Their Spirits Live within Us: Aboriginal Women in Downtown Eastside Vancouver Emerging into Visibility (original) (raw)
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2014
Images of Aboriginal social problems and protests are frequent features of mainstream news discourse. This thesis identifies two dominant tropes of Aboriginal identity found within the mainstream visual discourse of Aboriginal social problems: the radical activist and the natural victim. Using "hot-button" cases of Aboriginal social problems that resulted in public inquiries (i.e. Oka, Ipperwash), this thesis identifies where and why colonial tropes are constructed within the visual discourse of these events and their subsequent public inquiries. This thesis will pay particular attention to the way in which colonial tropes of Aboriginal identity continue to shape the mainstream visual discourse of Aboriginal social problems and in turn have an impact on public opinion and government responses to these hot-button issues. iii DEDICATION To the consummate teacher and student, Mr. Tom Mayne Osvoldo Croci and Dr. Kelly Blidook. Thank you also to Helen Knappman and Juanita Lawrence for their patience and help in a hundred different ways in and around the Political Science office since I started this project. And most of all, this project would not have been possible without the encouragement and guidance of my supervisor: Dr. Dimitrios Panagos. Without his insight, patience and guidance this project would not have become what it is today. Finally, thank you to my parents for their infinite patience, encouragement, and support. v
This dissertation examines everyday social relations in the settler colonial city of Vancouver. Its contemporary ethnographic focus updates and reworks historical and political analyses that currently comprise the growing body of scholarship on settler colonialism as a distinct socio-political phenomenon. I investigate how non-Aboriginal residents construct and relate to Aboriginal alterity. The study is situated in three ethnographic sites, united by their emphasis on “including” the Aboriginal Other: (1) the 2010 Winter Olympics, which featured high-profile forms of Aboriginal participation (and protest); (2) the Mount Pleasant public library branch, which displays a prominent Aboriginal collection and whose staff works closely with the urban Aboriginal community; and (3) BladeRunners, an inner-city construction program that trains and places Aboriginal street youth in the local construction industry. Participants in this research include non-Aboriginal “inclusion workers” as well as non-Aboriginal patrons at the library, construction workers on a BladeRunners construction placement site, and audiences at Aboriginal Olympic events. I explore how my participants’ affective knowledges shape and are shaped by spatial and racializing processes in the emergent settler colonial present. My analysis reveals how everyday encounters with Aboriginal alterity are produced and experienced through spectacular representations and spectral (or haunting) Aboriginal presence, absence, and possibility in the city. In relation to inclusion initiatives, I argue that discourses of Aboriginal inclusion work to manage and circumscribe Aboriginal difference even as they enable interaction across difference. Ultimately, I suggest that social projects aimed at addressing Aboriginal marginality and recognition must actively engage with and critique non-Aboriginal ideologies, discourses, and practices around racialization, meaning-making, and settler privilege, while working within and against a spectacular and spectralized milieu. This research demonstrates how critical ethnography can be leveraged productively to analyse settler participation in the reproduction and transformation of the colonial project.
Aboriginality & Indianuity: Decolonization in the Urban Native Community of Vancouver. MA thesis.
2003
This thesis looks at ideological and cultural decolonization in the context of the Urban Native Community of Vancouver. The oppression that First Nations populations endured during colonialism has left a strong impact. Communities struggle with ample traumas, ranging from ill health to addiction and substance abuse, high school dropouts and high incidences of crime and violence. In this ethnographic case study I spent seven months in this highly diverse urban native community. I wanted to learn about the historical and contemporary causes of peoples' colonial traumas, and, perhaps more importantly, about the ways in which they heal them. Decolonization is not simply a political notion: decolonization means that we have to examine both the base and the superstructure of our society, and the way we have internalized these. As the participants in this study showed me, it is a long and tedious process, in which we can leave no stone unturned, and from which there is no return. This is my MA Thesis, presented in 2003 at the Free University of Amsterdam, for the completion of my degree in Cultural Anthropology. The things that I learned during this journey continue to inspire me and guide me in the academic work I do today in my Caribbean community of Curacao, the Dutch Caribbean. May my journey inspire someone else also. Key words: First nations, Vancouver, British Columbia, decolonization, colonialism, racism, residential schools, healing.
In search of a healing place: Aboriginal women in Vancouver’s downtown eastside
2003
Research on general health service delivery in urban areas of Canada shows that Aboriginal people face formidable barriers in accessing culturally appropriate and timely care. Over the past decade, Urban Aboriginal Health Centres (UAHCs) have emerged to address the unmet health concerns of Aboriginal people living in metropolitan areas of the country. The purpose of this research was to address the gap in social science literature on how the health care concerns of Aboriginal women are being met by UAHCs. The research aimed to give voice to Aboriginal women by asking them whether the appropriate professional services and educational programs they need to address their health care needs were being provided in the inner city. A case-study approach was used whereby three separate focus groups were conducted with Aboriginal women who were clients of the Vancouver Native Health Society (VNHS), its sister organization, Sheway, or residents of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES). In ...
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In some respects, this comprehensive anthology represents the cutting edge in a growing field of study related to urban Aboriginal communities in Canada. With a focus ranging from Toronto to Vancouver, the book contains fascinating new studies, including the experiences of Aboriginal employees at Ontario\u27s Casino Rama, the rebuilding of Papaschase First Nation in Edmonton, and how Plains culture has been adopted as a form of healing in Vancouver. While the authors acknowledge the absence of voices addressing the Atlantic provinces and Quebec, this is offset by the strength of offerings from the Prairies, which include a textual analysis of media racism, a focus on Aboriginal youth gangs, and an exploration of hip-hop culture. Notably, in a context in which Inuit communities are often ignored, the book includes a study of Inuit communities in Ottawa. While the introduction covers a range of issues relating to urban Aboriginality, this book is refreshing in its view of urban Aborig...