Respecting "the Medicines" : narrating an aboriginal identity at Nechi House

Abstract

This dissertation is an attempt to explore the dynamics of the therapeutic process at Nechi House, a community residential centre or halfway house for men of aboriginal ancestry. I explore the construction of an Aboriginal identity among residents at the House as an issue of context, where, as Gregory Bateson (1979) suggested, "It is the context that fixes the meaning". Aboriginal identity among residents at Nechi House, I argue, represents an intersection of imbricated discursive practices and personal narratives of self within a highly problematic and contentious symbolic socializing space. Space as I am using the concept in this dissertation is presented as analogous to language and speaks to the larger social order