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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

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

2024-07-01

Thathiah, Natasha

TikTok has transformed how we consume entertainment, gather information, build digital communities, and connect. Indigenous TikTok has emerged from Indigenous Peoples' desire for amplified and authentic visibility in digital spaces. Indigenous TikTokers use this social media application to educate

users, revive cultural traditions, and express humour. Despite the thriving presence of Indigenous TikTok as a digital space for storytelling, learning, and socializing, fewer studies examine how audience engagement reflects interactions with and perceptions of Indigenous TikTok content. Rather than

studying the work or experiences of Indigenous Tiktokers themselves, this research focuses on exploring how engagement metrics — likes, comments, saves, and shares — reflect the representation of Indigenous Peoples on TikTok. This qualitative study will employ an in-depth analysis of publicly available

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 2016

Bear, Tracy L

This dissertation explores how Indigenous articulations of sensuality, sexuality and gender form erotic expressions and act as decolonizing mechanisms. I address the question, “If this is my body, where are my stories?” by arguing for the recovery and what I call the practice of an Indigenous

eroticanalysis as a reclamation of sovereignty over our Indigenous bodies. The condemnatory language of historical settler accounts suggests that the criminalization of Indigenous sexualities and genders began at first contact. Any freedoms or diversities of Indigenous sexuality and gender were silenced with

colonial language steeped in sexual sin, shame, and perversity. The damnation of Indigenous bodies led to the colonial invocation of “terra nullius” meaning “empty lands” to justify the theft, possession, and exploitation of Indigenous territories. Today, retaining ownership of Indigenous lands depends

Fall 2022

Lindquist, Kelsey

Indigenous labour market statistics are a key technology through which the Canadian nation-state reaffirms its possession of Indigenous land. Colonizing settler norms, values, and racialized understandings inform the dominant methodological approach to Indigenous labour market statistics resulting

in the persistent production of deficit-based, racialized statistical depictions of Indigeneity. The purported objectivity and neutrality of quantitative data, however, obscures the racialized origins and parameters of dominant statistical research on Indigenous labour market outcomes. This thesis

denaturalizes the dominant methodological approach to Indigenous labour market statistics. The process of denaturalizing the dominant quantitative methodology undertaken in this thesis is twofold. First, I explicate colonizing power relations at three different levels of abstraction to expose the dominant

Fall 2021

Young, Elliott

Since the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action (Canada, 2015), there has been a movement to include Indigenous voices, epistemologies, and ontologies into institutions and systems to support Indigenization. The goal of the research is to gain insight into the practices

of Indigenous scholars incorporating Indigenous knowledge into the academy, learning from the highlights, struggles, and challenges along the way. The research objectives are to: 1) capture the story of each Indigenous scholar's journey in finding their own identity and coming to know Indigenous

knowledge, 2) capture the ways Indigenous scholars foster environments that encourages learning about relationality, culture, Indigenous knowledge and identities, and 3) reflect on the ways that their stories are shaping/informing my understanding of Indigenous identities and knowledge within the academy

Fall 2024

Medwayosh, Audrey

Of the 1.8 million Indigenous Peoples residing on the lands known as Canada, nearly half live in urban areas. Urban spaces themselves are built on traditional Indigenous territory. In some cases, Indigenous Peoples are born and raised in cities that exist on their territories, in other cases

, Indigenous Peoples may have migrated to cities or were born there, away from their own ancestral lands. Being an urban Indigenous Person often means that our ties to cultural connection have been disrupted to some degree (Barker 2019). Studies have shown that Indigenous People are overrepresented in several

key mortality related measures, such as violent death and premature death. Given this information, this study examines urban Indigenous experiences of colonization, culture, and grief to determine what impacts colonization and culture have had on meaningful and culturally relevant healing experiences