Unsettling Ottawa: Settler Colonialism, Indigenous Resistance, and the Politics of Scale

The city of Ottawa is on unceded Algonquin territory and, as the centre of formal political power in what is now known as Canada, has represented an important site for local, regional, national and international Indigenous networks organizing to resist settler state agendas of dispossession and assimilation. Yet the city-region is rarely acknowledged as a deeply contested space where competing ideologies and imaginaries reproduce and disrupt settler colonial common sense and state power. Based on a critical interrogation of methodological settler colonialism, this paper proposes a decolonizing scalar lens to analyze Indigenous contestations that unsettle Ottawa. Through brief case studies of local community-building, the Algonquin land claims process, and Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike on Victoria Island, it illustrates the contested, interconnected, and competing nature of scalar confi gurations and spatial ontologies and the role of “Ottawa” in settler colonialism and Indigenous resurgence

Language, culture and community among urban Inuit in Ottawa

Cet article traite des expériences sociales et des besoins d’une communauté urbaine inuit à Ottawa. Notre recherche s’appuie sur les données d’entrevues recueillies lors d’un partenariat de recherche avec le Centre pour enfants inuit d’Ottawa. Elle cherche à comprendre comment les cheminements sociaux, historiques et géographiques doivent être pris en considération lors de l’analyse des besoins d’élaboration de programmes urbains de langue et de culture inuit. Nos conclusions confirment l'hypothèse voulant que les communautés ne sont pas des entités fixes ou unifiées et que les questions de logement, langue et discrimination solidarisent les Inuit vivant en ville tout en leur créant des barrières. Les programmes de langue et de culture dirigés par les Inuit sont au centre du développement de la conscience communautaire et de l’augmentation de l’accès aux emplois et aux services de la ville.This paper discusses the social experiences and needs of an urban Inuit community in Ottawa, drawing on interview data gathered as part of collaborative research with the Ottawa Inuit Children’s Centre. Its aim is to trace the role of social, historical, and geographical processes in urban Inuit experiences and to assess how they must be considered in an analysis of Inuit language and culture programming needs in the city. Our findings support the notions that communities are not fixed or unified entities and that issues such as housing, language, and discrimination both unite and create barriers for Inuit in the city. Inuit-run language and culture programs are central to community-building and to increased access to employment and services in the city

Społeczeństwo obywatelskie, państwo, rynek jako siły równoważne

"Ważne dla przybliżenia kategorii społeczeństwa obywatelskiego jest usytuowanie go w rzeczywistości społeczno-gospodarczej wraz z państwem i rynkiem. Współcześnie przeważa pogląd, że społeczeństwo obywatelskie jest czymś innym niż społeczeństwem politycznym i trudno byłoby je utożsamiać także z systemem ekonomicznym. „Stanowi ono domenę zasadniczo różną nie tylko od państwa, lecz i od gospodarki”."(...

To train a watchdog. Media development, statebuilding and measurement in South Sudan

Attempts to build a free press are routinely made in countries experiencing violent conflict or the aftermath thereof. A free press, defined as a press that holds governments accountable, is thought of as an important part of an emerging democracy. The role of media development projects is nevertheless under-researched. Most examinations of such projects are done by practitioners active in media development. This thesis contributes to the emerging academic literature on media development and its role in statebuilding. It does so by investigating media development in the new state of South Sudan. Ethnographic observations, a social survey, and unstructured interviews have been applied during a fieldwork spell in Juba, which lasted from November 2014 to August 2015. The application of three methods allowed for an in-depth investigation of the South Sudanese understanding of media, which differed significantly from the aims of western media experts implementing media development projects. Furthermore, the thesis compares the strengths and weaknesses, and the results delivered, by each utilised research method, and thus investigates how these methods perform in a country of the global South. I argue that the various understandings of media in South Sudan differ significantly from the thinking and practices of western media practitioners. In South Sudan, this resulted in a deteriorating relationship between the country’s government and its international donors and led to problems for the newly trained journalists. Furthermore, my results show the limitations of using just one method in a country of the global South; and they provide an argument for bricolage, a research approach that combines perspectives, theories, and methods, when researching policy-relevant questions in environments where the researcher is not a cultural native