishment and humiliation they suffered within these institutions, and also reported traumatic incidents of sexual, physical or emotional abuse. These childhood traumas still haunt them today. This dissertation examines the four compensation processes (Litigation, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Independent Assessment Process and the Common Experience Process) used by survivors to determine whether the compensation payments made to them assisted in reconciliation of their residential school experience. To complete an analysis of the processes, twenty-four residential school survivors from Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia were interviewed about their experiences with one or more of the compensation processes. The study begins with a historical overview of the residential school legacy and continues with the residential school healing movement that initiated and finalized a negotiated settlement agreement for all living survivors. This dissertation provides a unique perspective to the residential school legacy by using a cultural framework, Anishinabe teachings and concepts to share the voices of residential school survivors. The pivotal Anishinabe teaching within this study comes from The Seventh Fire Prophecy. This prophecy states that: “If the New People will remain strong in their quest, the Waterdrum of the Midewiwin Lodge will again sound its voice.” In this dissertation the residential school survivors are the New People. As the dissertation unfolds the author utilizes various Anishinabe concepts to illustrate how the compensation processes failed to assist the New People to reconcile with their residential school experience. This study presents a medicine wheel understanding of reconciliation and the Residential School Legacy. It concludes with an important message to the second and third generation survivors to continue the reconciliatory efforts that the New People introduced. It is crucial that the children and grandchildren of the New People begin the reconciliation process not only for themselves but for the next seven generations. Author Keywords: Anishinabe, compensation, Indian residential schools, reconciliation, survivors
Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Rise of State Schooling in British Columbia, 1849-1900
This dissertation examines the historical relationship between settler colonialism, capitalism, and the rise of state schooling in what is now known as British Columbia between 1849 and 1900. It aims to “unsettle” conventional views of Canadian schooling history by bringing accounts of Indigenous and non-Indigenous education into one analytical frame, and it shows how the state used different forms of schooling for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous children—company, common, public, mission, day, boarding, and industrial schools—to assist colonial-capitalist social formation in the Pacific Northwest. In combining interdisciplinary insights from Indigenous studies, historical materialism, political economy, and critical pedagogy, the dissertation highlights the ways in which state-supported schooling facilitated capitalist accumulation by colonial dispossession. The central argument of the dissertation is that between 1849 and 1900, colonial, provincial, and federal governments strategically took on greater responsibility for schooling as a way of legitimizing the state and supporting the emergence of a capitalist settler society. Author Keywords: Capitalism, Education, Indian Residential Schools, Indigenous Peoples, Settler Colonialism, Violence
Hiya 'aa ma pichas 'ope ma hammako he ma pap'oyyisko (Let Us Understand Again our Grandmothers and our Grandfathers)
The Tamalko (Coast Miwok) North Central California Indigenous people have lived in their homelands since their beginnings. California Indigenous people have suffered violent and uncompromising colonial assaults since European contact began in the 16th century. However, many contemporary Indigenous Californians are thriving today as they reclaim their Native American sovereign rights, cultural renewal, and well-being. Culture Bearers are working diligently as advocates and teachers to re-cultivate Indigenous consciousness and knowledge systems. The Tamalko author offers Indigenous perspectives for hinak towis hennak (to make a good a life) through an ethno-autobiographical account based on narratives by Culture Bearers from four Indigenous North Central California Penutian-speaking communities and the author’s personal experiences. A Tamalko view of finding and speaking truth hinti wuskin ʼona (what the heart says) has been the foundational principle of the research method used to illuminate and illustrate Indigenous North Central California consciousness. Author Keywords: Consciousness, Culture Bearers, Indigenous, North Central California, Penutian, re-cultivation
Sacred Space, Ancestors, and Authority
The Middle Formative Period (1000 – 400 B.C.) has increasing become recognized as a critical locus in the development of Lowland Maya socio-political complexity. This period witnessed the founding of numerous ceremonial centers, substantial material cultural innovation, and the advent of mortuary practices indicating developing social differentiation. Recent excavations at the site of Ka’Kabish in Northern Belize have uncovered evidence significantly strengthening this view. Excavations underlying Plaza D-South at Ka’Kabish have revealed a series of bedrock-hewn pits containing offering caches of thousands of shell beads, forty-seven greenstone objects, and extensive ceramic evidence indicating communal ritual and feasting, which is argued by the author to represent a cosmographic diorama of the cave-riddled Underworld. Significantly, this elaborate cosmographic offering event appears to center on the secondary, bundled bedrock-cist burial of an important personage and/or ancestor who is accompanied by a number of finely crafted jade ornaments representing motifs and forms that have previously been interpreted as symbols of authority, rulership, and divine kingship. Comparable contemporary evidence from Northern Belize and beyond has been interpreted through models foregrounding site-founding, place-making, ancestor veneration, and aggrandizer driven social differentiation. By integrating and contrasting these existing models with new evidence from Ka’Kabish, this thesis argues that the mortuary, caching, and architectural practices evidenced at Middle Formative Ka’Kabish represent a glimpse into the incipience of the ideological complex, the socio-cultural processes, and the material manifestations propagating the development of subsequent Maya socio-political complexity, specifically the institution of divine kingship or ch’uhul ahau. Author Keywords: ancestor veneration, ancient Maya, greenstone cache, Ka’Kabish, Belize, Middle Formative, socio-political complexity
Environmental Health Management Practices in Indigenous Communities
Environmental factors play a critical role in the health and well-being of people worldwide and the distribution of the burden of disease associated with environmental causes is disproportionately high in marginalized populations, including First Nations. In this way, environmental health problems are as much social and political problems as environmental and must be addressed as such. In Canada, the division of responsibilities for environmental health, in combination with the jurisdictional complexities of health and environment regulation and service provision on-reserve creates a First Nations environmental health management system with significant gaps. This research set out to explore the question: What are the current strengths and challenges in First Nations environmental health policy and management? A qualitative exploratory design organized in two stages and employing key informant interviews, document review and a community case study was used to examine this topic. In the first stage a review of existing programs and policies applicable to Ontario First Nations and a series of interviews with key experts on the topic in the province were conducted. A conceptual framework of the core elements affecting environmental health management in First Nations communities was developed and then applied to a case study with Mississauga First Nation in Northern Ontario. The framework included five core elements: Environmental Health Jurisdiction and Responsibility; Participation in Environmental Health Decision-Making; Access to Environmental Health Resources, Communication of Environmental Health Information; and, Role and Influence of Leadership. The findings indicate that "internal" issues, like community-based decision-making and support for environmental health initiatives seem to be least affected by the "external" issues such as access to federal funding. The "internal" issues were also shown to be critically important factors having impacts on environmental health management practices and policies in Mississauga First Nation. While there are countless barriers associated with the "external" factors that have significant impacts on environmental health management practices and policies, this research suggest that the "internal" factors can potentially be the most important factors in creating positive change in this area and as a result warrant further study in order to improve the state of environmental health issues in First Nations. Author Keywords: Community, Environmental Health, First Nations, Framework, Policy
MSHKIKENH IKWE NIIN (I am Tutle Woman)
This dissertation offers the dibaajimowin (personal story) of my beading project, which I undertook to understand the enactment of Anishinaabe women’s knowledge in graduate research. Framed through the concept of a collective self, which is embedded within the Anishinaabe traditions of storytelling and beading, and drawing further from the aesthetics, processes, and teachings of these traditions so that I proceed in a good way, I am able to tell a story that is wholly Anishinaabe. Through the symbolic literacy present within the pieces of beadwork entitled:”Turtle Woman,” “Turtle Woman Meets Grandmother Moon,” “Turtle Woman Marries a Beaver,” and “Turtle Woman Slays the Big Fish,” which I present in the second half of this story, I explore the relationship among Anishinaabe women’s knowledges, self, identity, power relations, allyship, sovereignty and good governance in graduate research. I conclude that if graduate research is framed as an extension of an Anishinaabe space, an ethics of responsibility emerges, setting the stage for graduate research that is rooted in responsibility, contributing to efforts of Anishinaabe sovereignty and community wellness. Overall through my conclusion, as well as the process that I employ, I make contributions in the areas of Indigenous thought, Indigenous methodologies, Indigenous governance, feminism, critical theory, pedagogy, and ally theory. Author Keywords: Anishinaabe, beadwork, Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous methodology, Indigenous women, sovereignty
Code of Bimadiziwin
Indigenous peoples and organizations have a long history of incorporating cultural knowledge and teachings into program and organizational design and structure. The approach to incorporating cultures into Indigenous organizations is not uniform, nor is the ways that they are understood. This dissertation focuses on Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre, in Peterborough Ontario and their approach to incorporating Indigenous cultures into their organization from 2010-2014. The intention of this dissertation is to build knowledge of Indigenous perspectives of organizational structure, grounded in Anishinabe teachings. The teaching circle, vision- time – feeling –movement, guides my learning process and the structure of the dissertation. In using an Anishinabe framework the importance of relationships and the Anishinabe clan system are foundational to my understanding, and will be discussed at length. The purpose and goal of this research is twofold. First, to show the complexity, intentionality and depth to an Indigenous research process; a process that is often nuanced in the literature. Second, to show how Anishinabe thought can (and does) provide a framework for a service delivery organization, in its governance and program and service delivery. The thesis of this dissertation is that Anishinabe knowledge is not always visible to outsiders, but it was present at Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre in the ways they approached research, governed themselves and delivered programs and services. Key Words: Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Governance, Indigenous Research Ethics, Indigenous Research Framework Author Keywords: Indigenous Governance, Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Research Ethics, Indigenous Research Framework
“I will not use the word reconciliation” – Exploring Settler (Un)Certainty, Indigenous Refusal, and Decolonization through a Life History Project with Jean Koning
This thesis centres on a series of intergenerational life history interviews with and about Jean Koning, a 95-year-old white Settler woman who has engaged in different forms of Indigenous-Settler solidarity work for over fifty years—work that is highly regarded by many Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in southwestern and central Ontario. I bring Jean’s stories and perspectives, many of which stand in stark contrast to dominant discourses of “reconciliation,” into conversation with scholars who examine Indigenous refusal and Settler (un)certainty. Through this, I attempt to better understand how colonial knowledge structures and ways of thinking operate in practise, how these might be resisted, and how this resistance relates to land repatriation. I argue that a commitment to unsettling uncertainty and to meaningful listening may be required by Settlers in a stand against various colonial ways of thinking, such as cognitive imperialism. Author Keywords: Cognitive imperialism, Decolonization, Indigenous-Settler relations, Life history, Reconciliation, Settler uncertainty

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Graduate student theses produced at Trent University. You may also browse theses and dissertations by year, program, or author.

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