Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Indigenous political studies'

The theme of ethnic identity in politics is gaining importance in countries such as Bolivia, where people recently elected their first indigenous President. The Indigenous movement has been able to incorporate themselves in the state apparatus and have produced new political policies and constitutional instruments. They represent an alternative to the "white" political elites who governed them for many decades. This study analyzes the dynamics within the Indigenous social movement in Bolivia and how they reinforced a composite vision of a participatory democratic society through political representation. The results of this participation (and, moreover, political representation) can be seen in the presidential election of 2005, as well as the election of senators and deputies and the new Constitution of 2009. The case studied here provides insight into the processes of how political representation can be obtained by the oppressed and excluded, in this case the indigenous people of Bolivia, who - for centuries - were a majority governed by a white minority. In this context, the importance of ethnicity and identity, in which discourses transformed views of an indigenous consciousness, can be seen in their political demands.

My dissertation, Indigenous Rights and Constitutional Change in Ecuador, is motivated by a question that has inspired a rich discussion in the political theory literature: how should democracies accommodate indigenous groups? I focus on this question in the context of indigenous participation in the 2008 Ecuadorian constitutional convention. Ecuador is an interesting case in that the constitutional convention represented an opportunity for indigenous and non-indigenous groups to discuss the very topics that concern political theorists: the ideal relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous communities, the formal recognition of indigenous groups, indigenous rights, the fair economic distribution of resources, and the nature of citizenship. However, despite the fact that indigenous groups focused on constitutional change as a vehicle for indigenous empowerment, the political theory literature is largely silent on how constitutional change can affect minority groups. This silence is indicative of a larger failure on the part of political theorists to fully consider how institutions shape the normative goals of a society. Similarly, the literature on constitutional design does not examine indigenous groups as a separate case study and, therefore, provides little guidance as to how institutions can be used to empower indigenous groups.

During the constitutional convention, indigenous people in Ecuador presented their own plan for constitutional change: plurinationalism. This paradigm combined the idea of indigenous group rights with a call for alternative means of economic development, radical environmentalism, and recognition of an intercultural Ecuadorian identity. In so doing, plurinationalism moved beyond the general parameters of group rights and/or power-sharing arrangements discussed by political theorists and constitutional design scholars. In this dissertation, therefore, I examine the underlying tenets of plurinationalism, how plurinationalism was interpreted by non-indigenous people and incorporated into the 2008 constitution, and the future constitutional implications of plurinationalism. I argue that the Ecuadorian case has implications for both the political theory and constitutional design literatures: it allows political theorists to move beyond the language of indigenous rights to consider other institutional avenues for indigenous empowerment and points to value for design scholars in considering indigenous people as a separate case study, reframing assumptions about constitution-making in divided societies.

In the past several decades, social movements have spread all across Latin America, sparking hope for change. This thesis analyzes the well-organized mobilizations of the indigenous people of Bolivia and how they have been able to incorporate themselves in state apparatuses, including the election of its first indigenous president, Evo Morales of the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) party. The case studied her provides insight into the processes if how political representation was achieved by Bolivia's indigenous people who were for centuries excluded from the political, social and economic arena. It also analyzes the outcomes of Morales' policy changes from 2006 to 2009 as a way to examine how they have impacted the marginalized status of the indigenous people. Ultimately this thesis will trace the use of social movements, especially MAS, and how they transformed the Bolivian society from below.

Neoliberal agrarian reforms in Latin America have lead to both advances and set backs for the women’s and indigenous movements. While most neoliberal policies were the same in terms of goals, like creating institutions that encourage a capitalist markets, the results were somewhat heterogeneous in part due to the role of the women’s and indigenous movements in individual countries. The rise of the international women’s movement, which was marked by the UN’s decade on women from 1975-1985, coincided with an unfavorable economic climate in Latin America.

This research examines the social construction of a Virginia Indian reservation community during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Between 1824 and 1877 the Iroquoian-speaking Nottoway divided their reservation lands into individual partible allotments and developed family farm ventures that mirrored their landholding White neighbors. In Southampton's slave-based society, labor relationships with White landowners and "Free People of Color" impacted Nottoway exogamy and shaped community notions of peoplehood. Through property ownership and a variety of labor practices, Nottoway's kin-based farms produced agricultural crops, orchard goods and hogs for export and sale in an emerging agro-industrial economy. However, shifts in Nottoway subsistence, land tenure and marriage practices undermined their matrilineal social organization, descent reckoning and community solidarity. With the asymmetrical processes of kin-group incorporation into a capitalist economy, questions emerge about the ways in which the Nottoway resituated themselves as a social group during the allotment process and after the devastation of the Civil War. Using an historical approach emphasizing world-systems theory, this dissertation investigates the transformation of the Nottoway community through an exploration and analysis of their nineteenth-century political economy and notions of peoplehood.

Enabled by a Minor Field Study scholarship from SIDA, this thesis examines indigenous involvement in ecotourism in the Ecuadorian Amazons. Indigenous people are the most marginalized social group world-wide, and coincidingly often live in resource rich pristine land. The oil-rich lands of the Amazons is called a resource frontier and is now increasingly important for the tourism sector, which comes to entail conflict of interests between the State and indigenous communities living in this area. Both the global call for sustainable development and national policies of “Buen Vivir” promotes ecotourism as an ecologically, socio-economically, and culturally sustainable activity. Scholarly opinion suggest that ecotourism generates potential tools of empowerment for the involved indigenous communities. With this backdrop and with the theoretical framework of the postcolonial debate, main opportunities and challenges are examined with the correlation of tourism ventures and socio-political implications in the local reality of indigenous organizations in Tena, Napo. Complex impediments are uncovered and analysed within the social field of indigenous ecotourism. The conviction of the study holds the call for attentive cross-cultural communication in order to continue the seemingly inevitable path of globalization in a more sustainable and non-discriminatory manner.

When President Sebastián Piñera entered office in 2010 the Mapuche indigenous people were receiving two contrasting messages from the Chilean State. On the one hand, the government ratified ILO Convention 169, pledging to protect the indigenous right to prior consultation in programs that affect their communities. On the other hand, the government was involved in the oppression of Mapuche communities in the region of the Araucanía through militarisation and the application of the Anti-Terrorist Law to punish radical Mapuche activists that protest corporate encroachment on their land. While Piñera had the opportunity to legitimize the Mapuche demand for self-determination by implementing ILO Convention 169 according to international standards and putting an end to the “Mapuche Conflict,” instead the situation of the Mapuche political movement worsened under his leadership. The Piñera administration used indigenous rights policy and a discourse of terrorism as a strategy to delegitimize the Mapuche demand for self-determination in order to protect corporate profitability, a key factor in the Chilean neoliberal economic project.

Following the end of World War II and the formation of the United Nations organization, indigenous minorities who had fought on behalf of First World nations--including record numbers of New Zealand Maori and American Indians--pursued their longstanding efforts to assert cultural and political distinctiveness from dominant settler populations with renewed vigor. In the first decades after the War, New Zealand Maori and American Indians worked largely within dominant discourses in their efforts to define viable contemporary indigenous identities. But by the late 1960s and early 1970s, both New Zealand and the United States felt the effects of an emerging indigenous "renaissance," marked by dramatic events of political and cultural activism and by unprecedented literary production. By the mid-1970s, New Zealand Maori and American Indians were part of an emerging international indigenous rights movement, signaled by the formation and first general assembly of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP). In "Blood As Narrative/Narrative As Blood," I chronicle these periods of indigenous minority activism and writing and investigate the wide range of tactics developed for asserting indigenous difference in literary and political activist texts produced by the WCIP, New Zealand Maori, and American Indians. Indigenous minority or "Fourth World" writers and activists have mobilized and revalued both indigenous and dominant discourses, including the pictographic discourse of plains Indian "winter counts" in the United States and the ritual discourse of the Maori marae in New Zealand, as well as the discourse of treaties in both. These writers and activists have also created powerful tropes and emblematic figures for contemporary indigenous identity, including "blood memory," the ancient child, and the rebuilding of the ancestral house (whare tipuna). My readings of a wide range of poems, short stories, novels, essays, non-fiction works, representations of cultural and political activism, and works of literary, art history, political science, and cultural criticism lead to the development of critical approaches for reading indigenous minority literary and political activist texts that take into account the complex historical and cultural contexts of their production--local, national and, increasingly, global.

The Central American population consists of a majority of indigenous people and the parties to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) must strive to protect the culture, heritage and rights of the region’s people. Trade agreements must recognize the rights of the indigenous peoples that are affected by environmental degradation resulting from trade activities, which can result in the forceful removal of their lands. The balance between the three pillars of sustainable development must be struck because international trade is necessary by fueling much of the economic growth in the developed world. Public engagement of the indigenous people through participation, information, consultation and consent are necessary to fulfill the goals of sustainable development and protect their right to property and traditional lands. We have to continue to incorporate the objectives of sustainable development in free trade agreements in order to preserve the global environment for future generations.

There has been a great deal of interest in the Arctic governance in recent years, but littleof the interest has been in the indigenous peoples that populate it and the political structures theyuse to make themselves heard. In this thesis, these political structures, and the peoples that formthem, are studied in a historical context in order to determine how these structures weredeveloped, how their cultures have been effected by their relationship with non-indigenousgovernments and what affect both people and structure have had in their political environment.This was done through a qualitative comparative case study between the Sami of Scandinaviaand the Inuit of northern Canada and Alaska. From this study, it was determined that the level ofrelationship between indigenous and non-indigenous governments determined the degree towhich political bodies would occur and their ability affect their political environment. Followingthis relationship each case example developed a body for their own advocacy as a result ofsudden political pressure placed upon them. Overall, this thesis determines that the developmentof institutions is not fixed, but rather contingent to past events.

To effectively prevent and mitigate the outbreak of natural disasters is a more pressing issue in the twenty-first century than ever before. The frequency and cost of natural disasters is rising globally, most especially in developing countries where the most severe effects of climate change are felt. However, while climate change is indeed a strong force impacting the severity of contemporary catastrophes, it is not directly responsible for the exorbitant cost of the damage and suffering incurred from natural disasters -- both financially and in terms of human life. Rather, the true root causes of natural disasters lie within the power systems at play in any given society when these regions come into contact with a hazard event. Historic processes of isolation, oppression, and exploitation, combined with contemporary international power systems, interact in complex ways to affect different socioeconomic classes distinctly. The result is to create vulnerability and scarcity among the most defenseless communities. These processes affect a society’s ideological orientation and their cultural norms, empowering some while isolating others. When the resulting dynamic socio-political pressures and root causes come into contact with a natural hazard, a disaster is likely to follow due to the high vulnerability of certain groups and their inability to adapt as conditions change. In this light, the following discussion exposes the anthropogenic roots of natural disasters by conducting a detailed case analysis of natural disasters in Haiti, Ethiopia, and Nepal.

This dissertation contributes to debates on processes of state formation and their relationship to indigenous policies and politics in Argentina. It analyzes and compares two major political economic configurations of the state: the neoliberal from 1989 to 2001, and the so-called "post-neoliberal" from the 2001 national crisis to the present. The study analyzes anthropologically how these two state models shaped strategies concerning the indigenous population that reflected specific political and economic orientations and interests; and conversely, the ways in which indigenous peoples have experienced continuities and variations between the two periods, as well as the changing indigenous' strategies resulting from these political fluctuations. While much has been written on the nature of the post-neoliberal state in indigenous regions for the Bolivian case and Ecuador, the Argentine experience has been largely overlooked, due perhaps to the strong state-led homogenizing tradition which has obscured the country's multiethnic character. If we assume that we are indeed witnessing a change of epoch in some Latin American nations, and that there is an evident process of recovery of state functions, the novelty and contribution of this dissertation will be to explore not only the nature of those claims but also to expand on de Sousa Santos' proposal: Which kind of state is back? (de Sousa Santos 2010). Which are the characteristics of this novel state model? To what extent it is it actually (and entirely) "new" or if it is taking/using elements, strategies and procedures of the prior neoliberal phase. And if so, which elements of neoliberalism still persist in this new political era and which ones are different from that period. Finally, this dissertation contributes to the bottom-up perspective, while analyzing the state considering societal mediators, societal actors that interface with the state. This inclusion allows us to observe in a very detailed manner the ways in which these actors shape and negotiate hegemony and state from below, while also being part of the state structure.

This research utilizes an agency framework to examine the complexities of the participation of indigenous women in local, national, and global spaces of activism. By examining the connections between processes of globalization of indigenous and women’s rights, development agendas, local politics, and gender dynamics in indigenous organizations, this research highlights the connection of ethnicity, gender, and power in an indigenous organization of Cotacachi, Ecuador, and for Ecuadorian and Latin American indigenous leaders and professionals working in national and global arenas. Four interconnected topics are explored: (1) the understanding of indigenous women’s participation in the history of their organization within a context of interethnic discrimination and poverty that especially affects indigenous women; (2) the relation between indigenous women and the changing demands on indigenous leadership due to reconfigurations of rural livelihoods, the ascendance of the indigenous movement as a political actor, and the sustained presence of development projects; (3) the challenges indigenous women face and the strategies they enact as local leaders in their communities and organization negotiating essentialized constructions of indigenous women’s identity and forms of gender inequality; (4) the transition to local, national, and international formal politics and indigenous activism in which indigenous women’s legitimacy increasingly necessitates both experience in the indigenous movement and professionalization and expert knowledge. Using an ethnographic methodology including interviews and participant observation, the research explores the participation of indigenous female leaders who, even if their strategies have favored working within the indigenous movement’s wider agenda, are also contesting forms of gender, ethnic, and class inequality they find in their own organizations and beyond. Thus, the research highlights the challenges they face, the strategies they resort to, and the possibilities of articulating a differentiated agenda that reflect their particular interests.

This study is aimed at analyzing how contemporary urban Aymara youth hip hoppers and bloggers are creating their identities and are producing discourses in texts and lyrics to contest racist and colonial discourses. The research is situated in Bolivia, which is currently engaged in a cultural and political revolution supported by Indigenous movements. Theoretically the study is framed by a multi-perspective conceptual framework based on subaltern studies, coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge, interculturality and decolonial theory. Aymara young people illustrate the possibility of preserving Indigenous identities, language, and knowledge while maximizing the benefits of urban society. This challenges the colonial ideology that has essentialized the rural origin of Indigenous identities. Moreover, this research argues that the health of Indigenous languages is interconnected with the health of the self-esteem of Indigenous people. Additionally, this study provides information about the relation of youth to the power of oral tradition, language policies, and the use of technology.

This research explores the meaning, construction, representation, and function of Delaware ethnic identity during the 1820s. In 1821, nearly 2,000 Delawares (self-referentially called Lenape) crossed the Mississippi River and settled in Southwest Missouri as a condition of the Treaty of St. Marys. This dissertation argues that effects of this emigration sparked a vigorous reconsideration of ethnic identity and cultural representation. Traditionally, other Eastern Algonquian groups recognized Delawares by the metaphoric kinship status of "grandfather." Both European and Colonial governments also established Delawares as preferential clients and trading partners. Yet, as the Delawares immigrated into a new "western" Superintendency of Indian Affairs in 1821, neither status was acknowledged. as a result, Delaware representations transitioned from a taken-for-granted state into an actively negotiated field of discourse. This dissertation utilizes numerous unpublished primary source documents and archaeological data recovered during the Delaware Town Archaeological Project (2003-2005) to demonstrate the social, political, and material consequences of Delaware ethnic identity revitalization. Utilizing Silliman's (2001) practical politics model of practice theory, the archival and archaeological data sets of Delaware Town reveal the reinforcement of conspicuous ethnic boundaries, coalition-building that emphasized Delaware status as both "grandfathers" and as warriors, and also reestablishing preferred client status in trade and treaty-making. This study illuminates this poorly-known decade as a time where Delawares negotiated and exerted their ethnic identity and cultural representations to affect political, economic, and social outcomes of their choosing in the rapidly-vanishing "middle ground" of early-19th century Missouri.

This thesis examines Dayak identity constructions and how they have been and are currently being used to assert customary land rights in forested areas of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The Indonesian state has required that customary land claims include proof that communities have maintained their indigenous institutions. Drawing from government and NGO reports, academic research, and Indonesian law, a few questions thus are explored: What aspects of identity must be maintained in order to be sufficient to claim customary land rights under Indonesian law? How has recent Dayak mobilization fed into a resurgence in Dayak identity and pride, and vice versa? What opportunities does this hold for conservation and development? This thesis emphasizes the necessity of the subsequent transfer of ownership following the recognition of customary rights, which would protect indigenous land more permanently, increase Dayak community involvement and self-perceptions as active agents in forestry, and in doing so, aid in improving security of indigenous livelihoods and protecting biodiversity in Indonesia’s forests.

Latin America is in a political crisis, yet Bolivia is still widely recognized as a beacon of hope for progressive change. The radical movements at the beginning of the 21st century against neoliberalism that paved the road for the election of Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, beckoned a change from colonial rule towards a more just society. Paradoxically, in pursuing progress through economic growth, the Bolivian state led by President Morales has replicated the colonial division of labor through a development model known as neo-extractivism. Deeply rooted tensions have also emerged between indigenous communities and the Bolivian state due to the latter's zealous economic bond with the extractivist sector. Although these paradoxes have received significant attention, one substantial aspect that remains underexplored and undertheorized is how such tensions affect socio-political relations at the intersections of class, race and gender where indigenous women in Bolivia occupy a unique position. To address this research gap, this qualitative study poses the following research questions: 1. How does neo-extractivism affect the lives of indigenous women? 2. How does the state shape relations between neo-extractivism and indigenous women? 3. How do indigenous women organize to challenge the impact of state-led extractivism on their lives and their communities? To answer these questions, I conducted a multi-sited ethnographic study between October 2017 and June 2018 in Oruro, Bolivia, an area that is heavily affected by mining contamination. By analyzing processes of social reproduction, I argue that neo-extractivism leads to water contamination and water scarcity, becoming the epicenter of the deterioration of subsistence agriculture and the dispossession of indigenous ways of life. Because indigenous women are subsistence producers and social reproducers whose activities depend on water, the dispossession of water has a dire effect on them, which demonstrates how capitalism relies on and exacerbates neo-colonial and patriarchal relations. To tame dissent to these contradictions, the Bolivian and self-proclaimed "indigenist state" defines and politicizes ethnicity in order to build a national identity based on indigeneity. This state-led ethnic inclusion, however, simultaneously produces class exclusions of indigenous campesinxs (peasants) who are not fully engaged in market relations. In contrast to the government's inclusive but rigidly-defined indigeneity, indigenous communities embrace a fluid and dual indigeneity: one that is connected to territories, yet also independent from them; a rooted indigeneity based on the praxis of what it means to be indigenous. Indigenous women and their communities embrace this fluid and rooted indigeneity to build alliances across gender, ethnic, and geographic lines to organize against neo-extractivism. Moreover, the daily responsibilities of social reproduction within the context of subsistence agriculture, which are embedded in Andean epistemes of reciprocity, duality, and complementarity, have allowed indigenous women to build solidarity networks that keep the social fabric within, and between, communities alive. These solidarity networks are sites of everyday resistances that represent a threat and an alternative to capitalist, colonial and patriarchal mandates.

Sweden has received critique from international organizations for its discrimination of indigenous rights. Even though there are conflicts taking place on the Swedish side of Sápmi, where the Sami people are fighting for their human rights as an indigenous people, there is at same time little or no research done on conflicts involving the Sami population, especially in the north of Sweden. Located on the Swedish side of Sápmi the Sami village Girjas has filed a lawsuit against the Swedish government for the hunting and fishing rights on the reindeer husbandry area of the Sami village territory. This lawsuit has led to a conflict that has been frequently discussed by the media. By applying Gray’s frame theory; “framebased resistance to collaboration”, this study aims to analyse the different stakeholders’ preferences and to focus on media´s framing of the conflict in order to deconstruct the issue and lay forward the affected stakeholders’ preferences, identity, characterisation and willingness to collaboration. The results of this study show that even though the conflict is being framed as polarized, attempts to reframing in order to aim for successful collaborations are starting to take place in the media. Moreover, the media perspective on the conflict has shifted from fuelling arguments from both sides of the conflict into embracing the Sami perspective by highlighting issues for the Sami population and criticizing discriminating and colonial norms held by the Swedish government and authorities. This result could mean that a postcolonial perspective has stated to dominate the media due to the fact that higher awareness and interest in the  Sami population’s fight for self-determination is developing in the public arena.

This text provides an environmental justice analysis of the stories of the people who lived in the Owens Valley, who watered its land and cultivated its crops—pine trees, apple trees, and kabocha alike. Telling the personal stories of challenge and resistance that manifested alongside the oppressive forces of military and state domination provides the opportunity to align forcibly relocated, exploited and incarcerated people’s struggles throughout time. This text starts with The Nü’ma Peoples who were the first humans to live in the Owens Valley and continues with the struggle for empire between rival colonial empires of agriculture and distant urban cities. Its final chapters end with an in-depth and personal exploration of the unconstitutional incarceration of 117,000 people of Japanese ancestry in the United States during World War II. All the while it weaves in poetry, art and grassroots stories of resistance. It is a call to action for Environmental Studies and Ethnic Studies Departments to link the critical analysis within their disciplines to tell more accurate histories.

This study chronicles the economic history of Basotho business owners in post-colonial Lesotho, from 1966 to 2012. It focuses on their individual and collective entrepreneurial initiatives as they endeavoured to play a significant role in the country s economic development after independence. Using the political economy of Lesotho as a context, the study explored how indigenously-owned business survived in the local economy, notwithstanding a myriad of constraints and marginalisation it faced. Using archival documents, oral histories and ethnography at the Lesotho Chamber of Commerce and Industry, carried out in 2013, the study documents and utilises the history of Basotho in business to question the dominant post-Second World War development ideology. This ideology prescribed a technical blueprint, which Basotho, like other indigenous people in developing countries, were expected to follow in order to modernise their economies and nurture the perceived lack of entrepreneurial capacity and business acumen, typically found in the West. For the development of indigenously-owned business, technocratic development prioritised the prevalence of various psycho-social entrepreneurial subjectivities and economic rationality, which, according to the model, are indispensable to computational and enthusiastic maximisation of economic gains by and for individuals and national economic development. After independence, Lesotho embraced the post-Second World War dominant development ideology. Accordingly, it followed the economic models of the developmental state from 1966 to 1986 and neo-liberalism from 1987 to the present, in order to transform the backward and externally dependent country s economy. These models were prescribed by the Bretton Woods Institutions and were shepherded by development experts, mainly economists. In line with William Easterly s conception of development as the tyranny of the experts , the study argues that development discourse and practice concealed a narrative of indigenously-owned business, which contrary to popular misconceptions, demonstrates economic spontaneity, freedom of expression and economic solidarity. Apart from trivialising Basotho s entrepreneurial initiatives, it also perpetuated the classic imperialist thinking that African people lacked the capacity to develop independently and had no history to prove otherwise. Basotho business owners efforts would have realised better results had it not been for constant violent and strategic suppression by successive governments that used the altruistic-sounding predispositions of development intervention in order to mask their sinister motives of greed, corruption and encouragement of elitism at the expense of the majority of Basotho in business. Nonetheless, Basotho in business did not stand submissively in the margins of the economy. They organised themselves politically and economically through voluntary associations, credit schemes, movements and cooperatives to change their economic fortunes and challenge exclusion and post-colonial governments authoritarianism and lack of democratic benevolence. Basotho business owners economic pursuits exposed the exclusive character of the neo-liberal ethic and political patronage by demonstrating economic pluralism and economic solidary that can inform the creation of inclusive social, political and economic conditions and formations for the marginalised majority in the Global South.
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015.
Historical and Heritage Studies
PhD
Unrestricted

Enbridge has proposed the Line 3 “Replacement” Project, a new pipeline project taking a new route strait through Anishinaabe treaty territory in what is known as northern Minnesota. In the middle of the regulation process, the future remains unclear of how the State of Minnesota will move forward with the permitting process, but Anishinaabe communities, a range of non-profit organizations, and local landowners remain firmly against the line. Rooted in varied frameworks of Native sovereignty, the land, and Indigenous feminism, Anishinaabe communities lead the resistance against a product of ongoing settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and environmental racism. This thesis contextualizes the multi-tactical repertoires of those defending the land in the existing work of Indigenous scholars who write on the necessity for land-based resistance towards the unsettling process of decolonization. Ultimately, the resistance against Line 3 is representative of a long-term battle for Native sovereignty and self-determination in defense of the land and future generations.

This thesis addresses indigenous groups agency in trade governance to enhance their ability to affect international decision-making that benefits their capability to sustainable development. It conducts a case study of Articulation of Indigenous People Brazil (APIB) in the EU-Mercosur Agreement and utilizes Eimers (2020) theory of subaltern social movement theory to establish: what strategies the APIB have used in the decision-making processes of the “Mercosur Agreement?  This theory allows consideration of indigenous agency and the effect of post-colonial structures on their capability to keep control over their realties. To collect data on this topic the author uses qualitative semi-structured interviews and qualitative thematic text analysis. The thesis finds that framing strategies of claims enabled alliance-building in Brazil and Transnational Advocacy Coalitions, which used international norms to enhance indigenous interests. However, has post-colonial structures hindered APIB´s ability to enhance interest in Brazil and silenced indigenous interests in governmental representation in the making of the EU-Mercosur.

As a result of colonialism indigenous peoples have been marginalised within their own customary territories. In an analysis of the politics of cultural recognition Tully (1995) proposes the reconceptualisation of the 'common ground': sites, including public museums, within which different cultures negotiate their relationships within the modern nation-state, where the rights of indigenous peoples can be recognised on the basis of the principles of mutual recognition, continuity and consent. This thesis examines the impact of the politics of indigenous recognition on the evolving relationships between Mäori and museums, focusing on Mäori participation in the governance of regional charitable trust museums in New Zealand.The international context is explored through an investigation of indigenous strategies of resistance to museum practices at the international, national and local levels. The national context within which Mäori resistance to museum practices has evolved, and subsequent changes in practice are then outlined.Two case studies of regional charitable trust museums, which began to renegotiate Mäori participation in their governance structures in the late 1990s, are examined. The different governance models adopted by Whanganui Regional Museum, Whanganui, and Tairawhiti Museum, Gisborne, both effected major shifts from the historical pattern of limited Mäori participation in the museums to the representation of all tangata whenua iwi on the new trust boards. The governance negotiation processes and the responses of interested parties are analysed. The case studies demonstrate the importance of understanding the historical context within which public institutions are embedded and the forces that lead to contemporary adjustments in power relationships.Both new governance models have resulted in genuine power sharing partnerships between tangata whenua and the museums. Finally, the extent to which the two institutions have subsequently moved towards becoming 'common ground' where the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples can be realised is analysed.

In recent years the field of reparations for indigenous peoples has increased remarkably. Past wrongs made by states in the distant past has become more important to highlight, not only because of the memories of historical injustice, but because of how the past impacts the future, and not least, still appears as structures of discrimination remaining from the past.   As an indigenous people the Saami people living in Sweden have experiences of both historical injustices as well as todays struggle with discrimination on different levels. Mostly regarding their right to be a part of decisions concerning them and the right of culture, language, identity, land and nature resources, fundamental for them as a people. In order to change their situation and to search for redress the Saami people in Sweden have announced their need of a truth commission. The Saami people are not the first indigenous people whom search for redress through a truth commission, but is it possible to learn from others?   With this in mind, my study aim to look at practical experiences of truth commissions in Canada and New Zealand and further, examine what the Saami people in Sweden hope to achieve with a truth commission. Thereafter, I weight other indigenous peoples experiences of a truth commission with the Saami peoples expectations to find out what keys need to be considered to increase the outcome of a truth commission. Where theory, practical experience and Saami expectations connects is where the key issues can be found. Given this, my study suggests that five different key issues must be thought through and shall not be underestimated as they may have an effect on the ongoing process as well as on the results and the aftermaths. The key issues that is suggested is as follows: 1) political will, 2) the role and engagement of Civil Society, 3) the Saami´s own involvement 4) the problem of what focus the commission should have, and 5) the awareness of “tough” questions coming up.

Syftet med examensarbetet var att undersöka samer och samisk religion i relation till undervisningsämnet religionskunskap. Studien har undersökt läroplanernas utveckling, både från grundskolan och gymnasieskolan med fokus på samisk religion. Läromedel inom religionsämnet har dessutom granskats i relation till läroplanernas förändringar samt för varje undervisningsstadium. En enkätstudie har slutligen genomförts vilken ligger till grund för lärares framställning av samisk religion i undervisningsämnet utifrån Lgr 11 och Gy 11. Metoden som tillämpats i studien har varit en komparativ metod samt kvalitativ metod med kvantitativa inslag. Resultatet visar att samisk religion fått större plats i läroplanerna i relation till samhällsförändringar. Läroplanerna utgör den grund som läromedel utgår från, med andra ord struktureras läromedel utifrån läroplanernas innehåll liksom fokusområde.  I samband med Lgr 11 och Gy 11 har samer med tillhörande religion fått större utrymme i läromedel. Trots detta visar studien att förhållandevis få läromedel behandlar samer och samisk religion i relation till andelen läromedel som granskats i examensarbetet. Resultatet visar att drygt hälften av lärarna som medverkat i studien undervisar om samer, detta trots att majoriteten av lärarna menar att tiden inte räcker till. Flertalet lärare anser det viktigt att belysa samer och samisk religion i undervisningen, lärarna önskar därför att lärarutbildningar i större utsträckning lyfter Sveriges nationella minoriteter. Majoriteten av lärarna menar däremot att de har tillräckliga kunskaper för att samer ska behandlas rättvist i undervisningen. Resultatet har skildrats i relation till ett diskursteoretiskt ramverk för att synliggöra maktstrukturerna gällande majoritetssamhälle och minoritetssamhälle.
The purpose with this advanced professional degree was to research Sami populations with associated religion in relation to religious education. In addition, the study has researched the development of the national school curriculum from primary school and secondary school with focus on Sami religion. Development and changes in teaching materials in accordance with the development of the school curriculum and its various phases has also been examined. To conclude, a survey has laid the foundation for a study of teachers' own portrayal of Sami religion in RE for Lgr 11 and Gy 11 students. A Qualitative Comparative analysis methodology has been practiced in the study with some quantitative uses. The results of the study show the Sami religion has received a larger place in the national school curriculum in relation to societal changes. The school curriculum sets the foundation the school materials are based on, in other words the materials are structured on the basis of the curriculum and its focus area. In relation to Lgr 11 and Gy 11, Sami with associated religion has seen a significant place in teaching materials. Despite this, there are comparatively few teaching materials that cover Sami population with Sami religion in relation to the amount of researched materials. Results show about half of the teachers participating in the study include Sami population and history in their teachings, despite the majority of teachers stating that time spent is not enough. Many teachers state Sami studies are important in education and wish that teachers' education include Sami more frequently. However, the majority of teachers report that they have sufficient competence for Sami to be covered in their teachings. The result has been described in relation to discourse theoretical framework to cast light on the hierarchical structures concerning majority and minority society.

By asking the question “How do young, urban, professional Kenyans make connections between tribal identity, colonialism, and the lived experience of nationhood?,” the researcher engages with eight participants in exploring their relationships with their tribal groups. From this juncture the researcher, through a co-constructed process with participants, interrogates the idea of nationhood by querying their interpretations of the concepts of power and resistance within their multi-ethnic societies. The utility of KuPiga Hadithi as a cultural responsive methodology for data collection along with poetic analysis as part of the qualitative tools of examination allowed the researcher to identify five emergent and iterative themes: (1) colonial wounds, (2) power inequities, (3) tensions, (4) intersection, and (5) hope. Participant discussion of these themes suggests an impenetrable link between tribal identity and nationhood. Schooling, as first a colonial and then national construct, works to mediate that link. Therefore, there is the need for a re-conceptualization of the term ‘nation’ in the post-Independence era.

abstract: The purpose of this project is to investigate the political aesthetics of Delilah Montoya's photographic landscape image, Desire Lines, Baboquivari Peak, Arizona (2004), an image drawn from a larger photo-documentary project by Montoya and Orlando Lara titled, Sed: Trail of Thirst (2004). This thesis employs Jacques Rancière's concept of the aesthetic regime to identify how Desire Lines functions as a political work of art, or what Rancière would consider "aesthetic art." This thesis shows that the political qualities of Desire Lines's work contrast with the aesthetic regime of art and systems in the U.S. nation state that have attempted to erase an indigenous presence. Thomás Ybarra-Frausto's and Amalia Mesa-Bains' definitions of Rasquachismo, as well as Gloria Anzalúda's concept of Nepantla, are used to assist in identifying the specific politics of Montoya's work. The first portion of this thesis investigates the image's political aesthetic within the context of the politics of art, and the second portion addresses the image's political qualities within the framework of the politics of the everyday life. This thesis shows that Desire Lines, Baboquivari Peak, Arizona reveals a Chicana/o aesthetic that challenges the dominant paradigm of postmodernism; furthermore, viewing the content of the image through the concept of Nepantla allows for a political reading which highlights the work's capacity to challenge the Eurocentric view of land in the U.S. Southwest. Desire Lines, Baboquivari Peak, Arizona is an indigenously oriented photograph, one which blurs the lines of the politics of art and the everyday and has the power to reconfigure our understanding of the U.S borderland as an indigenous palace of perseverance exemplifying the will to overcome.
Dissertation/Thesis
M.A. Art History 2014

How do the weak win political victories? The dissertation answers the question of how, why and when very weak groups are able to win concessions from the strong. Specifically, the research offers an understanding of how indigenous peoples have been able to gain recognition and extension of their land rights. Through comparative case study analysis, the first section explores why the governments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States have begun to recognize and return rights to land for the same indigenous populations whose rights have been denied or ignored for centuries. The second section further tests the proposed explanations in relation to specific claims outcomes and land transfers in 17 American Indian land claims cases in the United States.

The research concludes normative changes following World War II led to new attention to the rights of minority groups. Indigenous peoples were redefined as deserving of limited rights and protections from the state. At the same time, the growth of cohesion among indigenous peoples on a national and international scale and the success of other minority groups encouraged them to bring their claims against the state. Economic, demographic, and political trends established that indigenous peoples were no longer a threat to the security of the dominance of the strong. This made it possible for elites to recalculate the costs and benefits of concessions to indigenous peoples, which were now seen as more affordable. Similar forces are at play in the outcomes of individual claims to for the return of land in the United States. The calculations of elites include the normative pressures to act (in this case, often legal pressure), the tangible and economic costs for transfers, whether or not the dominant population sees the recipient group as deserving, and whether or not the claim itself challenges the legitimacy or moral authority of the state.

Dissertation

abstract: The call for an Inter-Civilizational Dialogue informed by cosmopolitical forms of Comparative Political Theory as a way to address our unprecedented global challenges is among the most laudable projects that students of politics and related fields across the world have put forth in centuries. Unfortunately, however, up until this point the actual and potential contributions of the Indigenous or 'Fourth' World and its civilizational manifestations have been largely ignored. This has clearly been the case in what refers to Indigenous American or Abya-Yalan cultures and civilizations. The purpose of this dissertation is to acknowledge, add to, and further foster the contributions of Indigenous American cultures and civilizations to the emerging fields of Comparative Political Theory and Inter-Civilizational Relations. Guided by a cosmopolitical concern for social and environmental justice, this work adds to the transcontinental and transdisciplinary effort to decolonize knowledges and practices by offering socio-ecologically balanced alternatives beyond the crisis of globalized Western modernity. This work draws on three broad Indigenous traditions, Mesoamerican, Andean, and Native North American, to offer some historical and contemporary examples of the many possible ways in which the recovery, revalorization, and revitalization of Indigenous modes of thought, practice, organization and planning can contribute to foster forms of comparative political theorizing that address the challenges of a global age bedeviled by the confluence of social and environmental crises of an unprecedented scale and scope. The dissertation first introduces comparative political theory as a framework for the inter-civilizational dialogue, arguing that Indigenous contributions have been marginalized and must be considered. Part I then focuses and elaborates on specifically Mesoamerican contributions; Part II is dedicated to Andean contributions; and Part III to Native North American contributions. The dissertation closes with a brief reflection of how Indigenous American contributions can help us address some of our most crucial contemporary global challenges, especially in what concerns the construction of cosmopolitical alternatives built on post-anthropocentric forms of socio-ecological justice.
Dissertation/Thesis
Ph.D. Political Science 2012

"How can you make decisions about Aboriginal people when you can’t even talk to the people you’ve got here that are blackfellas?" This question was posed by an Aboriginal senior public servant whom I interviewed for this research in 2007. She was imagining a conversation with the Northern Territory Public Service, whose invitation for Aborigines to join its departments provides the backdrop to my study. Counterposing the absent Aboriginal policy subject with the ever-present, idiomatic blackfella‘ public servant, the question aptly reframes the government expectation that an Aboriginal presence within the public service will represent the absent through Aborigines‘ numeric sufficiency, their location in the corridors of power and their contribution to Aboriginal policies and programs. This interviewee was insisting that she be heard, if her people were to be taken into account. This thesis begins with a history of Aboriginal employment in the Northern Territory administration which concludes that the unplanned accretion of a substantial number of Aboriginal public servants, in 1978, became the new Northern Territory Government‘s opportunity to legitimize itself as a representative bureaucracy. After reviewing empirical studies of representative bureaucracy and theories of political representation, I argue that all public servants discretionarily represent others in their advice to government. I go on to explore the extent to which Aboriginal senior public servants understand themselves to represent other Aborigines in their work. Analyzing data from 76 interviewees, I ask: how compelling to Aboriginal senior officials is the Northern Territory Government‘s self-account as a representative bureaucracy? I argue that these officials work to a social imaginary in which they are present for those Aborigines whom they regard as absent only by circumstance. Aboriginal senior public servants see themselves as neither the naïve tokens nor misguided advocates that the literature has largely made them out to be. Rather, they see themselves as exemplary representatives of others, for whom they model mindful professionalism, and with whom they share fates as Aboriginal Territorians.

This dissertation research explored how indigenous peoples have responded to increasing conservation and development pressures in Suriname using two case study communities. One, in West Suriname, faced a proposed protected area and large-scale mining operation on the communities' traditional lands. The other community, in East Suriname, has been involved in a long-term co-management arrangement over an existing protected area. Community responses to these protected areas and development projects were considered through the important influence of a national indigenous rights organization and its multi-scalar networks. A total of 68 in-depth interviews with indigenous community leaders, indigenous rights organization leaders, conservation NGO personnel, company, and government representatives were conducted over a period of 9 months. In addition, 13 documents including conference proceedings, editorials, letters, and presentations were collected and analyzed. Results showed that strategies in the form of scalar politics, information politics, accountability politics, and cultural politics that drew from international legal instruments, guidelines, and the larger indigenous rights movement were used. These strategies enhanced the power, knowledge, and negotiating ability of the communities and NGOs, leading to the eventual rejection of a protected area and a stronger role in the mining project. However, the larger goal of land rights for indigenous peoples in Suriname has not yet been realized, and remains the focal point of indigenous struggles there.

Dissertation

abstract: This project is a comparative exploration of the connection between descriptive representation and the substantive and symbolic representation of ethnic minorities: do Afro and indigenous representatives effectively “stand for” group members by introducing identity and empowering descriptive constituents? Featuring reserved seats for both minority groups, Colombia is an ideal case. In combination, the institutional design of reserved seats and the tradition of mestizaje and racial democracy add complexity to analyzing these populations. Consequently, in order to assess minority representation this work adds to extant representational theory by taking into account the crystallization of minority constituencies across elections. I use quantitative and qualitative data to comparatively assess the use of reserved seats for integrating minority identity to the deliberative process and measuring empowerment impacts for minority-majority municipalities. This data includes an original dataset of electoral outcomes across seven cycles (1990-2010) and transcripts of congressional plenaries spanning three legislative periods (2002-2014). I take into account constituency dynamics identifying the concentration and geographical sources of votes in minority districts. These outcomes translate to expectations of representative behavior, hinging on the theoretical belief that constituency dynamics act as signals of legislator accountability to minority constituents. This dissertation is located at the intersection of the comparative politics literature on minority quotas and representation, on one hand, and ethno-racial minority politics in Latin America, on the other. I find that ongoing electoral reforms have impacted constituency outcomes in post-reform cycles. More importantly, I observe that reserved representatives from both groups have integrated identity into deliberative processes often, but that only in the case of indigenous representation has the use of identity in plenaries been responsive to constituency variables. In addition, empowerment effects are identified in indigenous-majority communities that have strong linkages to minority districts, while the same empowerment cannot be conclusively identified in Afro-majority communities.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Political Science 2015

This work examines some issues relating to specific social, political and ideological developments that have shaped the pre-contact history of Tonga especially the puzzling ideas that revolve around the co-existence of the three kingly lines that survived into the era of written record. There are competing versions of how each dynasty came about and what kinds of contribution they accomplished. I endeavour to go further than what current research has brought to light so far. In fact, current research on Tongan history is stagnant due to some great lack in research methodology whereby easy problems cannot be logically deciphered. I believe this is because present disciplinary guidelines limit the scope for attaining a deep understanding of things not to mention the failure of comparative method (comparing chronologies in neighbouring islands) to underpin the historical realities on offer. One of my main concerns in this study rests on how well the contact period reflects the reality of what we may refer to as Tongan tradition or what is really traditional about Tongan ways of life prior to the seventeenth century. This thesis is designed to use Tongan genealogy as a guide in attempting to make sense of what the European records can offer to our understanding of post-contact Tonga. Historical documentation in this context refers simply to post-contact recording of events, whereas traditional history, ordered by genealogy, gives us access to a more distant past. This work argues further that genealogy unravels an ever-presence of conflicting tendencies that existed even in times where Tongan society was perceived to enjoy long-term peace. This thesis is aimed at a complete rethinking of political transformations in ancient Tongan polity and how such transformations introduced new patterns of social, political and ideological realities that current scholars have not yet recognised. I also show how genealogy is useful in determining the course of Tongan political history, especially the major changes that took place a few centuries before contact with Europe came about in the early 17th century AD. In Chapter one, I introduce an alternative theory about the political history of Tonga since the inception of the TK dynasty1. I also delineate how genealogy reflects major changes in all aspects of life in both pre- contact and post-contact Tonga. In the light of this better understanding of Tongan political history I employ Antonio Gramci’s dialectic to harness and clarify matters relating to social processes in the past that have remained unexplained up to now. I discuss here the hegemony of the Tu’i Tonga dynasty i.e. how it was achieved and maintained for over a thousand years from 450 AD until around 1500 AD when there was an unsuccessful counter-hegemony by the Tu’i Ha’atakalaua line. In 1550 shortly after the Tu’i Ha’atakalaua failure every commentator of Tongan society has overlooked another counter hegemony by the third dynasty. The Tu’i Kanokupolu hegemony will be critically discussed with reference to a further counterhegemony by the Tu’i Tonga by which strategy the old dynasty managed to survive a bit longer. Chapter 2 then, offers a critique of old notions about Tongan society in works written mostly by the socalled Polynesianist revisionists who have constantly revisited Tongan history for the past two decades. I also show why Tongan traditionalists and scholars alike could not understand what had been happening in Tonga’s past. This work focuses on the creation of the third dynasty in Tonga around 1550 AD. There are a number of issues relating to this event that have not been discussed by any commentator of Tongan society so far. These include the indirect but significant importation of a quasi-Samoan matai system that eventually formed the basis of Tongan polity encountered by European explorers starting from Souten and Le Maire in 1616 during the reign of the third Tu’i Kanokupolu (Mataeletu’apiko), when the matai system was locally practised in the narrow confines of Hihifo2. It had gained momentum at the time of Captain Cook’s last visit in 1777. The system grew stronger and spread to all corners of the Tongan archipelago within the duration of only two centuries. It is the growth of this system that this study determines to underpin, as it will provide a more lucid explanation for a number of important puzzles that still confuse contemporary historians. First, the reason why and how the Tu’i Kanokupolu came into existence, the odd nature of Tu’i Kanokupolu political practices, and the secrets behind the mass production of titles as family and extended family gifts plus how these gifts determined the outcome of social, political, and religious activities that all three dynasties engaged in, in their tensely unavoidable coexistence especially in the eighteenth century. Chapter 3 - offers a general discussion of Ama’s possible schemes and plots. I argue in this part that Ama was determined to recapture and rule Safata. In Samoa I identify a connection between a political struggle (civil war) that took place in Upolu around 1500 – 1520 AD with the creation of the Tu’i Kanokupolu in Tonga about 1550 AD. This war is discussed here for two reasons. First, it was an attempt by Samoan high chiefs to create a centralised in Upolu state to be headed by a Samoan monarch for the first time in their history. Second, the end result of this war affected Tonga more than Samoa since the vanquished Ama fled from his district Safata to Tonga. This chapter concentrates on discussing the major players in the said war. Chapter 4 – This part discusses Samoan politics at the time of Ama’s exile. I also unfold here the structure of Samoan polity by discussing the matai system and how it generates political, social and religious responsibilities among Samoan lives in general. This chapter discusses significant principles of Samoan social and political organisation such as matai (title system), tafa’i (royal protector), faleupolu (political advisors), ‘aiga (extended family), sa (family – royal lines), ali’i-pa’ia (sacred chief/district monarch), ali’i (high chief), tulafale-ali’i (minor chief), and tulafale (chief’s attendant). These organisations will be compared with the Tu’i Kanokupolu political system so that the resemblance is not confused with the Tu’i Tonga and Tu’i Ha’atakalaua systems. Chapter 5 - discusses with critical analyses the real characters of the Tu’i Kanokupolu political establishment. Such discussion includes TK status, the conception of ‘ulutolu (chief’s protector), hingoa – fakanofo (title system), falekanokupolu (political advisors), kainga (extended family), ha’a (titled chiefs related to an original royal line), ‘eiki lahi (paramount chief), eiki (high chief), ‘eiki si’i (minor chief), matapule (chief’s attendant). I argue in this part, that the TK political organisation is essentially structured in Samoan fashion both in theory and in practice and I will show the basic difference between this system and the quintessential Tu’i Tonga organisational principles described in the next chapter. Chapter 6 – This chapter depicts the basic structure of the Tu’i Tonga political organisation and how it countered the powerful hegemony of the TK expansion in the 17th and 18th centuries when there was an internal struggle for political supremacy among the three ruling dynasties. I discuss here counter hegemony by the Tu’i Tonga, which resulted in the creation of several new statuses such as the Tu’i Tonga fefine (female Tu’i Tonga), tamaha (sacred being – female), falefisi (sacred house of Fiji). This chapter also highlights the collision between the old political system and the new and also shows how the new system paved its way to an undisputed status in the mid 19th century after the last conflict of 1852. I discuss the new Tu’i Kanokupolu ha’a system and the kind of impact it propagated in the dominions of Tu’i Tonga and Tu’i Ha’atakalaua. Chapter 7 – My main concern in this chapter rests on a case where a highborn female Tupou moheofo successfully usurped the Tu’i Kanokupolu title and became the first female titleholder in this dynasty. She was very ambitious and pried into politics on a number of occasions when she made attempts to revolutionise the norm of Tongan tradition such as her well known move to dethrone her husband Tu’i Tonga Pau in favour of their son Fuanunuiava and also her desperate instigation to abolish the office of the TK in the 1770s. Chapter 8 – Discusses how TT Fuanunuiava aspired to obtain political authority and his strange ambition to be named Tu’i Kanokupolu after the death of TK Mumui in 1798. Why should a Tu’i Tonga vie to be named TK will be discussed here in great detail. Chapter 9 - Conclusion – general summing up of debates and arguments.

This thesis has two central goals. The first is to theorize the confrontation of Indigenous societies and European settler society as, among other things, a conflict between two opposing conceptions of the human relationship with nature — human ecology. The Western/settler view is that nature is external to humans and instrumental to their development. John Locke’s philosophy provides an excellent example of this type of thinking. In contrast, the world-view of many Indigenous societies is characterized by a sense of ontological continuity between humans and the ecology. The second aim of this thesis is to contribute to ecological political theory by exploring the contrast between these two divergent views of human ecology. It is suggested that this contrast provides a theoretically fertile site for an ecological politics suitable for a post-modern, post-capitalist future. These theoretical observations are grounded in a concrete case study: the Delgamuukw legal episode.
Graduate

Claims of injustice in global forest governance are prolific: assertions of colonization, marginalization and disenfranchisement of forest-dependent people, and privatization of common resources are some of the most severe allegations of injustice resulting from globally-driven forest conservation initiatives. At its core, the debate over the future of the world's forests is fraught with ethical concerns. Policy makers are not only deciding how forests should be governed, but also who will be winners, losers, and who should have a voice in the decision-making processes. For 30 years, policy makers have sought to redress the concerns of the world's 1.6 billion forest-dependent poor by introducing rights-based and participatory approaches to conservation. Despite these efforts, however, claims of injustice persist. This research examines possible explanations for continued claims of injustice by asking: What are the barriers to delivering justice to forest-dependent communities? Using data collected through surveys, interviews, and collaborative event ethnography in Laos and at the Tenth Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, this dissertation examines the pursuit of justice in global forest governance across multiple scales of governance. The findings reveal that particular conceptualizations of justice have become a central part of the metanormative fabric of global environmental governance, inhibiting institutional evolution and therewith perpetuating the justice gap in global forest governance.

Dissertation

Ending colonialism requires the revitalization of not only indigenous systems of law, but also the indigenous legalities of which they form part. This means that Canada’s unique form of liberal constitutionalism cannot serve as the constitutional framework within which indigenous law is revitalized. Rather, we shall have to advert to the fact that indigenous law was and is generated by unique indigenous legal processes and institutions, which find their authorization in unique indigenous constitutional orders, which are in turn legitimated by indigenous peoples’ unique and varied creation stories. Through the gifts of diverse Anishinaabe writers and orators, and through work with my circle of elders, with aadizookaanan, in community, and on the land, I present one view of Anishinaabe legality. I give special emphasis to its earth-centric ‘rooted’ form of constitutionalism, which is characterized by mutual aid and its correlate structure, kinship. In the second half, I examine the problem of colonial violence in contemporary indigenous-settler relationships. I identify two principles necessary for indigenous-settler reconciliation and I consider how commonly proposed models of indigenous-settler relationship fare against them. I conclude that one vision of treaty, treaty mutualism—which is a form of rooted constitutionalism—is non-violent to indigenous peoples, settler peoples and to the earth. Finally, I consider counter-arguments on themes of fundamentalism, power, and misreading.
Graduate

This study investigates how Yoruba migrants make meaning of Yoruba Indigenous knowledges in the African Diaspora, specifically within the geopolitical space of dominant Canadian culture. This research is informed by the lived experiences of 16 Africans of Yoruba descent now living in Toronto, Canada, and explores how these first and second generation migrants construct the spiritual and linguistic dimensions of Yoruba Indigenous identities in their everyday lives. While Canada is often imagined as a sanctuary for progressive politics, it nonetheless is also a hegemonic space where inequities continue to shape the social engagements of everyday life. Hence, this dissertation situates the historical and contemporary realities of colonialism and imperialism, by beginning with the premise that people in diasporic Yoruba communities are continuously affected by the complicated interplay of various forms of oppression such as racism, and inequities based on language, gender and religion. This study is situated within a socio–historical and cosmological context to effectively examine colonialism’s impact on Yoruba Indigenous knowledges. Yet, inversely, this study also involves discussion of how these knowledges are utilized as decolonizing tools of navigation, subversion and resistance. The central focus of this research is the articulation of colonial oppression and how it has reconfigured Yoruba Indigenous identities even within a purportedly ‘multicultural’ space. First, the historical dis/continuities of the Yoruba language in Yorubaland are investigated. This strand of the research considers British colonization, and more specifically, the Church Missionary Society’s (CMS) efforts at translating the Bible into Yoruba as pivotal in the colonial project. What kinds of categories does missionary education create that differ from pre-colonial categories of Yoruba Indigenous identity? How are these new identities shaped along lines of race and gender? In other words, what happens when Yoruba cosmology encounters colonialism? The second strand of this research investigates how these historical colonialisms have set the framework for enduring contemporary colonialisms that continue to fracture Yoruba Indigenous knowledges. This dissertation offers insights relevant to diversity and equitable pedagogy through careful consideration of the complicated strategies used by participants in their negotiations of Yoruba identities within a context of social inequity and colonialism.

En 2010, la Thirty Meter Telescope Corporation, représentée par une alliance interuniversitaire de chercheurs en astronomie, a présenté le projet du Thirty Meter Telescope ayant comme lieu de prédilection la montagne sacrée Mauna Kea, située sur l’île d’Hawai’i. S’inspirant de Idle No More, un mouvement d’activisme Hawaiien est né afin d’empêcher la désacralisation de ce temple naturel. Rapidement, un mouvement est né : ‘A’ole TMT, signifiant « non au TMT ». Ce mémoire illustre les raisons motivant cette initiative sociale et les outils mobilisés par les agents actifs de ce mouvement. Cette dissertation montre comment – s’inscrivant dans le contexte, d’abord, du Mouvement des Droits Civiques aux États-Unis et, ensuite, du mouvement de justice sociale et environnementale Idle No More – les activistes du ‘A’ole TMT Movement ont su procéder au re-branding de leurs attributs culturels et spirituels et, ainsi raviver l’authenticité de leur nation et de leur environnement, caractérisée par la réappropriation des lieux de mémoire hawaiiens.
In 2010, the Thirty Meter Telescope Corporation, composed of an inter-university alliance of researchers in astronomy, presented the Thirty Meter Telescope project, proposed to be built on the sacred mountain Mauna Kea, located on Hawai’i Island. Inspired by Idle No More, a grassroots Hawaiian activism movement was formed in an attempt to stop the desecration of this natural temple. Rapidly, a movement was born: ‘A’ole TMT, meaning “No to the TMT”. This dissertation shows the reasons motivating such a social initiative and presents the resources that active agents to the ‘A’ole TMT Movement mobilized to formally halt the TMT project. This thesis establishes how – in the context, first, of the accomplishments of the American Civil Rights Movement and, second, of the social and environmental justice movement Idle No More – Hawaiians have managed to re-brand their cultural and spiritual attributes and hence revive the authenticity of their nation as a singular and unique place through a renewed connection with Hawaiian lieux de mémoire.