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Fall 2019

Norma J. Dunning

This study examines the intricacies of southern resident Inuit post-secondary student life in relation to education and the funding stream made available to them. The Inuit students are all beneficiaries of land claims areas but are not residing inside the land claims area that recognizes...

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

Mandamin, Leonard S

Indigenous restorative justice has emerged in response to the failure of the criminal justice system to engender peace and security in Indigenous communities in Canada. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples’ principal finding for this failure of the Canadian criminal justice system was the

fundamentally differing world views of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people on the substantive content of justice and the process of achieving justice. Unpacking the RCAP conclusion begins with a brief review of the colonial imposition of criminal justice on Indigenous people followed by examination of

differences between retributive justice, restorative justice, and Indigenous justice. After consideration of Indigenous justice reports, case law and academic literature, a view of Indigenous restorative justice is advanced by drawing from three Alberta Indigenous justice initiatives. Four basic elements

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

Fall 2023

Reed, Kelsey Erin

This study examined the experiences of identity development in urban Indigenous survivors of the Child Welfare System, the ways in which their Indigenous identity developed, and how they did/did not feel supported. In this study I interviewed three Indigenous women who were involved with the Child

Welfare System throughout their childhood and/or adolescence in Edmonton, Alberta. Using an Indigenous Research Methodology, I approached this study from an Indigenous paradigm. Grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing and being, this study included cultural protocol and ceremony to honour the voices of

Semi-Independent Living programs are negatively impacting Indigenous identity development of children in care. Furthermore, the non-Indigenous placements lacked cultural mirrors, the participants experienced constant displacement, and were given direct and indirect negative messaging about Indigenous

Spring 2023

Laboucan, Amei-lee

Indigenous women’s deaths are routinely underreported by mainstream media. “Discourse Analysis of Indigenous Women’s Sexuality in News Media” finds that The Globe and Mail, Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun, Winnipeg Free Press, and Toronto Star rely on stereotypes steeped in settler colonialism to

report on the deaths of Helen Betty Osborne, Pamela George, Cindy Gladue, and Tina Fontaine. “Discourse Analysis of Indigenous Women’s Sexuality in News Media” also finds that mainstream media does not contextualise violence against Indigenous women within colonialism in Canada, ignores the voices of the

victims’ families, and engages settler moves to innocence when reporting on the perpetrators who have been accused or convicted of murdering Helen Betty Osborne, Pamela George, Cindy Gladue, and Tina Fontaine. Finally, “Discourse Analysis of Indigenous Women’s Sexuality in News Media” proposes that

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

Fall 2013

Smyth, Brendan M.

This dissertation examines four Indigenous novels published in Canada and the United States between 1990 and 2000. Building upon Indigenous and non-Indigenous theories of literary nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalization, this project focuses on narrative articulations of Indigenous

cultural and political sovereignty that foreground and are cognizant of global political, economic, cultural, and environmental entanglements. One of the key intentions of this study is to underscore the importance of examining how modes of Indigenous being-in-common are articulated in fiction written

within a context of neoliberalism. Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead is foundational in terms of its critique of the practices and ideologies of neoliberal globalization, its representation of Indigenous modes of being-in-relation and resistance, its association of Indigenous sovereignty with

Fall 2013

Sinclair, Jeannette R

Abstract This work reveals the relationship between Indigenous people and land, and then speaks to the place for ancestors and Indigenous knowledge in this relationship. It engages with Indigenous Research Methodology that honours Indigenous ways of knowing and being, drawing on the lived

experiences of Indigenous people from the Lesser Slave Lake area and giving meaning and voice to the lives of the people. This study addresses the marginalization of the people, their dispossession of land, and the disconnection to Indigenous language and culture that occurred as a result of oppression

, colonization, and subjugation of their traditional territories, knowledge, history and identities. The work examines the relationship that connects Indigenous Cree identity with the sense of belonging that is essential to Indigenous ways of knowing. This work draws on ancestral relationships of the past

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