1,720,964 research outputs found
“Eating our culture”: intersections of culturally grounded values-based frameworks and Indigenous food systems restoration in Secwepemcúl̓ecw
Get PDFIndigenous values, epistemologies, and indicators have always been ways of teaching and learning about change, and planning for the future. Indigenous food systems are central capacities supporting social-ecological resilience and resistance. Settler-colonialism and environmental degradation are two drivers of rapid and cumulative change over the past century that are at the root of health challenges experienced by Indigenous people and impacts to Indigenous food systems. Indigenous food sovereignty is a framework many Indigenous communities have been working within to support the restoration of Indigenous food systems, knowledges, and relationships to land in this time of resurgence. Recent scholarship highlights the importance of biocultural and culturally grounded values frameworks, aligning with Indigenous epistemologies, for measuring social-ecological resilience and resistance. Indigenous scholars and communities are also calling for more respectful and meaningful research practices in alignment with Indigenous priorities and worldviews.
The Neskonlith Band’s Switzmalph community near Salmon Arm, British Columbia, has been working towards restoring Secwépemc plants and food systems through land-based education projects and collaboration in multi-scalar partnerships. This study highlights two cultural concepts or values related to Secwépemc food systems restoration and land based education in Switzmalph and Secwépemc territory more broadly, and their role in guiding future pathways and multi-scalar relationships supporting Secwépemc food systems restoration. This study also highlights the role of storytelling as a method and context for teaching and learning about cultural concepts and values in land-based settings. This study discusses the importance of process-oriented approaches to research for demonstrating how Indigenous ways of knowing can guide ongoing and embodied applications of ethical frameworks. The results of this work highlight the importance of culturally-grounded values in measuring, guiding, and reflecting on change, as well as the vital importance of Indigenous ways of knowing in guiding ethical research processes, and participatory and community-led research throughout all stages of research design.Graduat
Understanding lək̓ʷəŋən soils: The foundation of environmental stewardship in coastal anthropogenic prairies
Get PDFLong-term human habitation introduces morphological and chemical changes to soil as a result of cultural, economic, and stewardship practices. These cultural soils, or Anthrosols, are recognized globally. On the Northwest Coast of North America, Indigenous marine and terrestrial land stewardship practices are recognized on present-day landscapes. Increased awareness of these stewardship practices is informed by Indigenous knowledge, ecological legacies, ethnographic studies, and archaeological evidence. This research was undertaken to better understand how lək̓ʷəŋən (Straits Salish) stewardship of a cultural landscape affected the development of soil across a village-garden gradient. On Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Indigenous cultivation of culturally important root foods was interrupted by colonization and its pervasive effects, so an additional research aim was to investigate how cultural soils remain after being disconnected from traditional stewardship. There is a growing global understanding that Indigenous management of ecosystems plays a key role in ecological health. At the regional scale, Songhees First Nation are interested in learning about their soils to inform future restoration efforts and connect youth with their land and culture. The lək̓ʷəŋən Ethnoecology and Archaeology Project (LEAP) is a collaborative research project with the Songhees First Nation to learn more about the physical remains of lək̓ʷəŋən stewardship: soils are a key part of the project. Community knowledge, ethnographic sources, and ecological legacies informed the archaeological excavation and soil sampling in this research. Archaeological excavation was utilized to understand the pedologic and archaeological setting of the site. Soil samples were analyzed for physical and chemical properties to see if a statistical difference between on and off-site samples could be detected. Data from the archaeological excavation were recorded and interpreted. A gradient of influence does exist across the village-garden; the village has a strong physical and chemical signature that can be seen through archaeological excavation, macroscopic remains in the soil, and elevated levels of phosphorous, calcium, and soil pH. Results from the garden are less clear, previous ecological studies and archaeological surveys show evidence of lək̓ʷəŋən stewardship—culturally important plant species and burial cairns are present. However, within the soil, the macroscopic remains and soil chemistry signatures are not as strong as the village which indicates that the health of lək̓ʷəŋən gardens facilitates their continued ecological functioning which ultimately may obscure earlier soil signatures of stewardship. Archaeological investigation alone does not always show the full scope of Indigenous terrestrial management practices. Incorporating present-day community knowledge, ecological legacies of plant cultivation, and utilizing soil chemical data are important to understanding the interconnections between people and their environments across cultural landscapes. Current work on the ecological legacies of plant cultivation can be assisted by investigating the soil as a site that also undergoes co-development with Indigenous stewardship.Graduat
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Feeding Our Spirit: Connecting Plants, Health, Place and Identity. Renewing Ethnobotanical Knowledge in the Skwxwú7mesh First Nation
No full textIn a time of Indigenous Resurgence, interrelationships with culturally important plants are key to the health and well-being of Canadian Indigenous Peoples. I work with my home community of Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations in British Columbia. My research is conducted within the context of the Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) crisis in Indigenous communities across Canada. Type 2 Diabetes is five times higher than the general population and diagnosis is happening at younger ages. Drawing on theoretical and methodological approaches in ethnobotany, ethnobiology, and Indigenous Studies— and framing health and wellness from a Skwxwú7mesh perspective that considers physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health—I answer four interrelated questions:
How might developing an indigenizing and decolonizing approach to ethnobotany move the field forward to the benefit of the communities we work with, and situate the discipline as a positive contributor to Indigenous cultural-political resurgence in Canada? How can culturally important plants help connect a person’s sense of health (physical, spiritual, and emotional) to place? What do the connections between plants, health and place mean to the participants themselves? What role do culturally important plants play in developing approaches to addressing T2D from an Indigenous conceptualization of health viewpoint? These questions emerge from overarching themes and priorities that have Skwxwú7mesh expressed in initial discussions and consultation.
The results of this study will inform the Skwxwú7mesh First Nations practices on culturally rooted approaches to health through rebuilding Indigenous plant relationships. The results of this work also provide a framework for other Indigenous communities interested in reconnecting with their traditional plant practices and addressing Type 2 Diabetes in a culturally relevant way.Graduat
Invasive species removal and changing fire regimes in a lək̓ʷəŋən Garry oak ecosystem
No full textThis thesis examines restoration of Garry oak ecosystems in Southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Before the arrival of European settlers, Coast Salish peoples practiced intensive stewardship and cultivation practices that heavily shaped Garry oak ecosystems. These long-standing stewardship practices are responsible for the abundance of culturally important plants found in Garry oak ecosystems today. In addition to their cultural value to Coast Salish peoples, Garry oak ecosystems also support unique biodiversity, including numerous at-risk species. These ecosystems and the values they embody came under threat with the arrival of European settlers, who introduced non-native plants and excluded Coast Salish peoples and their stewardship practices from these ecosystems. Today, Garry oak ecosystems have been reduced to a fraction of their pre-colonial distribution and remaining patches are typically heavily invaded by both native and non-native plants. Their cultural and biological values coupled with ongoing degradation has motivated both Indigenous and non-Indigenous land managers to implement restoration programs in Garry oak ecosystems. To inform future restoration efforts, this thesis examines ecological impacts of a long-term restoration program and a wildfire in a lək̓ʷəŋən Garry oak ecosystem at Mill Hill Regional Park near Langford, British Columbia. In Project 1, vegetation responses to a 13-year invasive species removal program were quantified to determine if native plant populations were successfully bolstered by the removal efforts. In Project 2, impacts of an unintended wildfire on the relative cover of native and non-native plants were examined. This attempted to explore potential ecosystem shifts that may occur as wildfires increase in frequency and severity as predicted by climate models. In Project 1, the greatest change observed after invasive species removal was an increase in other introduced species, while increases in native species were not statistically significant. In Project 2, introduced Anthoxanthum odoratum was facilitated by fire while native Camassia spp. were reduced by it. Taken together, these results demonstrate the complexity of restoring Indigenously managed ecosystems where multiple introduced species have existed for long periods. Invasive species, specifically Anthoxanthum odoratum, showed greater responses to removal efforts and wildfire than native species. Intensive, long-term restoration programs that utilize multiple tools, including low-intensity fire, invasive removal, herbicide, and seeding of native species appear necessary to bolster native species without unintentional facilitation of introduced species. Coast Salish peoples and stewardship practices were integral in maintaining these ecosystems before the arrival of European settlers and should play a key role in their restoration today, though traditional practices will likely need adapted to account for environmental changes caused by colonization. Furthermore, to avoid continuing the cultural damage that began with colonization, it is vital that Coast Salish First Nations lead or be directly involved in restoration of these ecosystems, which continue to hold irreplaceable cultural value.Graduat
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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