Newhouse, David

This thesis focuses on the Atoskiwin Training and Employment Centre of Excellence (ATEC) in NelsonHouse, Manitoba, and its contribution to Aboriginal adult education and the economic development of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (NCN). The study examines ATEC within the larger history of NCN's relationship with its land, hydroelectric development in northern Manitoba, and Wahbung: Our Tomorrows, the 1971 alternative blueprint to the federal White Paper. I argue that ATEC has played a key role in nurturing a resurgence of the social and economic capacity of people in Nelson House.

The research approach used in this study is ethnographic, drawing on the researcher's livedexperiences and relationships with the community and ATEC. Supporting qualitative data were collected through interviews with ATEC staff and students, allowing for an in-depth exploration of their experiences, perspectives, and the impact of ATEC on their lives and employment opportunities. The thesis examines the historical context of ATEC. It also explores the challenges and achievements of ATEC during two distinct phases: the initial phase focused on training for skilled and unskilled labourers during the construction of the Wuskwatim hydroelectric dam, and the subsequent phase after the dam's completion.

The research shows how ATEC has contributed to the economic and social capacity of NelsonHouse, analyzing its impact on community development and employment opportunities. It also points out the need for greater control, infrastructure and resources for Aboriginal adult education in rural and northern areas. The thesis concludes by discussing the findings and suggesting potential areas for improvement and growth in ATEC's programming and delivery methods.

Author Keywords: Aboriginal, Adult Education

This thesis explores the double-bind Indigenous Peoples encounter when pursuing post-secondary education in the field of Indigenous Studies. I argue that Indigenous voices deemed tolerable are incorporated into the commodification of Indigenous thought and experience for the Settler audiences who profit most from post-secondary institutions. My analysis discusses the possibilities for Indigenous Studies to navigate this parasitic relationship and assist Indigenous lives that academia renders unrecognizable. I examine my educational journey and conduct a literature review of the role that Settler Colonialism plays within Indigenous Studies. Through the use of critical self-reflexivity, this thesis employs Haudenosaunee political thought and Indigenous storywork to tell my personal narrative navigating the macro and micro dynamics within the academy that exploits Indigenous student's self-interest to maintain the Settler-Colonial status quo in higher education. I identify strategies to assist academics in conducting ethical research within Indigenous Studies and imagine insurgent education within the Canadian university.

Author Keywords: Commodification, Critical Indigenous Studies, Haudenosaunee, Settler Colonialism

This research explores how the value of sustaining the natural world could become foundational to senior level policy decisions in Canada and how Indigenous Knowledges and Peoples could play a key role in such a paradigm shift. It is a trans-disciplinary study that draws on scholarship in Indigenous Studies, Sustainability Studies and Public Policy and existing report recommendations and policy documents that highlight both historical and recent governance trends in the area of sustainability. These sources help to describe both the challenges and the art of the possible in achieving a policy paradigm shift in Canada. The focal point is a series of conversations with seventeen highly experienced Indigenous and non-indigenous policy leaders from across Canada and across traditional territories. The findings reveal that many participants strongly agreed that a paradigm shift should occur and that both Indigenous and western worldviews are needed to realize it, with none disagreeing. They also point to significant changes that are needed to move from paradigms where shorter-term economic development decisions take precedence over environmental concerns to understanding that a healthy economy and society are dependent upon the natural world. To this end, they provide recommendations such as embedding the Right to a Clean Environment in federal legislation and learning from consensus and culturally based governance models in the North West Territories, Nunavut and New Zealand. They suggest mandating education and awareness programs for civil servants and elected officials on Indigenous -Canada relations and sustaining the natural world upon which Canada is situated and upon which treaties are based. They emphasize that a culture shift requires more Indigenous Peoples in senior leadership roles and to be more meaningfully involved in policy processes. Overall, the conclusion finds that a paradigm shift requires positive relationships between parliamentary governments and Indigenous peoples that enable both Knowledge Systems to come together to put the natural world at the foundation of senior-level policy decisions. Qualities such as respect, listening, trust, reciprocity, responsibility and connectedness with the natural world are highlighted through real-world examples that show that, although it may take time, a paradigm shift is possible and may have already begun. Next steps suggest new approaches for building relationships into the policy cycle.

Author Keywords: Governance, Policy, Sustainability, Indigenous Knowledges, Natural World

In the 1980's, Hollow Water First Nation citizens created a healing movement to address community issues from an Indigenous perspective resulting in the development of the Community Holistic Circle Healing (CHCH) in 1989. The CHCH organization developed a Community (Restorative) Justice process as an alternative to a Western-based Justice approach to address issues such as domestic violence and sexual abuse. The CHCH organization addresses justice from a healing perspective (rather than the Western approach's punitive/surveillance model) and includes the offender and offender's family, the victim and the victim's family, as well as the community to identify issues, develop plans, implement healing activities, and evaluate the outcome so that the root systemic issues affecting community can be addressed holistically. Hollow Water First Nation is much more engaged in addressing the roots of why the offence occurred and looks for Anishinaabek approaches to resolve community-defined issues. Western society tends to implement a symptomatic approach to violence deterrence through punishment rather than address issues through a healing process. My research looks at the complex history of the healing movement, the operation of the CHCH organization and the personal values that emerged from the healing movement, and Hollow Water's next iteration of organization from the children of the people that began the healing movement. These people are now aged around mid-40's and have seen their parents engage in a community justice movement, saw their parents develop their own way to address community issues through the emergence and operation of the CHCH organization, and now, themselves, have developed highly critical and creative skills around the workings of community development.

I use Berger and Luckmann's seminal 1966 book The Social Construction of Reality, Hallowell's perspectives on the Anishinaabek culture in his anthropological research conducted in Beren's River, Manitoba during the 1930's, Max Weber's The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (1915), interviews with the original activists, and my experiences living in Hollow Water for 4+ years (from 1997 to 2001) to give an account of the history of the healing movement and its consequent personal transformation of the people engaged in examining their thoughts, values and behavioural processes. I use the Learning Organization Theory, developed by Peter Senge (a management professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in his 1990 book The Fifth Discipline, interviews of CHCH staff and other community organization staff members, as well as, Indigenous authors, such as, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's Dancing on Our Turtle's Back (2011) and Michael Hart's Seeking Mino-Pimatisiwin (2002) to provide an understanding of Indigenous concepts as they apply to the process of CHCH's healing/learning operations. From these sources and interviews, I provide an account of Hollow Water's Healing Movement which includes the decline of the CHCH organization from late 1990s to 2020. Given the current hyperpolitical environment in Canada, Hollow Water's next generation of community member activists are perhaps about to reclaim power and establish empowered relationships as the Indigenous Renaissance unfolds.

Author Keywords: Community Healing Movement Process, Hollow Water First Nation, Indigenous Axiology and Praxis, Learning Organization, Restorative Justice, Systems-Thinking

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate Anishinaabe women's Traditional Teachings and pedagogies in a contemporary context. Through this exploration, I have uncovered the tensions, challenges, and strengths that Anishinaabe gaashiyag (mothers) face when engaging with these Traditional Teachings and pedagogies. The research methodology I have used is a branch of grounded theory called the Anishinaabe Research Methodology, and it is integral to the Anishinaabe principles of living called the Seven Grandparent Teachings: Wisdom, Love, Respect, Bravery, Honesty, Humility, and Truth. I used a research method called the Nbwaachiwi (the art of visiting) method. I used the 'Aunties kitchen table' style of knowledge collection, where it is open-ended and one-on-one - like you would be at your auntie's kitchen table, sharing stories and having tea. By utilizing these principles, I conducted my research through the Anishinaabe-aadiziwin (culture and language – way of life) paradigm. I addressed multilayered Anishinaabe teachings and many connections to the land and spirituality.

I have found that Anishinaabe gaashiyag feel pressure to adopt Western modes of raising their children. However, some young women are returning to the traditional Anishinaabe teachings by using traditional birthing techniques, tiknigaans (traditional baby carriers), and evolving our cultural practices to fit modern ways of living. The knowledge I present within this paper can inform mothers who want to learn Traditional Teachings and pedagogies, and thereby resist ongoing intergeneration trauma and colonization. New generations are identifying what the negative effects on raising Anishinaabe children and taking a stand to break ongoing trauma and abuse so that their children do not have to be subjected to it. These mothers are informed about cultural and Traditional Teachings with the hope that they can use this knowledge to assist them on their path to, and during, motherhood. Given the determination of these young mothers to raise their babies using Anishinaabe traditional methods, the future identities and lives of their children may be significantly better in a cultural sense than their predecessors. They will be the products of their mothers' commitment to the resurgence of Anishinaabe maternal teachings and pedagogies.

Author Keywords: Anishinaabe, Indigenous Motherhood, Motherhood, Parenting, Pedagogies, Teachings

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

This thesis shows and emphasizes the importance of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) in informing collaborative efforts that promote sustainable economic development in Indigenous communities. It tells the story of a participative research study undertaken with six Tseltal communities located in the Region Selva of Chiapas, Mexico, in the context of the Covid19 pandemic of 2020 and early 2021. In this study, the research participants reflect on their endeavours pursuing projects focused on the economic self-sufficiency of their communities. Their initiatives, which are deeply grounded in Tseltal practices while accompanied by the local non-profit organization IXIM AC, focus on developing economically self-sustaining enterprises in self-organized groups led by local Indigenous women. The findings offer a deep immersion into two aspects that emerge from Tseltal knowledge: The Nucleus of Tseltal community wellbeing and the Four Elements of Buhts'an qu'inal (Tseltal community wellbeing). The study's results show that these two IK grounded aspects guide the participants' endeavours in developing sHachel jwohc' a'tel (Tseltal initiatives of entrepreneurship) while also enabling opportunities for gender transformative collaborative work and sustained engagement in local initiatives of sna'el ya'beyel stuc te bin ay ma'yuc (Tseltal economic development oriented to community wellbeing).

Author Keywords: Community Wellbeing, Indigenous Entrepreneurship, Indigenous Knowledges, Indigenous Women, Participative Action Research, Sustainable Development

The self-determining autonomy of urban Aboriginal communities in Canada's Prairie Provinces can be strengthened at the local scale through decolonized municipal governance frameworks. The City of Saskatoon's Strategic Plan 2012-2022 is highlighted to explore two interrelated questions: do Saskatoon's Aboriginal engagement strategies represent a co-produced or indigenized mainstream planning and policy-making process? Does the potential indigenization of municipal planning and policy-making represent a promising pathway to facilitate local decolonization through collaborative municipal-Aboriginal governance in Saskatoon? Results from qualitative interviews reveal that the City of Saskatoon's distinctive Aboriginal engagement strategies were not entirely meaningful for participants, though the planning process included elements that, if expanded upon, could deepen co-production. Indigenization through co-production necessitates a thorough integration of Aboriginal community input at every stage of a planning and policy-making process, shared control and decision-making mechanisms between municipal governments and Aboriginal communities, and ancillary considerations for increased Aboriginal representation and participation in the administrative and political functions of City Hall.

Author Keywords: aboriginal governance, decolonization, indigenization, policy co-production, self-determination, strategic municipal planning

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

Anishinabai are jiimaan people. The traditional building of wiigwaas jiimaan is a part of a resurgence project that is restoring and maintaining cultural connection to our homelands, the water, and community members. An approach to cultural resurgence, such as the wiigwaas jiimaan, is an attempt to generate a better connection to our homeland, self- determination, and forms of healing within a cultural context. Through diverse research methodologies, this project will open new doors to cultural resurgence methods, Indigenous knowledge and the story telling of the wiigwaas jiimaan.

Over the summer of 2018, I built a wiigwaas jiimaan in my home community of Temagami First Nation. It is from this experience that this research shaped. Through the approach of storytelling to my reflective notes, while incorporating an Indigenous knowledge and resurgence methodology. It is important that when you are reading this, that you keep an open mind, sit comfortably and enjoy the interweaving of story and research. The thesis creates a better understanding of resurgence practices, the history of the Teme- Augama Anishinabai, my story and experience with the wiigwaas jiimaan, and the rebuilding of my community through this cultural initiative. Moving forward I hope that this research continues and evolves to other communities, who look for healing and cultural reclaiming through the land. Miigwetch.

Author Keywords: Culture, Healing, Land-Based, Resurgence, Temagami First Nation, Wiigwaas jiimaan