A Space to Call Our Own: The U’Mista Cultural Centre as a Representative of First Nations Collective Agency and its associated health benefits

Abstract

This thesis examines the social and political relationship between Canadian indigenous communities and the Federal government regarding issues of cultural representation, the ownership of cultural artefacts, and institutional representation. It surveys at the correlation between the broader issues of sociocultural sovereignty and health outcomes within indigenous communities and their members. Furthermore, the thesis explores trends in cultural survival such as the development of native-led cultural institutions that foster the continuation of cultural praxis through the tropes of Social Context theory and Social Cognitive theory, borrowed from the discipline of psychology. The theories demonstrate how the history of colonialisation, European settlement, and the implementation of Western laws and property rights have led to multigenerational disruptions in the sharing of cultural information and persistent psychological trauma. These theories are utilised in order to demonstrate how institutional jurisdiction over cultural objects, the usurpation native lands, and control over the prevailing historical narratives of indigenous histories within public institutions has adversely affected the physical, spiritual, and health levels of indigenous populations and how Native-led cultural centres may serve as a mediating factor. These evaluations are supported by an analysis of statistics from Canadian state institutions such as Health Canada and studies such as the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Health. The thesis contends that social movements in the 20th Century irrevocably altered the established relationships between the established systems of governance within settler colonies, allowing for enhanced indigenous cultural sovereignty and the establishment of alternative cultural spaces that address the culturally specific needs of respective native groups. The Kwakwaka’wakw Nation of British Columbia and their cultural centre, the U’Mista Cultural Centre, is an exemplary illustration of indigenous-led cultural continuity (or ethnic renewal) and the intergenerational transfer of cultural lifeways. Furthermore, the various ways in which indigenous populations have been depicted by Euro-Canadian museums and ethnographic museums is examined. Comparisons between native-led cultural centres and the historical role of traditional institutions are considered and methods on how to incorporate of indigenous norms that nurture representational justice and the inclusion of alternative perspectives in the ethnographic scholarship. The permanence of traditional museums on the cultural landscape places a critical emphasis on partnerships with native-led institutions, which often lack access to financial resources and large population centres in order to address the needs of off-reserve populations and change the perception of First Nations peoples amongst the general Canadian population.