Search

2024-01-01

Supporting Indigenous Language Revitalization (SILR)

The purpose of this resource is to highlight the significance of Indigenous language learning and provide information and resources to support language advocates, educators, speakers, aspiring learners, and leaders in their revitalization efforts. This resource acknowledges that pathways to

Fall 2023

Wood, Lakota

for designating Indigenous people are associated with variations in warmth and competence. Online questionnaires were collected from 402 non-Indigenous, Canadian-born undergraduate students. All participants rated their perceptions of how “typical Canadians” perceived the warmth and competence of four

major ethnic groups (English Canadians, French Canadians, Chinese Canadians, and South Asian Canadians) and Indigenous groups in Canada. The term used to label the Indigenous group varied across six conditions, including “Indigenous”; “Aboriginal”; “Native”; “First Nations, Metis, and Inuit”; “Indian

”; and “(North American) Indian”. The results indicated that, regardless of the label, the Indigenous group was rated lowest in competence and warmth compared to the other ethnic groups, with the exception of “Indian” and “(North American) Indian” labels. The results are discussed with reference to other

Fall 2021

Meloche, Katherine

This dissertation examines contemporary Indigenous cultural production as it mediates conversations within Indigenous and settler legal discourses concerning continuance and change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries in Canada. It argues that attention to Indigenous cultural production is an

effective mode through which to understand Indigenous legal orders—a nation’s collective legal philosophy, protocols, and principles (Napoleon “Thinking About Indigenous Legal Orders” 2)—and that they are diverse and deliberative in nature. Contemporary fiction, film, and visual art continue the tradition

Indigenous legal traditions remain fixed in the past and to illuminate how Indigenous legal orders remain vital frameworks in the present. It studies these texts through several theoretical lenses including a nation-specific legal framework and Indigenous feminist legal theory and draws largely from the

Spring 2024

Qadri, Ali H

Background COVID-19 has impacted health and well-being globally; some populations have been disproportionately impacted. The experience of Indigenous peoples living in Northern Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic is influenced by their cultural and geographical context. Indigenous peoples in Canada

, such as housing. Thus, COVID-19 may pose a greater health risk to Indigenous peoples in Northern Canada. This thesis explores the experiences of Indigenous peoples living in Northern Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, and aims to provide high-level policy recommendations for future pandemic response

. Methods This research used a mixed methods research (MMR) study design. Components of the study design included: (1) a secondary data analysis of a GNWT COVID-19 dataset, (2) individual interviews with Indigenous Elders, using a descriptive qualitative approach; and (3) a literature review to identify

2018-01-06

Williams, Kenneth

SSHRC PEG awarded 2018:The project will create a partnership between the University of Alberta's Drama Department and Workshop West Playwrights Theatre, to create a methodology of dramaturgy for new plays by the Indigenous playwrights, through an innovative week-long development process. Workshop

West Playwrights Theatre (WWPT) is a well-known and respected centre for new play development in Alberta. They have recently began reaching out to the Indigenous community near Edmonton to develop new playwrights but don't have any Indigenous leadership or resources to reach larger Indigenous community

across Canada. The goal of the partnership is create an alliance between the Department of Drama and WWPT that will develop a workshop model specifically for Indigenous playwrights with dramaturges from the Indigenous community, through work on four new Indigenous plays. The project will invite an

Spring 2023

Scheuneman Scott, Isabel MS

Even though Indigenous women are the fastest growing prison population in Canada and around the world, scholarship regarding the storytelling of incarcerated Indigenous women is extremely limited. My dissertation centers the stories of Indigenous women within Tightwire, a prisoner produced

newsletter that was published between 1972 and 1995 within the former Prison for Women (P4W) in Kingston, Ontario. I aim to document Indigenous women’s storied truths and lived experiences within Canada’s prison system which include, for example, the criminalization process as it relates to Indigenous women

, the solidarity expressed by the Native Sisterhood that resulted from their experiences of inequality at P4W, as well as their dreams for Indigenous and social justice. Importantly, I balance my analyses between instances of colonial trauma (including experiences of incarceration) with stories of hope

Fall 2018

McFadyen, Krista

The United Nations’ (UN) adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007 is broadly viewed as a critical occasion for Indigenous peoples, the UN system, and international law. The UNDRIP was a result of over 20 years of rigorous debate and

negotiation between Indigenous representatives, nation states, UN officials, and community organizations over issues of Indigenous survival, dignity, and well-being. Credited as being more comprehensive in substance and more extensive in scope than any other instrument dedicated to Indigenous peoples, the

UNDRIP formally recognizes Indigenous as Peoples with associated rights and is substantiated through international human rights machinery. The fervent process of the deliberations and the suspense of the delayed ratifications by Canada has perhaps negated some difficult questions regarding the

Spring 2014

Johnson, Daniel Morley

This thesis examines Indigenous rhetorics of resistance from the Treaty Six negotiations in 1876 to the 1930s. Using methods from Comparative Literature and Indigenous literary studies, the thesis situates the rhetoric of northern Plains Indigenous peoples in the context of settler-colonial studies

, Indigenous literary nationalism, and Plains Indigenous concepts of nationhood and governance, and introduces the concept of rhetorical autonomy (an extension of literary nationalism) as an organizing framework. The thesis examines the ways Plains Indigenous writers and leaders have resisted settler

-colonialism through both rhetorical and physical acts of resistance. Making use of archival and published works, the thesis is a literary and political history of Indigenous peoples from their origins on the northern plains to the period of political organizing after World War I.

Fall 2023

Barlow, A. F.

After no reduction in Indigenous incarceration rates, the initiatives set out by the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in R. v. Gladue [1999] have become a more than two-decades-long disappointment, having utterly failed in keeping their commitment to lower Indigenous incarceration rates and bring

about justice to Indigenous people and their communities. This project is a preliminary review of R. v. Gladue [1999], Gladue scholarship, and grey literature to uncover ethical issues in re-storying Indigenous trauma through Gladue reports and presenting them to public courts. My analysis of Gladue

materials illustrates the state’s sidestepping of responsibility for Indigenous trauma by situating settler colonialism solely in the past rather than admitting its ongoing harms. I show that Gladue reporting processes, as settler-colonial operations, can, in fact, (re)provoke felt trauma for Indigenous

Spring 2024

Beaucage, Nathan

Indigenous Canadians are in a mental health crisis and do not receive adequate mental health service. This is evident as Indigenous clients access mental health services at twice the average rate while still showing a twice as high rate of suicide. Indigenous clients also only have a 50% likelihood

of returned for a second session with a therapist. We know some therapists produce better outcomes than others and that some therapists produce better outcomes with clients of certain ethnicities. By looking at the qualities of therapists who have a reputation for being effective with Indigenous

clients, we could learn more about what makes a therapist effective with Indigenous clients. Reputable therapists were located through a snowball sampling technique by asking Indigenous Elders and individuals in mental health professions who they would refer an Indigenous loved one to for help with a