Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Arts

Program

Anthropology

Supervisor

Tania Granadillo

Abstract

The conclusion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 has initiated numerous conversations about Canada’s renewed relationship with Indigenous peoples, and elicited questions about what it means to ‘reconcile’. I use ethnographic methods to examine these issues in the context of language revitalization, at the nexus of government policy, university-community partnerships, and the experiences of individual language learners within the Oneida Nation of the Thames. This thesis re-evaluates the relationship between Indigenous language revitalization and the political process of reconciliation through the framework of Indigenous resurgence, an emerging theory and practice that seeks to regenerate Indigenous communities through self-recognition. By examining three different on-going language projects through a resurgence lens, this thesis argues that a politics of resurgence offers a necessary meta-framework for a new relationship between the Settler state and Indigenous peoples, by providing a common basis for Settler and Indigenous people together to work on resurgent projects.

Download

Share

COinS