Towards an Indigenous History: Indigenous Art Practices from Contemporary Australia and Canada

The debate of Indigenous art as contemporary art in Western art discourse has been ongoing since the acceptance of Indigenous art as contemporary art in the early 1990s. This has resulted in a collision of four diverse fields; Western art history, Western art criticism, anthropology and Indigenous cultural material. The debate stems from the problematised way the term contemporary is defined by globalised Euro-Western art and its institutions. This thesis considers the value of applying the concept of the contemporary to Indigenous art practices and art, in particular as a mode for cultural self-determination in order to avoid the historical domination of Western art history, history and its discursive power arrangements. The term, concept or theory of the contemporary remains elusive, indefinable and widespread in Western art discourse. Various definitions exist and are based on notions of openness, newness or plurality. Criticism of the contemporary’s openness has led to speculation of the contemporary as a valid concept or theory and or as a field of art practice, particularly its claim to social or political engagement and its inability to historicise current art. This thesis contends that the openness of the contemporary concept provides a gateway in which to situate it in a much broader cultural analysis that embraces different historiographies and worldviews. Thereby directly contributing to the ongoing critical discourse of Indigenous art as contemporary art debate. This thesis contributes to addressing this debate by proposing a definition of the contemporary that bridges history, art history and contemporary art and explores the potential for administering a contemporary art practice within this view. It highlights the historical analysis of the journey of Indigenous art from the ethnographic to the contemporary art museum by examining Indigenous rupture and transformation through Western history and art history. The thesis examines Terry Smith’s recent contextualisation of contemporary theory, as Smith is the only art historian to include Indigenous art in the discussion on contemporary theory.[1] Richard Meyer’s theory on the contemporary is also examined as Meyer is unique in approaching contemporary theory from an artistic practice that embraces co-temporalities, art production and modes of trans-historicity. In ‘rendering the past as newly present’, this thesis proposes methods of contemporary art analysis in the examination of contemporary Indigenous artworks in the context that the socio-political and cultural use of contemporary art as a form of history production. Description of Creative Work An exhibition of one large installation took place at Sydney College of the Arts Galleries, Sydney in September 2016. Media included two- and three-dimensional artworks that were hung on the walls and placed on the floor. The installation used Indigenous forms, designs, processes and social, political, and cultural content as a result of the thesis research and demonstrated Indigenous artists are creating their Indigenous histories within the context of contemporary art. Photographic documentation is available in Appendix 3. [1] Terry Smith, What is Contemporary Art? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 133

A Mana Wahine inquiry into indigenous governance

This thesis investigates the question “How can indigenous women reinvigorate their role in tribal governance structures when many such structures continue to reinforce gendered colonial constructs within which women are marginalised?” It is noted that contemporary tribal governance structures are often considered a site within which indigenous peoples can express cultural identity, however, when indigenous women are clearly under-represented in positions of power within those structures, this thesis questions why this situation continues. First, the thesis seeks to address the broad historical context within which indigenous women were subjected to colonial constructs of legislation, paternalistic government policies and the mechanisms of a euro-western court system policy. It is against this backdrop that comparisons are drawn that take into account the historical relationships between Māori, First Nations, Aboriginal, and Native American women and their respective colonising governments which bear alarming similarities in terms of the subjugation of these populations of women through colonisation. The significance of this historical-comparative lens is to illustrate how the status of women became seriously eroded within indigenous societies from traditional through to modern times. Consequently, this thesis goes on to explore the contemporary socio-political status of indigenous women as a result of their colonised history. From this broad historical context, the thesis narrows its view to examine commonalities and differences in relation to Māori and Native American women's experiences of tribal governance as tribal leaders and women of cultural significance and influence. The thesis changes tack to reflect the specific research intent of my Fulbright scholar experience to the University of Arizona, Tucson Arizona. Narrowing the focus of the research allowed me to analyse in more detail, beneficial comparisons of what was working for women tribal leaders under the auspices of the largely successful Native Nations Institute, Indigenous Governance Programme, in comparison to Māori women in tribal governance in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Importantly, this research synergises indigenous women’s shared knowledge in the reinvigoration of traditional tribal governance structures. The objective being to establish a body of knowledge that gives strength to a collective indigenous women's experience of governance from which normative propositions of indigenous governance based on western concepts can be examined, challenged and potentially transformed. It is noted that indigenous women have been included as essential decision-makers and leaders in traditional tribal governance systems; however, contemporary indigenous governance models do little to reflect this. The impact is that for indigenous women, tribal institutions and structures can themselves embed and reflect western colonial and patriarchal ideologies. Through our colonial experiences, indigenous peoples have inherited an oppressive gender legacy entrenched in policy and legislation that is socially constructed and instructed. To survive, indigenous women have to engage, challenge, resist and mitigate gendered spaces. This research highlights the extent to which indigenous women’s ways of leading or governing continue to be circumscribed in the on-going process of colonisation. Colonialism was a gendered process, and consequently, this thesis draws upon indigenous Feminist, Kaupapa Maori and Mana Wahine (Māori women’s) theoretical frameworks to analyse the complex ways that intersecting discourses of colonialism, race, gender and power continue to marginalise indigenous women within tribal governance. Indigenous Feminist theory also provides a framework for contextualising how First Nations, Aboriginal and Native American/American Indian women speak to these issues. Importantly, how indigenous women are engaging in decolonising methodologies that impact the colonised practices, ways and attitudes they have or are currently experiencing in tribal governance, are also revealed. Lastly, this thesis contributes to legal scholarship by contextualising the specific challenges of tribal governance for indigenous women. It addresses this by situating women’s experiences and ways of ‘being and doing’ within the micro tribal governance context while taking account of the macro realities of tribal governance politically, socially and more importantly, culturally

Climate for changing lenses: Reconciliation through site-specific, media arts-based environmental education on the water and climate change nexus in South Africa and Canada

This study took place in the context of a growing racialised global water crisis and increasing demands worldwide for transforming higher education at institutions of ongoing settler colonialism. It presents a conceptualisation of what education, research and activism can look like and unfolded inside a doctoral research project that expands what doctoral education can look like. Using a media arts-based praxis process, I developed a relational model of university curriculum –site-specific, media arts-based, environmental education –with potential to cultivate relations (human and nonhuman) towards reconciliation while contributing to justice at the water-climate change nexus. My aim as a settler-ally was to expand my teaching and curriculum practices, thereby also offering curriculum transformation inspiration to others. My research was rooted in my concept of reconciliation as a practice towards thriving together, where the ‘together’ was inclusive of both humans and nonhumans. The curriculum engaged students in de/re/constructing water narratives through making site-specific videos focused on local water bodies. Decolonising artistic approaches known as slow media and soundscape recording were strategically incorporated into audio/video mapping assignments where students observed water aesthetics in ways that shifted their perceptions about water and entities entangled with it. Students met with Knowledge Keepers (Indigenous and non-Indigenous people from outside the academy with existing relationships to water bodies). A photovoice methodology was used in these meetings with Knowledge Keepers to reconfigure traditional film director-subject power relations. Guest lecturers from non-traditional backgrounds contributed diverse perspectives. Ecomotricity was incorporated, whereby students were in deliberate movement in/with water bodies through canoeing together. The curriculum culminated in a public screening/education event where resulting videos, interspersed with educational games facilitated by students, surfaced emotions, knowledge co-production and new synergies amongst the event’s temporary community. Through two iterations of the curriculum, where I co-designed and taught a course called Making Waveforms, one in Vancouver, Canada and one in Cape Town, South Africa, I explored the primary research question: How can a relational site specific, media arts-based university environmental education curriculum cultivate students’ relational sensibilities and abilities oriented towards reconciliation of diverse peoples and ecosystems in South Africa and Canada? Iterating the curriculum across these two contexts allowed me to assess which aspect(s)of the curriculum may have been applicable across these and other contexts. By using mixed methods of data collection and sharing throughout the research journey, I explored the sub-questions: a) How is reconciliation understood currently by university students in South Africa and Canada? and b) How can a relational site-specific, media arts-based university environmental education curriculum and my PhD methodologies (PhD-by-publication, website, and participatory approaches to podcasting, video making, and song creation), contribute to decolonising higher education, and thereby further contribute to reconciliation of diverse peoples and ecosystems in South Africa and Canada? Integral to my praxis process, I undertook a PhD-by-publication that involved writing four academic journal articles, with each paper presenting a key stage in the process. The papers, all of which have been submitted to peer-reviewed academic journals, form part of this thesis and can be found in the Appendices. The course was originally developed around Donati’s (2011) relational sociology and Gergen’s (2009) relational education theory. Throughout my praxis process, I expanded my theoretical influences as called for by the research and teaching practice. The journey behind my first PhD paper, (Towards) Sound research practice: Podcast-building as modeling relational sensibilities at the water-climate change nexus in Cape Town, began when I officially started my doctoral studies in early 2018. The paper was co-authored with a fellow PhD scholar from Rhodes University’s Environmental Learning Research Centre (ELRC), Anna James. It presents an experimental arts-based methodology we co-developed for doing contextual profiling by building a socially-engaged podcast series, called Day One, to explore the lived experiences of the Cape Town water crisis of 2018. It includes my initial tool of analysis for exploring how the curriculum might cultivate relational sensibilities and abilities towards reconciliation. The podcast pedagogy offered opportunities to develop some relational learning processes. The analytical tool was developed from cross-referencing reconciliation and relational educational theories. This paper also incorporated theories in relational solidarity and social movement learning. The podcast episodes included personal narratives that, in turn, revealed diverse ideologies and polarisations in the water situation. Working with the audio medium highlighted possibilities for creating and shifting affective relations. Recording and editing soundscapes of waterbodies began explorations of the agential qualities of water. These were foundational dynamics to explore in building the reconciliation curriculum. The paper is published in the International Journal of New Media, Technology, and the Arts (2019, Volume14, Issue1). My second PhD paper, A media arts-based praxis process of building towards a relational model of curriculum oriented towards reconciliation through water justice, presents my methodology for and analysis of a pilot course I co-designed and taught at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECUAD) in Vancouver, Canada in 2018. This course served as contextual profiling around the water situation in Vancouver. The course was offered in partnership with a science-based environmental non-profit called the David Suzuki Foundation and an Indigenous-led post-secondary school called the Native Education College. The course’s public event was hosted at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. At this stage, I was introduced to Cree/Métis filmmaker, Gregory Coyes, and his Indigenous cinematic narrative approach known as Slow Media. Integrating slow media into video mapping assignments presented exciting possibilities for shifting views and valuing of water. This was the stage at which my concept of reconciliation expanded to explicitly include nonhumans. I applied my initial analytical tool to the curriculum here, which revealed the three most prominent relational sensibilities and abilities towards reconciliation cultivated by students through the course: (1) knowledge ecologies; (2) a hopeful social imaginary; and (3) embodied ways of knowing. I began to make connections between the curriculum and Mi’kmaq elder Albert Marshall’s concept of ‘Two-Eyed-Seeing’, and expanded the notion to ‘Three-Eyed-Seeing’ to include artistic approaches. Deeply inspired by Bekerman and Zembylas’s (2012) Teaching Contested Narratives, I began to see the growing importance of the narrative aspects of reconciliation education. The paper is published in the University of Pretoria’s Journal of Decolonising Disciplines (2021, Volume 1, Issue 2). My third PhD paper, Water as artist-collaborator: Posthumanism and reconciliation in relational media arts-based education, presents a 2019 iteration of the curriculum at ECUAD in Vancouver, and illustrates my shift to include posthuman theories in my analysis. This course was offered in affiliation with the David Suzuki Foundation, and in collaboration with the Native Education College. The culminating public event was hosted by the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Decentring the human in this data analysis better supported my research and curricular aims. The strong technoculture of the media arts-based curriculum fits well with many posthuman concepts. This posthuman reading of the course and data enabled me to see what changes were emerging through student-water-technology intra-actions, and how these supported relations towards reconciliation as well as water justice. Most notable of these changes was the emergence of water’s agential qualities, specifically of water as becoming collaborator in artistic/knowledge co-production, where students think with water. I argued this contributes to reconciliation by decentring the human, enabling relations in which power is more equal, and where there are greater possibilities for mutual responsibility between related entities. This is where I developed the concept of audio/video as relational texts, supporting the creating and shifting of affective relations more than the monumentalised verbal/written knowledge of traditional universities. This is also where I realised that relational work towards reconciliation would require engaging with the hidden curriculum of institutions. The paper is published in the journal Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology (2021, Volume 12, Issue 1), as part of a special issue on Posthuman Conceptions of Change in Empirical Educational Research. My fourth PhD paper, originally entitled Making waveforms: Implicit knowledge representation through video water narratives as decolonising practice towards reconciliation in South Africa’s higher education, presents an analysis of the 2019 iteration of the curriculum in South Africa. I co-designed and led a course called Making Waveforms at the University of Cape Town’s Future Water Institute (FWI) in collaboration with Rhodes University. The course was co-designed/facilitated with FWI’s Research Fellow Amber Abrams, who also co-authored this paper. The course’s public event was hosted by a non-profit organisation called the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education. This paper explored the ways that non-verbalisable, implicit learning –understood as part of many non-Euro/Western ways of knowing– takes place in the Making Waveforms course and how this influenced water-specific climate behaviours while contributing to decolonised reconciliation practice for higher education institutions. Drawing on theories of implicit and explicit knowledge, we first showed how implicit learning primarily took place through: 1) site-specific audio/video mapping of water bodies; 2) meetings with Knowledge Keepers; and 3) an interactive public screening event. We highlighted how this non-verbalisable learning produced feelings of empathy for diverse peoples and waterways, as well as aesthetic appreciation of water, and how this can contribute to more response-able water behaviours. This, we argued, supported the valuing of implicit knowledge within a traditional educational setting, thereby pluralising knowledge, and was key to reconciliation/decolonisation in higher education. Iterating the curriculum for the South African context emphasised the importance of context-specificity of the course overall, and also of the relational work embedded in the curriculum. This paper is under review by the University of Toronto’s journal Curriculum Inquiry (CI). Following receipt of CI's internal review process, the title of the paper has since been updated to Non-verbalisable, implicit knowledge through cellphilms as decolonised reconciliation practice towards response-able water behaviours in South Africa. Through reflective analysis of my four papers, I developed a concept for an Anatomy of Decoloniz/sed Curriculum consisting of five key parts: 1) relationality; 2) multimodality; 3) narratives/counter-narratives; 4) context-specificity; and 5) unhidden curriculum. Four meta reflections have been included in this thesis, each corresponding with one of the four papers, and presented chronologically according to the stage of the praxis process with which they correspond. In these meta reflections, I applied Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Cycle model for reflective writing, based on the premise that through experiences we can expand our understanding, and included four key stages: 1) concrete experience; 2) reflective observation; 3) abstract conceptualisation; and 4) active experimentation. For the concrete experience, I provided a thick description of my process in writing the paper, as well as aspects of the phase in my praxis process that was the focus of the paper, not included in but relevant to the paper. For the reflective observation, I identified any aspects of the experience that were new to me and which therefore presented opportunities for me to learn. For the abstract conceptualisation, I critically analysed my concrete experience and reflective observation to determine which, if any, of the five key parts of the Anatomy of Decoloniz/sed Curriculum that I outline in my introduction relate to this phase of my PhD praxis process. For the active experimentation, I made conclusions about the extent to which this phase of my PhD embraced decoloniality in practice, and built on this new understanding to make recommendations for myself and others committed to the decolonial project as part of my contribution to knowledge. These meta reflections also invite readers to follow my personal narrative of becoming-with water, meaning my transformation from being water illiterate to embracing a ‘watershed mind’ (Wong,2011). Multimodality, which I propose as a key part of an Anatomy of Decoloniz/sed Curriculum, is embedded in the representational aspects of this thesis. The courses I co-designed and taught as part of this project resulted in the creation of 20 short student films. My contextual profiling involved a podcast methodology that was ongoing throughout my study, as a model of decolonised research-communication-education-action at the water-climate change nexus. This methodology resulted in the creation of four Day One podcast episodes, co-produced with a PhD colleague, Anna James. Some of these episodes are available in all three main languages of Cape Town (Xhosa, Afrikaans, and English). I evolved the podcast methodology in a later stage of my praxis process as a form of member checking with contributors involved in various stages and aspects of the research. Once the four papers were written, I created a series of four short videos called In the Flow, with each video representing a translation of one of the four papers. I invited various contributors of the research project to either watch one or more of the In the Flow videos and/or read one or more of the academic papers, and then to respond in a Zoom call with me. The responses were then shared publicly in a series of seven Climate for Changing Lenses podcast episodes. Parts of these are included in a final song/music video called Please Don’t Blow It. A Climate for Changing Lenses website was created to host all of this multimedia content that forms part of this thesis. A link to this website is provided in the Introduction section of this thesis. My research contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the areas of relational and reconciliation pedagogy, decolonising higher education, arts-based teaching, learning and research methodologies and the water-climate change nexus. My praxis process provided a relational model of reconciliation curriculum that has been tried and tested in two international contexts: Canada and South Africa.Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 202

Indigenous Water Justice In Manitoba Through Engagement In Water Governance

Globally, negative impacts on water resources from land development, pollution, and climate change demand greater attention to more effective water governance. In settler colonial countries such as Canada, these negative impacts alter Indigenous relationships with water, land, and each other, and contribute to water insecurity and water injustice for Indigenous peoples. Greater engagement of Indigenous peoples in water governance, research, management, and planning is arguably one way to address negative impacts on water resources in Indigenous communities, but not all types of engagement are as effective as others. I characterize Indigenous engagement in water governance from three geographic scales. A narrative review of the water governance literature finds that Indigenous engagement in settler-colonial nations is generally lacking in both legislation and practice, perpetuating water injustice for Indigenous people. At a regional scale engagement, I examine the degree to which Indigenous participation occurs in provincial watershed planning in Manitoba. At the community-scale, a case study documents the impacts of historic and contemporary water-related decisions as felt by members of Wuskwi Sipihk First Nation, and their efforts in response. Participant observation and interviews with key informants provides practical insight into the water-related challenges facing the community and others in the province. Globally, multiple mechanisms and pathways to water justice are evident in the review, but their efficacy is highly contingent. In Manitoba, inclusion of Indigenous peoples in watershed planning is uneven, and there is limited evidence that Aboriginal and Treaty rights influence rates or nature of participation. Provincially decisions about water are made across different government departments, and Indigenous rights are unevenly recognized and respected between them. Additionally, existing regulatory processes and institutions, while procedurally fair, are not empowered to recognize or accommodate Aboriginal and Treaty rights. In this way, water governance is de-politicized, and settler and capitalist values are privileged above Indigenous rights and values. More support is needed to enhance Indigenous participation in watershed planning and water governance to attain water justice. Enhanced coordination, alternative institutional arrangements, and greater recognition and respect of Indigenous rights are needed to ensure water justice is attainable by Indigenous communities in Manitoba

Māori Wards in Tauranga Moana and Aotearoa: Liminal Local Government Democracy

This thesis focuses on Māori representation within the highly contested arena of local government democracy in Aotearoa New Zealand. Limitations of the current Eurocentric model of local government democracy are considered at various spatial scales. Legislative changes to enable councils to establish Māori wards were launched in the early 2000s. Māori wards are defined locations where those on the Māori electoral roll vote for Māori ward candidates, resulting in dedicated Māori representation at elected member level. Until 2021 when the legislation was amended to remove the ability for public referenda to challenge council decisions on establishing Māori wards, however, little change occurred. Since then, 35 councils have established Māori wards for the 2022 local body elections. The research asks how, and in what ways, do Māori wards decolonise local government and encourage greater Māori representation? To explore this question, the empirical chapters are framed around three key aspects of liminality; the in-between positioning of Māori wards reflecting a time of change; this liminal space being a time where unease and discomfort is experienced by some as Indigenous disparity is addressed; and the threshold positioning of Māori wards as a place of opportunity and creativity, where new ideas and practices may be considered. Geographical concepts of (un)belonging, exclusion and deep colonising reveal challenges for Māori participation at the level of local government decision-making. The research uses an Indigenous methodological framework, Te Ara Tika, based on a framework of Kaupapa Māori, and developed specifically for non-Māori researchers. Māori wards have been widely debated in the media, particularly at the time of changes to the Māori ward legislation in 2021. Thematic analysis of 122 media representations of the Māori ward debate constitutes part of the empirical evidence. Fourteen individual interviews with local government representatives, including elected Council members from Tauranga Moana and members of Te Rangapū Mana Whenua o Tauranga Moana Partnership, were conducted. Additionally, participant observations took place at three public meetings on Māori wards. The way the current form of local government representative democracy impacts Māori representation is identified. The research demonstrates how local government continues to act as a tool of colonialism by privileging Western worldviews, institutions, and systems. The research finds that Māori wards are liminal democratic options that are both decolonising and deep colonising. Evidence shows that the liminal space of Māori wards is an opportunity to consider options for a way forward to reimagine local government as a place of belonging underpinned by Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Te Ao Māori principles. The research builds on decolonisation literatures that seek to unsettle the hegemony of Eurocentric institutions and systems within colonised countries such as Aotearoa. Providing a critical spatial perspective on the intersection of democracy, colonisation and Indigeneity, this thesis advances decolonising geographical knowledges. In particular, this research advances debates about democratic processes, exposing ways in which colonially-based local authority democratic mechanisms contribute to under-representation issues. A reimagined local government allows current hegemonic approaches to be rethought and provides insights for a shift towards genuine decolonising processes

Racial Extractivism: Neoliberal White Settler Colonialism and Tar Sands Extraction

This dissertation traces the reoccurrence of logics which attempt to justify white settler occupation and the extraction, theft and harm of Indigenous lands and life in the Athabasca region and in relation to the extraction, transportation and marketing of bitumen. By tracing the entrenchment of notions of white entitlement to land and life in this context, the repetitiveness of normalized epistemic and ontological colonial violence comes into view as just as much a part of the contemporary neoliberal moment as it was during the founding of the nation-state. The Athabasca region is home to the worlds second largest deposit of oil and is being aggressively extracted despite being an unconventional oil source that requires massive amounts of energy, water, toxic chemicals and irreversible environmental damage to extract. Herein, historical narratives of empire and nation-building are examined and linked to extractive industries over time, first within a colonial mercantilist economy, then within a capitalist economic structure and finally within the contemporary neoliberal context. The relationships between private capital and the white settler government are explored as deeply interconnected and as mutually involved in the creation and maintenance of normalized white settler colonialism. Furthermore, the dissertation examines the extractive practices of white settler colonialism as always already informed by logics of white supremacy, and develops the concept of racial extractivism as a theoretical lens through which race, racism and racialization as well as colonialism may be centered in studies of resource extraction and nation-state building. Influenced by Cedric Robinsons (1983) theorization of racial capitalism, racial extractivism contributes to studies of political economy, settler colonialism, and to cultural studies and is utilized in analyzing the more regionally specific context of tar sands extraction and the contemporary discursive strategies supporting it and marketing it domestically and internationally. Lastly, the project examines neoliberalism and the securitization of the industry and attempts to think about racial extractivism intersectionally, as white settler state power combines with the forces of private oil and gas companies to discursively and affectively normalize ongoing colonial violence

Access to midwifery services for Indigenous communities in Quebec

The ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS) has expressed its intention of implementing one of the measures included in the 2017-2022 action plan developed by the Secrétariat aux affaires autochtones (SAA), Do More, Do Better: Government Action Plan for the Social and Cultural Development of the First Nations and Inuit, a set of 119 initiatives organized in four strategic priorities. Measure 1.1.15 aims to “develop access to the services of midwives in non-treaty Aboriginal communities” (SAA, 2017, p. 47). In order to address this measure as well as the critical need to improve health care for Indigenous women, the MSSS approached the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Women's Issues at the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT) to conduct research on the access to midwifery services of Indigenous communities in Quebec. Conducted in collaboration with the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission (FNQLHSSC), this research is the first step towards the implementation of this government measure (measure 1.1.15) . The main objective of this research is to produce knowledge conducive to an improved access to midwifery services for Indigenous women and families in the said non-treaty communities in Quebec. The objective also includes an understanding of Indigenous women’s needs in terms of culturally relevant and safe perinatal monitoring, the facilitating factors and the obstacles encountered in accessing these. The findings are intended, in particular, as tools for government and Indigenous authorities (Indigenous communities, FNQLHSSC, Regroupement des centres d'amitié autochtones du Québec [RCAAQ], etc.) in the deployment of midwifery services that are in line with the needs and aspirations of the various Indigenous communities in Quebec. The health of Indigenous women in Quebec and Canada is marked by colonialism. Colonial policies have targeted Indigenous women in many ways, either through the control over their bodies, the devaluation of their roles within their societies, the eradication of their roles as educators through the mandatory attendance of residential schools, and the non-recognition of their place within their traditional land. Today, Indigenous women are affected by these numerous attempts at eradication. Indigenous midwifery knowledge, traditionally present throughout the Americas and elsewhere in the world, has been devalued in favour of biomedicine and the over-medicalization of pregnancies. Traditional birthing rituals have been stigmatized, and the Indigenous experience of motherhood has been adversely affected. As a result, pregnant women are faced with significant difficulties, of which the obligation of travelling long distances for pregnancy follow-ups and to give birth, and therefore isolating them from their families, their communities and their land. In the wake of the events surrounding the tragic death, on September 28, 2020, of Ms. Joyce Échaquan, an Atikamekw woman from the Manawan community, Joyce’s Principle was developed to “guarantee to all Indigenous people the right of equitable access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services, as well as the right to enjoy the best possible physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health” (CNA & CAM, 2020, p. 14). Inspired by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN, 2007), this principle brings back to the forefront the necessary recognition of and respect for Indigenous peoples' traditional health-related knowledge

Hunting, healing & human-land relationships: A reflective inquiry into health and well-being explored through indigenous-informed hunting practices, land-relationships & ways of knowing

This research is based on the premise that strategies to address Indigenous well-being might well be best found within Indigenous teachings themselves. More specifically, it seeks to explore the question: How might human-land relationships, as developed through Indigenous-informed hunting practices and ways of knowing, facilitate health, healing, and well-being among North American Indigenous peoples? The Interdisciplinary nature of this research merges concepts, theories and ideas from First Nations Studies, Anthropology, Health Sciences and Health Geography disciplines. The thesis and accompanying website embrace land-engaged storying and an autoethnographic reflective exploration of health anchored in Indigenous-informed relationships with land, hunting practices and ways of knowing the world. The research project engages a land-privileging, anti-colonizing, methodological approach that is embedded in relationship driven, spiritually accepting, and emotionally felt Indigenous epistemological ideologies. As such, this inquiry is both explored and expressed through the lens of Indigenous-informed pedagogies of knowledge transition and dissemination.Indigenous well-beinghuman-land relationshipsIndigenous-informed hunting practicesknowing, facilitate health, healingautoethnographic reflective exploratio

The problem(atics) of post-colonisation: the subject in settler post-colonial discourse

This thesis concerns aspects of settler post-colonial discourse, examined through fictional and non-fictional prose writing from Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Major works discussed have been published between the 1970s and 1990s. These include fiction by Kate Grenville, Elizabeth Jolley, and Sally Morgan, from Australia; Alice Munro, Audrey Thomas, Aritha Van Herk and Rudy Wiebe, from Canada; and Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Patricia Grace, Keri Hulme, Witi Ihimaera and Ian Wedde, from New Zealand. Section One of the thesis begins with an Introduction which contextualises the following discussion in relation to background issues of definition of the term 'post-colonialism', and then describes the scope, method and selection of texts in the thesis. The argument is briefly stated and expanded upon in discussion of the theoretical perspectives. Chapter One suggests a reading of Empire as (M)Other in relation to Britain's settler colonies, and the status of the latter, within the terms of the familial metaphor, as extensions of Empire. The ambivalence of that status – as extension and as autonomous being -- is explored in consideration of affective relations between colonies and Empire. Also considered are the consequences of this 'familial'-colonial background for the attainment of 'autonomous' Nationhood, imaged as 'self-hood' according to a masculine model of the self. Analysis of discourses of (national) identity reveals 'subjective sovereignty' to be a discursive illusion, disturbed by two sources of 'disunity': 'neo-imperialism' is suggested as an 'external' threat to sovereignty, while post colonialism constitutes the difference within', akin to the functioning of the unconscious in relation to the subject. The chapter concludes with an analysis of subjective processes in three fictional texts. Section Two introduces a focus on how subjectivity is articulated through post-colonial discourses. Chapter Two explores the post-colonial textual mediation of relationships to the land, including the representation of land and landscape in writing, and the resultant facilitation of settler appropriation of the land -- of belonging. It concludes with a reading of post-colonial fictional critiques of colonisation and textuality as the basis of an authentic relationship to the land. Chapter Three considers discourses from indigenous and 'other' subject-positions which, rather than subsuming the land under their own identity, seek to gain and express their identity in relation to the land, attempts at elision of the alienating intervention of textuality. It concludes with discussion of texts which problematise the authority of textuality. Chapters Four and Five more fully examine the subject-positions of 'self' and 'other' in the context of the settler post-colonial ambivalence of authority and authenticity. Chapter Four considers strategies of privileging and appropriating the discursive place of the 'post-colonised' in order to authenticate the authority of the 'post-colonisers'. Chapter Five addresses the 'authorising' of the 'other' into a 'self', or a subject in discourse, and entry into the discursive market as the ambivalent attempt both to accede to subjectivity and to articulate it with the integrity of authenticity. The problems with this invoke the subjective problematic of hybridity which is introduced at the end of Chapter Five. The third section develops the preceding exploration of discourses into a consideration of subjective and discursive problematics, informed by an understanding of post-colonialism as a condition of instability resulting from the re-introduction of what the dominant (National) discourse constitutively excludes. In its phallocentric subjective moment, the exclusion is shown to be that of the maternal body and thus any possibility of a feminine sex; in its imperially-informed cultural moment, it is difference and heterogeneity which are submitted to and subsumed under the colonising gaze: they are disavowed, and the disavowed objects repressed to the 'national' unconscious. Chapter Six posits an analogy between the productions of sexual and colonial difference. Similarly in that chapter the return to, and reconsideration of, motifs and analyses in the thesis enact the thematic-analytic focus on the return of the body and its contaminations of unity, purity and linearity. In Chapter Seven, the theory of the abjection of the subject is employed to suggest a reading of the non-autonomy and non-integrity of settler post-colonial subjectivities and cultures: the settler post-colonial subject is abjected by the internal difference of its own heterogeneity -- the body-difference for which the metaphor of the land (as mother) is used -- and by the perceived radical cultural otherness or externality of post-modernism. However, it is argued that these others are constitutive of the post-colonial self, and that cultural and political agency must therefore relinquish its privileging of purity and sameness, principles which themselves re-play the dynamics of imperialism. Chapter Seven concludes with an argument against the imperialism of identity and against the identity of a text. Chapter Eight concludes the third Section, and the thesis as a whole, with the exploration of a textual-cultural 'case-study' in the discourses and problematics which have constituted the preceding discussions