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2024-04-26

Shannon L.L. Loutitt

Indigenous students deserve to feel a sense of holistic wellbeing and experience equitable educational outcomes, but Alberta’s K-12 education system is not currently meeting the needs of many of its First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students. Education should empower Indigenous students to achieve

success as is understood by them and their families. While numerous systemic changes must take place to improve the holistic wellbeing and educational outcomes of Indigenous students, the role of teachers in students’ lives is central. Through a woven approach grounded in Indigenous methodologies, this

paper answers the question: How should teacher educators approach professional learning for teachers in order to improve outcomes for Indigenous students? Teacher educators for pre-service and in-service teachers must begin with tapahtêyimisowin (humility), mâtinamâtowak (sharing), and wâhkôhtowin

2017-01-01

Lafferty, Anita

images of the sundial. The images represent the interpolation of the third space as each identifies an epistemological, political, ideological, aesthetic, ethical, and historical inquiry that challenges the content of our current curriculum to include authentic Indigenous pedagogy. The sundial represents

the methodological narrative in its 'temporal space' but as the story shifts through the sundial, it is ever changing and will do so as an ongoing element of nature, time, and place. My research will continue to explore this narrative from an Indigenous perspective drawn from my own experiences

revealed through poetic and artistic elements. The emergence of a new paradigm for Indigenous curriculum involves amalgamating the current system with new data points that are interconnected with Indigenous worldviews and allow resistance to assimilative epistemologies. // Program of Study: PhD // Faculty

Spring 2022

Borrows, Lindsay

disciplines to examine how various Indigenous legal traditions form law through relationships with the earth. I also consider the importance of embodied experiences and land-based learning in acquiring this form of legal knowledge. As legal professionals in Canada increasingly engage with Indigenous law, this

thesis can help them understand an Indigenous theory of law that relies more on discernment and relationships, than on demands and norms.

Fall 2021

Barnes, Kateryna Sarah Ellwood

Environmental racism manifests in videogames and is an under-explored facet of videogame ecology, as are Indigenous worldviews such as relationality. Using primarily decolonial poststructuralist semiotic analysis and Indigenous Métissage, this thesis highlights the signs and simulacra of

environmental racism (eg. resource extraction, water access, climate change, borders) in videogames that affect bodies of colour in real life such as the migrants from Central America, Black folks in North America, and Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. The hope is that this critical exploration can work as a

starting point for social justice education about environmental racism and relationality from Indigenous worldviews (specifically those of the Néhiyaw, the Iñupiat, and the Haudenosaunee). The games analyzed in this experiment are SimCity BuildIt, Civilization VI, Fallout: New Vegas, and Kisima Inŋitchuŋa

2020-02-07

Christian Isbister

Controlled vocabulary subject headings are key elements to ensure consistent cataloguing across different institutions. Unfortunately, the language used in controlled vocabularies to describe library materials by and about Indigenous peoples does not always reflect terms Indigenous peoples use to

describe themselves, leading to disconnects between students and the library. In this study, which was grounded in an Indigenous research methodology focused on relationality, I interviewed students in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta to better understand how they relate to the

different Library of Congress Subject Headings used to describe resources by and about Indigenous peoples. Ultimately, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students students reported feeling various degrees of discomfort. While some were able to alter their search strategies to avoid terminology such as

Spring 2021

Longley, Hereward

interviews with members and administrators from Fort Chipewyan Métis, Fort McKay First Nation, and Mikisew Cree First Nation. It argues that conflicts between Indigenous peoples, the state, and the oil sands industry were rooted in an evolving system of control and regulation of land and resources, which

marginalized Indigenous land use and encouraged bitumen extraction with limited environmental regulation. I show how bitumen exploration influenced the Dominion of Canada’s use of cartography, resource regulations, and Treaty 8 to extend sovereignty over the Athabasca region. The global energy and economic

crises of the 1970s drove the Alberta Progressive Conservative government to invest in developing the oil sands, which created a conflict of interest that undermined environmental policy. Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples resisted the environmental destruction of bitumen extraction and fought for economic

Fall 2015

Dokis-Jansen, Kelsey L

Grounded in an Indigenous methodological framework and using dendroecology as a scientific assessment tool in combination with oral history analysis, this thesis assesses changes to caribou movement patterns in the traditional territory of Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation (LKDFN), Northwest Territories

, Canada. This approach was used to explore ways in which scientific methods can be used within an Indigenous research framework. This approach shows that Indigenous ways of knowing can set the basis for identifying the important research questions and methods, and that appropriate and complimentary

to document oral histories about caribou movement patterns and augmented their observations and stories with information from dendroecological assessment techniques. This thesis provides a framework for those seeking to conduct ecological research by drawing linkages between Indigenous knowledge

Spring 2022

Cunningham, Hannah

The management of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Alberta is a complex issue that affects multiple stakeholders, including Indigenous communities who highly value the affected species both nutritionally and culturally. Despite the relevancy of CWD management to the livelihoods of these Indigenous

Indigenous hunters in central Alberta feel about CWD, what are the barriers that Indigenous people in central Alberta face to participating in current CWD management, and what are the best practices that could be utilized to develop a community-based monitoring program for CWD in Alberta? This thesis uses

the concepts of knowledge and power, access theory, and the perception of risk to identify why the current CWD monitoring program in Alberta does not adequately reflect the views of Indigenous communities impacted by this disease, and presents community-based monitoring as a potential solution

2019-11-11

Lupien, Pascal

SSHRC Awarded PDG 2020: The ongoing political, social, and economic marginalization of Indigenous women exposes them to poverty, social exclusion, and violence. But Indigenous women are not victims; they are actively involved in resistance efforts and have created civil society organizations (CSOs

) to reclaim power and agency. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become an indispensable resource for civil society actors, but research suggests that numerous barriers limit the potential of technologies to support the empowerment of Indigenous women. These barriers include the

fact that technology is not designed according to their perspectives, preferences and ways of knowing. During our previous SSHRC-funded research, Indigenous women's CSOs identified two priorities for using ICTs: political communication and collaboration with other Indigenous women across the Americas

Fall 2015

Patel, Smit J

Tuberculosis (TB) incidence in the Indigenous people of Canada continues to be disproportionately higher than that of the non-Indigenous and foreign-born people. For more than a decade, the rate of TB in the Indigenous people of Canada has remained relatively constant despite recent population

growth. Most researchers have speculated that demographic and geographic risk factors along with the colonially and historically rooted poor social circumstances are associated with the ongoing transmission in the Indigenous people, thus raising concerns for TB control efforts. This thesis combined

that provincial TB control programs must strive to prioritize the demographic, geographic, clinical, and social determinants in the Indigenous people of the Prairies. Collaborative effort of healthcare workers, educators, and community leaders is required to disrupt the chain of transmission in this