Seeking Shelter among Settlers: Housing, Governance, and the Urban/Aboriginal Dichotomy

• Author / Creator

  Crookshanks, John Douglas

• This dissertation looks at urban housing fields (its policies, services, actors, and
  structures) in two Canadian cities: Edmonton and Winnipeg. Using a Bourdieusian method of
  field analysis, I ask how local networks of actors engaged in the struggle over housing resources
  govern and are governed in the city, with an emphasis on the positions, roles, and experiences of
  Aboriginal people. Employing an analytic matrix that seeks to cast light on differences amongst
  Aboriginal people, I ask how and why the shaping of the housing field differentially affects
  Aboriginal women and men, how some Aboriginal people can meet their needs through
  gathering valuable resources, and what roles Aboriginal political groups play in the housing
  fields. Finally, I explore whether strategies for inclusive, Aboriginal collective action are being
  attempted in urban housing fields, in response to, or in light of, the political-economic order that
  hinders Aboriginal control over housing.
  Combining questions about political economy, gender, and Aboriginal politics in Canada,
  I use a multileveled analysis to show how hegemonic ideas shape housing fields and the people
  within. At the same time, urban residents of all backgrounds are also responsible for shaping the
  field around them. Powerful, historically based field structures reward certain kinds of
  behaviour, but also seek to constitute actors as certain kinds of people. Aboriginal women and
  men find themselves with behaviours, beliefs, or dispositions that often leave them at odds with
  cultural, political, and economic forces in the city. I argue that a complex dichotomy that puts
  Aboriginal people at odds with the ideal urban citizen (the urban/Aboriginal dichotomy) is
  challenged, or disrupted, by the ways in which people contest the common-sense assumptions of
  the contemporary housing field. However, a great amount of resources – social, cultural,
  economic, and symbolic – are required in order to change colonial, patriarchal, and neoliberal
  structures and shift power from the privileged actors that have benefitted from them for so long.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Aboriginal
  • Neoliberalism
  • Self-Government
  • Gender
  • Housing
  • Colonialism
  • Indigenous
  • Bourdieu
  • Governance

• Graduation date

  Spring 2013

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3F05S

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.