Other Theses

FIRST NATIONS STUDIES, HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY THESES

This page contains links to non-archaeological graduate theses and dissertations, especially those concerned with general First Nations studies, including History, Anthropology, Environmental Studies and related disciplines in BC and surrounding areas.  These are, in my (limited) judgment, of interest to the practice of archaeology in British Columbia.

Each link should go to a page where you can read the abstract and choose to download the thesis free of charge, unless otherwise noted (a few are direct downloads).  Some of the older SFU ones have no date and are marked n.d. for the ones where I didn’t bother downloading the PDF and the date wasn’t given on the landing page.  Many SFU theses also have no abstract.  Relatively speaking the SFU system is less good: the search is not full text, and many of the landing pages are weak; they also disallow printing and cutting-and-pasting although googling for ways around this is productive.  On the other hand, SFU archive goes back much further: there are few theses before about 2000 available on either UVIC or UBC dSpace although retro-digitization projects are in place at both institutions.  Relevant theses are also online at places like University of Calgary and Toronto, but are limited to institutional subscribers.    However, the intention of this page is to only link to those theses which are publicly  available to anyone.  I am just beginning to list theses available through the Theses Canada Portal and not elsewhere.  Theses are in Anthropology or Archaeology unless otherwise noted.

Updated: March 17th, 2010.

Andrea, Alestine  Mary Therese  2006.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Environmental Studies) Nan t’aih nakwits’inahtsìh : The land gives us strength : the medicine plants used by Gwich’in people of Canada’s western Arctic to maintain good health and well being

Ayers, Cheri Anne  2005.  UVIC M.A. thesis:  Marine conservation from a First Nations’ perspective : a case study of the principles of the Hul’qumi’num of Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Bandringa, Robert 1999 UBC M.Sc. Thesis:  The ethnobotany and descriptive ecology of bitterroot, lewisia rediviva pursh (portulacaceae), in the Lower Thompson River Valley, British Columbia : a salient root food of the Nlaka’pamux First Nation

Bannister, Kelly  2006.  UBC Ph.D. dissertation (Botany): Chemistry rooted in cultural knowledge : unearthing the links between antimicrobial properties and traditional knowledge in food and medicinal plant resources of the Secwepemc (Shuswap) Aboriginal Nation

Bartley, Raymond  2008.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Environmental Studies):  Ceninetel a,it e tte tenew = ‘Helping each other take care of the land’ : an ethnoecological approach to restoring the coastal dune ecosystem of Tixen and Island View Beach

Behr, Towagh  2008.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Anthropology):  Hypermedia and ethnographic research : Nuu-chah-nulth and Upper St’át’imc case studies

Bell, Lucy Mary Christina  2005.  UVIC M.A. (HSD): Kwakwaka’wakw laws and perspective regarding “property”

Blair, Graham  2000.  UBC M.A. thesis: Object lessons : hereditary rights and ownership in a northwest coast museum

Brealey, Kenneth 2002.  UBC Ph.D. (Geography): First (National) space : (Ab)original (re)mappings of British Columbia

Brown, Kimberly  2008.  UBC Ph.D. dissertation: “To fish for themselves” : a study of accommodation and resistance in the Stó:lō fishery

Budd, Robert Michael.  UVIC M.A. thesis (History): The story of the country : Imbert Orchard’s quest for frontier folk in BC, 1870-1914

Chipps-Sawyer, Allis Pakki  2007. UVIC M.A. thesis (Environmental Studies) Standing on the edge of yesterday: A dilemma of oral knowledge in a West Coast family

Clapperton, Jonathan Alex.  2006.  UVIC M.A. thesis (history) Presenting and representing culture: a history of Stó:lo interpretive centres, museums and cross-cultural relationships, 1949-2006

Clayton, Daniel,  UBC Ph.D. Dissertation (Geography). 1995.   Islands of truth : Vancouver Island from Captain Cook to the beginnings of colonialism.

Compton, Brian 1993.  Ph.D. dissertaion (Botany): Upper North Wakashan and Southern Tsimshian ethnobotany: the knowledge and usage of plants and fungi among the Oweekeno, Hanaksiala (Kitlope and Kemano), Haisla (Kitamaat) and Kitasoo Peoples of the central and north coasts of British Columbia

Conner, Theresa Ann  2005.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Geography): Social vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change impacts : identifying attributes in two remote coastal communities on Haida Gwaii, British Columbia.

Crosby, Marcia Violet  1994. UBC M.F.A.  thesis:  Indian art/Aboriginal title

Cullis-Suzuki, Severn  2007.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Environmental Studies):  Tending the meadows of the sea: Traditional Kwakwaka’wakw harvesting of Ts’áts’ayem (Zostera marina L.; Zosteraceae)

Currie, Noel Elizabeth  1994.  UBC Ph.D. (English):  Captain Cook at Nootka Sound and some questions of colonial discourse

Deshield, Cory Ginger  1995.  UBC M.A. thesis:  Using indigenous knowledge in resource management: knowledge of salmon in the upper St’át’imc (Lillooet, B.C.)

Fenn, Catherine  1993.  UBC M.A. thesis:  Life history of a collection: the Tahltan materials collected by James A. Teit

Fortney, Sharon 2001. UBC M.A. thesis:  Identifying Sto:lo basketry : exploring different ways of knowing material culture

Furniss, Elizabeth  1997.  UBC Ph.D. dissertation: In the spirit of the pioneers : historical consciousness, cultural colonialism and Indian/white relations in rural British Columbia

Garvey, Charlene  1993.  UBC M.A. thesis:  Who shall remain nameless? Makers and collectors in MOA’s Nuu-chah-nulth basketry collection

Hancock, Robert 2007.  UVIC Ph.D. dissertation (Interdisciplinary): Historiographical representations of materialist anthropology in the Canadian setting, 1972-1982

Harris, Douglas, UBC thesis (Law).  1998.  The legal capture of British Columbia’s fisheries: a study of law and colonialism.

Hawker, Ronald  1998.  UBC M.A. thesis: Accumulated labours: First Nations art in British Columbia, 1922-1961 (direct download)

Hunt, Dale 2005.  UVIC M.A. thesis (HSD) We are all different, still living under the same culture : a Kwakwaka’wakw perspective on dispute resolution and resolution building

Johnson, Leslie Main 1997.  Alberta Ph.D. dissertation:  Health, wholeness, and the land : Gitksan traditional plant use and healing (direct download)

Kehler, Caiomhe  2007.  UVIC MPA (Public Administration): The Province of BC’s new relationship with First Nations: a review of the implications of shared decision-making for strategic Crown land use planning

Keighley, Diane  2000.  UBC M.A. thesis (History):  “Almost lost but not forgotten” : contemporary social uses of Central Coast Salish spindle whorls

Kennedy, Andrea Holly  2009. UBC Ph.D. dissertation (Interdisciplinary):  Deeper than mere consultation : negotiating land and resource management in British Columbia, post-Delgamuukw

Lawson, Kimberley 2004.  UBC MLIS:  Precious fragments : First Nations materials in archives, libraries and museums

Littlefield, Lorraine. 1995.   UBC Ph.D. dissertation.  Gender, class and community: the history of Sne-nay-muxw women’s employment

Mackie, Richard S.  1994.  UBC Ph.D. dissertation (History): The Hudson’s Bay Company on the Pacific, 1821-1843

Mah, Shirley  200o.  UBC M.Sc. Thesis (Forestry): Relationship between vital attributes of Ktunaxa plants and natural disturbance regimes in Southeastern British Columbia

Markey, Nola 2001.  SFU M.A. thesis:  Data gathering dust: an analysis of traditional use studies conducted within Aboriginal communities in British Columbia (direct download).

Martin, Kathryn  2009.  UVIC M.A. thesis (History): Honouring experience: cross-cultural relationships between indigenous and settler women in British Columbia, 1960 – 2009

Mattson, Linda Karen 1997.   UBC Ph.D. dissertation: Examination of the systems of authority of three Canadian museums and the challenges of aboriginal peoples

McSkimming, Robert  1975.  UBC M.A. thesis (geography): Territory, territoriality and cultural change in an indigenous society : Old Crow, Yukon Territory

Midgley, Christopher  2005.  UBC M.A. thesis (Landscape Architecture):  Turning the museum inside out : place and placemaking at Esowista

Milburn, Maureen  1997.  UBC Ph.D. dissertation (Fine Arts): The politics of possession: Louis Shotridge and the Tlingit collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum

Napoleon, Valerie  2009.  UVIC Ph.D  thesis (Law):  Ayook : Gitksan legal order, law, and legal theory.

Nicolson, Marianne 2005.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Interdisciplinary).  Moving forward while looking back: a Kwakwaka’wakw concept of time as expressed in language and culture

Olsen, Sylvia Valerie.  1998.  UVIC M.A. thesis (History).  “We Indians were sure hard workers” A history of Coast Salish wool working.

Paige, Sharon  2004.  UVIC M.Ed.  In the voices of the Sul-hween/Elders, on the Snuw’uyulh teachings of Respect : their greatest concerns regarding Snuw’uyulh today in the Coast Salish Hul’q’umi’num’ Treaty Group territory

Patrick, Lyana Marie  2004.  UVIC M.A. thesis (HSD) Storytelling in the Fourth World : explorations in meaning of place and Tla’amin resistance to dispossession

Patterson, Margaret  1975.  UBC M.A. thesis: Northwest coast kerfed containers : a formal study

Paul, Roxanne  2006.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Interdisciplinary):  Counting on their migration home: an examination of monitoring protocols and Saanich First Nations’ perspectives of Coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch), Chinook (O. tshawytscha) and Chum (O. keta) Pacific Salmon at Goldstream River and Saanich Inlet, Southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Pinkoski, Marc  2006.  UVIC Ph.D. (Interdisciplinary): Julian Steward and American anthropology: the science of colonialism

Plant, Byron King  2004.  UVIC M.A. thesis (History):  Hank Snow and moving on: tradition and modernity in Kwakwaka’wakw 20th century migration.

Pukonen, Jennifer  2008.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Environmental Studies): The λ’aayaʕas Project: Revitalizing Traditional Nuu-chah-nulth Root Gardens

Quirt, Lyane  2008.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Interdisciplinary):  The universe and my brain in a jar: Canadians, universities, and Indigenous Peoples

Ransom, Kelly Marie.  1993.  UBC MFA.  Art as negotiation: the reciprocal construction of meanings in the argillite carvings of Charles Edenshaw

Richmond, Patrick Andre  2007.  UVIC M.A. thesis (HSD):   A serpentine path: the impact of legal decisions on aboriginal rights and title on the conduct of treaty negotiations in British Columbia

Ritch-Krc, Elisabeth  1992.  UBC M.Sc. (botany):  A selection of traditional medicinal remedies important to contemporary Carrier people in their treatment of disease

Ruebsaat, Norbert  1987.  SFU M.A. (Communication) SPEAKING WITH DIANE BROWN: AN INVESTIGATION OF TESTIMONY PRESENTED BEFORE HIS HONOUR, MR. JUSTICE HARRY MCKAY IN THE SUPREME COURT OF B.C., NOVEMBER 6TH, 1985, IN THE MATTER OF WESTERN FOREST PRODUCTS LTD. AND DEMPSEY COLLINSON, CHIEF OF THE SKIDEGATE INDIAN BAND, ON EEBALF OF HIMSELF AND ALL OTHER MEMBERS OF THE SKIDEGATE INDIAN RAND, MILES RICHARDSON, ADMINISTRATOR OF THE HAIDA. TRIBAL COUNCIL, ON BEHALF OF HIMSELF AND ALL OTHER MEMBERS OF THE HAIDA TRIBAL COUNCIL, GARY RU66, GARY EDENSHAW, JOHN DOE, JANE DOE AND PERSONS UNKNOWN. [sic]

Scarangella, Linda  2002.  UBC M.A. thesis:  Reclaiming symbols and history in multiple zones : experiencing Coast Salish culture and identity through performance at Hiwus Feasthouse

Schulz, Elaine Ruth  2008.  UBC M.A. thesis:  A partnership of peoples : understanding collaboration at the Museum of Anthropology

Seymour, Ann Elizabeth  1995.  UBC M.A. thesis (History):  Natives and reserve establishment in nineteenth century British Columbia

Shane, Audrey  1978.   UBC M.A. thesis:  Shadow and substance : a computer assisted study of Niska and Gitksan totem poles

Smith, Linda R.  2007.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Linguistics):  Suwh-ts’eghedudinh: the Tsinlhqut’in niminh spiritual path

Smith, Morgen  2003. UBC M.A. thesis:   Managing by the numbers? : examining barriers to harvest assessment in a Southeast Alaska subsistence salmon fishery

Smith, Robin  1998.  Trent M.A. thesis: Hishuk ish ts’awalk – All things are one: traditional ecological knowledge and forest practices in ahousaht first nations’s traditional territory, Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia (direct download)

Sparrow, Kathy Bedard.  2003.  UBC MA thesis (Anthropology): A Haida writing : about Chief Wiiaa.

Spiro, Holly 2003.  UBC M.Sc. thesis (Forestry): An implementation analysis of the Clayoquot Sound scientific panel recommendations on First Nations perspectives

Swallow, Tye  2005.  UVIC M.Ed.   A sense of place : toward a curriculum of place for Wsánec people

Thompson, Judith.  2004.  UVIC M.A. thesis (Environmental Studies): Gitga’at plant project : the intergenerational transmission of traditional ecological knowledge using school science curricula

Vickers, Patricia  2008.  UVIC M.A. thesis (history): Ayaawx (Ts’msyen ancestral law): The power of transformation

Wells, Marlene  2004.  UBC M.A. thesis (planning): Structuring collaboration amongst B.C. First Nations and local governments : learning from Katzie First Nation and neighbouring local governments

Wheatley, Wendy Christy  2006. UVIC M.A. thesis (Environmental Studies): Co-management of Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site: panarchy as a means of assessing linked cultural and ecological landscapes for sustainability

Wright, Maisie Helen  UBC M.A. thesis (Planning):  A study of the traditional governance of the Gitxsan : its relevance today