Land as Body: Indigenous womxn’s* leadership, land-based wellness and embodied governance

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorGilpin, Erynne M.
dc.contributor.supervisorReading, Charlotte Loppie
dc.date.accessioned2020-01-27T18:18:57Z
dc.date.available2020-01-27T18:18:57Z
dc.date.copyright2020en_US
dc.date.issued2020-01-27
dc.degree.departmentProgram: Indigenous Governanceen_US
dc.degree.levelDoctor of Philosophy Ph.D.en_US
dc.description.abstractAs many Indigenous voices and teachings reveal, individual practices of leadership are an everyday commitment to cultural resurgence and actualize within the personal spaces of the home, kitchen table, garden, birth-room and familial relations. Individual enactments of leadership are further determined by personal sense of agency derived from feelings of personal wellness, community well-being, relational balance and alignment of the mental, spiritual, emotional and physical selves. Healthy environments, including territories that encompass Land and Water, are essential for overall community wellness. This issertation examines emergent themes of Indigenous wellness, governance and gender to broaden current definitions of Indigenous governance and leadership towards a gendered, storied and embodied understanding. Countering the notion that governance and wellness are separate entities within the field of Indigenous Governance, this paper draws the Indigenous body into focus as a crucial site for self-determination in what I define as embodied governance. In doing so, we situate the Indigenous body within a self-determination framework that brings together critical Indigenous studies, Indigenous governance and culturally grounded wellness practices. Utilizing narrative inquiry, storytelling methods, relationship based models of accountability, this research project included the guided conversations of 17 self-identified Indigenous Womxn between 21-60 years of age from 10 different Nations, to explore: definitions of leadership in their everyday lives, the conditions for their personal wellness and community well-being, and finally, how these notions are predicated upon meaningful relationship to Land/Waters. My research defines wellness and well-being within the Cree-Michif framework of Miyo-Pimatisiwin (personal wellness, self-care, healing, internal balance) and Miyo-Wîchêtowin (care for others, accountability and belonging, kinship, relational governance, external balance). These concepts inform what I define as an embodied governance framework of self-determination to engage in ongoing efforts of personal, community, Land/Water-based healing for the purpose of protecting the future of generations to come. The final analysis celebrates and honours on-the-ground practices of embodied governance by focusing on rooted examples of creative resurgence, Land-Water based healing practices and a focus on an emergent theme of embodied birth and reproductive governance. These learnings support that determinants of individual leadership must be supported by a sense of personal wellness contained by relationship to Land and Waters. The dissertation begins with a critical examination of the colonial underpinnings that sabotage community healing, wellness and traditions of governance as derived by relationship to home Lands and Waters. In this way, I aim to interrupt the predominant trope of the Indigenous body or community as continuously in crisis. Instead, this paper situates Indigenous healing practices as radical sites of governance. This dissertation argues for the reconsideration of self-determination as embodied governance, which begins with the body as a site of regeneration, resurgence and renewal.en_US
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/11520
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectIndigenous voicesen_US
dc.subjectgovernanceen_US
dc.subjectwellnessen_US
dc.subjectself-determinationen_US
dc.titleLand as Body: Indigenous womxn’s* leadership, land-based wellness and embodied governanceen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Gilpin_Erynne_PhD_2020.pdf
Size:
8.9 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
PDF portfolio
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.71 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download

Collections

Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD)
Theses (Indigenous Governance)
 
University of Victoria Libraries

We acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory the university stands, and the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.