Native labour and social stratification in the Hudson's Bay Company's Northern Department. 1770–18701

The Hudson's Bay Company began to employ Indian and Métis about 1770. During the competitive period (until 1821) natives held administrative as well as labouring positions. Under near monopoly conditions after 1821, natives did not fare as well. With few exceptions they gained access only to the lowest levels of the employment hierarchy. This loss of status caused frustration which was expressed in several ways. La Comagnie de La Baie d'Hudson commenc;ait à employer des Amérindiens et des Métis jusqu'en 1770. Pendant lapériode concurrentielle (jusqu'à 1821) les indigènes ont tenu des postes administratifs ainsi que des postes journaliers. Sous des conditions qui s'approche d'un monopole après 1821, les indigènes ne se débrouillaient pas aussi bien. Sauf pour quelques exceptions, ils ont réussi seulement les plus bas rangs d'hiérarchie d'emploie. Cette perte de status a causé la frustration qui était exprimée par divers manières.     

Teaching the History of Colonization in the Postsecondary Classroom

ABSTRACT

This study explores the ways Indigenous social workers experience and learn about colonization and provides suggestions for educators who are tasked with teaching that material. Nine First Nations and Métis social workers in British Columbia were interviewed. Data collection and analysis took place using the research praxis métissage as a theoretical framework and involved semistructured interviews. Thematic analysis revealed three themes: colonization as an unnamed lived experience; colonization as academic, cognitive knowledge; and colonization as a personal and professional reality.     

Dispersion and Polarization of Income among Aboriginal and Non‐Aboriginal Canadians*

Cet article pose trois questions: 1) Pourquoi étudier les inégalités entre les autochtones? 2) Quel est l'écart entre les salaires et les revenus de la population canadienne en général et ceux des différents peuples autochtones? et 3) Jusqu'à quel point existe‐t‐il des inégalités entre les peuples autochtones ainsi qu'entre la population autochtone et la population non autochtone? Cet article montre une tendance générale de l'augmentation des disparités mesurées ainsi que de la polarisation des revenus chez tous les groupes autochtones compara‐tivement à la population non autochtone. Pour ce qui est de l'inégalité entre les groupes autochtones, les Inuits se classent au sommet de la pyramide, suivis des Indiens inscrits, des Indiens non inscrits et, finalement, des Métis. This article addresses three questions: 1) Why study intra‐Aboriginal inequality? 2) What is the gap in wages and income between the general Canadian population and the different Aboriginal peoples? and 3) How much inequality exists within the Aboriginal groups and between Aboriginal groups and the non‐Aboriginal population? The article points to a general pattern of increase in measured disparity and polarization in income for all Aboriginal groups in comparison to the non‐Aboriginal population. In terms of intra‐Aboriginal inequality, Aboriginal groups rank from Inuit at the high end, through Status Indians, to non‐status Indians and, finally, to Métis.     

“I Have the Worst Fear of Teachers”: Moments of Inclusion and Exclusion in Family/School Relationships among Indigenous Families in Southern Ontario

Student success is facilitated by strong bonds between families and schools, including a shared sense of purpose and mutual trust. However, for Indigenous peoples these relationships are often broken, undermined by the legacy of residential schooling and assimilative educational practices. Drawing on interviews with 50 Indigenous (mainly Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Métis) and non‐Indigenous parents and educators, this paper examines the ways in which issues of class and race shape interactions between teachers and Indigenous parents. The interviews reveal that legacies of racial discrimination against Indigenous peoples in schooling affect family/school relations among middle‐class (MC) and lower‐class (LC) parents in different ways. MC parents intensify relations with the school while, in comparison, LC parents tend to disengage as a consequence of their negative schooling experiences. Les relations étroites entre les familles et les écoles, et notamment leurs buts communs et leur confiance partagée, facilitent la réussite des étudiants. Toutefois, au sein des populations autochtones, ces liens sont pour la plupart rompus en raison des conséquences des pensionnats scolaires et des pratiques éducatives d'assimilation. Cette étude s'appuie sur des entretiens avec 50 parents et éducateurs issus de populations autochtones (principalement celles d'Haudenosaunee, d'Anishinaabe et de Métis) et non autochtones pour étudier la manière dont les questions de classe et de race affectent les interactions entre les enseignants et les parents issus de populations autochtones. Ces entretiens montrent que le passé discriminatoire des écoles envers les peuples autochtones a eu des répercussions différentes sur les relations famille/école, selon qu'il s'agisse de parents issus de la classe moyenne ou de parents issus d'un milieu pauvre. Les parents issus de la classe moyenne ont renforcé leurs liens avec l’école alors que les parents des classes inférieures tendent à se désengager du fait de leur expérience scolaire négative.     

Tutelage,Resistance and Co-optation in Canadian Indian Administration*

L'administration des affaires indiennes par l'état canadien a longtemps suivi une politique de tutelle coercitive visant à accomplir la transformation sociale, économique et culturelle des peuples autochtones et de leurs communautés. En se basant sur l'idée que les autochtones étaient incapables de gérer leurs propres affaires, les autorités fédérales ont imposé des bureaucraties visant à assurer le contrôle de presque tous les aspects de leur vie, de l'éducation des enfants à la gestion des ressources matérielles. Ce système de tutelle étatique a engendré de vastes et profonds mouvements de résistance chez les peuples visés. Toutefois, certains aspects des politiques de l'état fédéral n'ayant pas été uniformément rejetés par l'ensemble de la population autochtone, l'on est en droit de se demander si une acceptation passive ou même une collaboration de la part de certains autochtones aurait un effet néfaste, direct ou indirect, sur l'avancement social des Premieres Nations. En s'appuyant sur une étude de cas, cet article examine un projet unique en son genre, celui du recyclage de l'ancien pensionnat d'une réserve indienne, et met en lumière les méthodes de manipulation et d'incitation à la collaboration qui ont été employées par les autorités fédérales pour convaincre les autochtones d'abandonner le projet. L'auteur se penche également sur l'enjeu théorique et ethnographique pour l'anthropologue, et celui, politique, pour les autochtones, dans la mesure où les incitations à la collaboration peuvent être interprétées dans le cadre d'un rapport tutelle-resistance entre les Premières Nations et l'état fédéral. The administration of Indian affairs by the Canadian state has embodied a form of coercive tutelage designed to effect the social, economic and cultural transformation of aboriginal peoples and their communities. Working from the premise that aboriginal peoples did not know what was in their own best interests, federal officials imposed bureaucratic systems that sought to regulate almost every aspect of Indians' lives, from the rearing of children to the management of material resources. This system of state tutelage in turn generated deep and widespread resistance from aboriginal communities, which frequently served to frustrate the realization of the federal government's objectives. Nevertheless, not all aspects of federal Indian administration have been uniformly resisted by all aboriginal communities or by all members of given communities. This raises the question of whether instances of non-resistance or even of active co-operation on the part of some aboriginal people with certain government policies, initiatives or procedures comprise acts or habits of co-optation that directly or indirectly compromise the attainment of social justice for the greater aboriginal population. This essay employs a case study to examine the circumstances under which a unique aboriginal initiative to transform a former Indian residential school has been undermined by co-optative state processes. The essay considers what is at stake theoretically and ethnographically for anthropologists and politically for aboriginal communities if co-optation is operationally defined as an associated element of relations of tutelage and resistance.     

The interplay between formal project memberships and informal advice seeking in knowledge-intensive firms: A multilevel network approach

In this study we investigate the interplay between knowledge workers’ formal project team memberships and their informal interactions from a multilevel network perspective. Conceptualizing knowledge workers’ affiliation with project teams as a membership network and their interactions as an advice network, we discuss how shared project team memberships as well as multiple memberships influence patterns of informal exchange in knowledge-intensive organizations. To empirically determine the impact of formal organization on informal exchange we apply exponential random graph models for multilevel networks to relational data collected on 434 R&D employees working on 218 project teams in a high-tech firm in Germany. Our results show that employees sharing project memberships create advice ties to each other but do not exchange advice reciprocally. In addition, we find a negative relationship between having a high number of project memberships and informally seeking or providing advice.     

Gendering the Eye of the Norm: Exploring Gendered Concertive Control Processes in Two Self‐Managing Teams

This article is the result of an ethnographic research project exploring the workplace interactions of two self‐managed teams of recruitment consultants. I use data from participant observation and recorded interviews to show the gendered nature of what Barker terms concertive control: the social processes by which team members regulate each others' conduct in line with negotiated team values. My analysis examines how team members negotiate core team values, translate these into specific actions and regulate these actions through concertive control interactions. I then set out three ways in which gender acts as a resource for these concertive control processes. These are: team members' assumptions about men's and women's relative skills and capacities, the ‘tough’ masculinity of the haulage industry in which one of the teams operates and the regulation of performances of heterosexuality during customer interactions. Building on research by others, I show gender to be not only embedded in the values and managerial style associated with teamwork but also integrated into the collaborative process of team‐working itself. I emphasize that social categories like gender become resources in the regulation of conduct at work and can reify hierarchies even in so‐called participative practices like self‐managed teamwork.     

COMMENTARY (12 YEARS ON) ON ‘THE CONTRIBUTION OF OBSERVATION TRAINING TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN SOCIAL WORK’ BY JUDITH TROWELL AND GILLIAN MILES

This article aims to stimulate discussion about relationships between the lives of professionals and of service users. The idea is that when parallels are explored and developed, power dynamics between professionals and social workers are reduced, the quality of interaction and work with service users can be improved, and professionals can also be helped in overcoming difficulties in their own lives. I start with an outline of my own personal background and highlight my development throughout, including my emerging identity as a Buddhist. I discuss a case study involving ‘Sally’ and her family and our work together while I was a social work assistant in a Children and Family's team. I try to show the interconnections between the different difficulties that we faced and how that informed my work. I look at some of the benefits, pitfalls and boundaries of working from the point of view that service user and professional are both working to overcome their problems. I also interweave interactions I had at the time with Carlos, a drug user friend in a crisis and the impact he had on me. Because I include my own situation I have called this article a ‘case experience’.

Throughout I refer to Buddhist and psychoanalytic thinking and particularly to agreement between the two around ideas that inner‐resistance is the main barrier to personal evolution. I argue that faith is the key to unlocking resistance, and that faith should be understood as the development of a belief within people that they are able to progress rather than be destroyed in the face of inevitable problems.     

Functional Families: Functional Teams

This article highlights the negative effects on professionals who regularly work with very abusive families and seeks to identify what protective factors in the work team and its management mitigate these effects. I compare the behavioural consequences of living in a dysfunctional family with the consequences of working in a dysfunctional team. My hope is to identify practical, realistic things that can be done, especially by team managers, to protect staff from the all too familiar emotional costs of such work.     

Policing “Domestic Disturbances” in Small Towns and Rural Communities: Implications for Officer and Victim Safety

Drawing on Canadian police data on homicide involving domestic dispute calls from 1960 to the present (n = 20), as well as on in‐depth interviews with police officers (n = 33) working in rural and remote communities, the authors reexamine the argument that police attendance at domestic disturbance calls can pose a special threat to officer safety. Although some scholarship suggests that purported risks have been overstated, the authors argue that location may be a critical factor in reducing or heightening not only risks to officers, but also to victims. Although intended as an exploratory work, situated within the context of cultural support for domestic violence in rural communities, the authors raise both interesting policy implications, as well as potential avenues for future research. En partant de données de la police canadienne sur les homicides impliquant des disputes familiales de 1960 à nos jours (n = 20), ainsi que sur des entrevues en profondeur avec des agents policiers (n = 33) travaillant dans des régions rurales et des communautés éloignées, les auteurs ré‐examinent l'argument voulant que les interventions policières lors d'appels liés à des problèmes domestiques posent un risque spécial pour les agents policiers. Même si certains spécialistes suggèrent que ces risques sont exagérés, les auteurs affirment que le lieu pourrait être un facteur important par rapport au niveau de risque pour les agents policiers, ainsi que les victimes. Même s'il s'agit d'une recherche exploratoire, se situant dans le contexte du soutient culturel de la violence domestique dans les communautés rurales, les auteurs s'intéressent à la fois aux implications en termes de gestion et aux directions possibles en termes de recherches futures.     

Antiracist Educators Sui Generis? The Dialectics of Aboriginal Teacher Education*

Depuis trente ans, certains programmes pédagogiques enseignent comment on doit procéder pour mettre en place au sein de lécole les mesures antidiscriminatoires qui s'imposent à notre époque. Les enseignants stagiaires issus de ces programmes sont-ils moins les «laquais du pouvoir établi» pour autant? Sont-ils plus aptes à enseigner que les Blancs qu'ils ont remplacés? Persistent-ils à inculquer aux élèves autochtones et à ceux issus des populations défavorisées les mêmes idéologies et les mêmes modes de pensée qui sont traditionnellement véhiculés par lÉtaty? Peut-on espérer une nouvelle génération d'enseignants autochtones tirant profit d'une nouvelle pédagogie destinée aux enfants des Premières Nations? Le présent article propose que la réponse à ces questions se trouve dans la dialectique qui oppose l'expérience des enseignants stagiaires aux méthodes d'apprentissage que transmettent certains programmes pédagogiques. La réponse est également tributaire d'un actuel contexte manifestement incompatible où la volonté de former une classe intellectuelle autochtone se heurte à la prédominance de la pensée néolibérale. Teacher education programmes (TEPs) designed specifically for the affirmative-action training of aboriginal preservice teachers have existed for thirty years. Are the TEPs producing only new “clerks of the empire,” that is, teachers of aboriginal ancestry who will fill the former roles of white teachers and perform the same state- and ideologically determined tasks that schools have always served in relation to First Nations people and other subordinate populations? Or does the production of aboriginal teachers promise new forms of schooling for First Nations children? This article argues that the answer lies, in part, in understanding the dialectical relation between the life histories of many aboriginal preservice teachers on the one hand, and the conditions for learning presented by at least some teacher education programmes on the other. Further, the answer to this question must be understood within the context of a current contradiction: between the formation of a critical and formally educated aboriginal intelligentsia on the one hand, and the era of neo-liberalism on the other.     

Canadians' responses to aboriginal issues: the roles of prejudice, perceived group conflict and economic conservatism

Dane cette communication, les auteurs se servent de trois mesures des préférences en matière de politique gouvernementale pour déterminer les effets des préjugés, de l'ethnocentrisme, du conservatisme éonomique, des perceptions de conflits d'inérêts entre groupes et de l'appréhension d'une menace contre les intérêts personnels Bur lee attitudea des Canadiens à l'égard des autochtones. Lee trois variables dépendantes sont: l'appui à l'autonomie politique, l'appui au statut particulier et le degré de priorité accordé aux préoccupations des autochtones. Lee données d'un éhantillon national aléatoire (N= 1834) ont été analysées à l'aide de régressions multiples et de techniques LISREL. Les principales conclusions sont les suivantes: 1/la variation dans lee réactions des non-autochtones aux préoccupations des autochtones s'explique en grande partie par trois facteurs — les préjugés, le conservatisme économique et la perception d'un conflit d'intérêts de groupe; 2/ les préjugés et la perception d'un conflit d'intérêts se combinent et influent fortement sur les réactions des Canadiens non autochtones; 3/ l'influence de l'ethnocentrisme est tout au plus mineure; 4/ lea indicateurs objectifs (région, situation socio-économique familiale et âge) employés comme mesures indirectee du sentiment que les intérêts personnels sont menacés ont une influence somme toute mineure sur la réaction aux préoccupations des autochtones de la part des Canadiens. La communication se termine par une réflexion sur lee leçons que les dirigeants politiques des autochtones pourraient tirer de l'étude. This paper examines the effects of prejudice, ethnocentrism, economic conservatism, perceived conflict of group interests and perceived personal threat in shaping Canadians' views on three different measures of preferences for government policy in the aboriginal affairs field. Those dependent variables are: support for self-government, support for special status, and level of priority attached to Native issues. Multiple regression analysis and LISREL techniques are applied to data from a 1986 national random sample (N= 1834). The main findings are that: 1/ a moderate to large proportion of the variation in non-aboriginal responses to aboriginal issues can be explained by three factors -prejudice, economic conservatism, and perceived conflict of group interests; 2/ prejudice and perceived conflict interact strongly in influencing non-aboriginal Canadians' responses; 3/ ethnocentrism has a negligible to minor influence; and 4/ objective indicators (region, family SES and age) serving as proxies for perceived personal threat have only minor net effects on how Canadians respond to aboriginal issues. The paper concludes with comments on the relevance of the findings for aboriginal political leaders.     

Creating Dialogic Contexts for Multidisciplinary Clinical Reviews: The Reflecting Team Process

When multidisciplinary teams review their work, it is common for clinicians to hypothesise about their clients from the perspective of their role or theoretical model. The outcome of this review process may depend on the team's views. Here the epistemological position taken by team members about reality and objectivity can lead to starkly different pathways. There can either be a dialogue about different hypotheses, with the team jointly constructing new meanings; or, conversely, there can be a monologic exchange based on competition between different hypotheses. This paper explores why teams may struggle with coordinating different theoretical approaches and models. It suggests the dialogic nature of a reflecting team process offers one approach for helping teams to find ways of ‘putting their differences to work’. Ideas for implementing this process within multidisciplinary teams are illustrated with comments provided by teams who have begun to experiment with this approach.     

Teamarbeit und Freiwilliges Arbeitsengagement

In this contribution organizational spontaneity and pro-social organizational behaviour are put into correlation with team work. Müller and Bierhoff (1994) have devised a model which starts out from a one-dimensional influence of the work group — obvious by a positive mood at work — on organizational spontaneity. This model is supplemented by a reciprocal model which also postulates a re-correlation between organizational spontaneity and team work with its components of effectiveness, cohesion, diversity and trust.     

Security a la Mexicana: on the particularities of security governance in México’s War on Crime

Social scientists from different fields have identified security as a future-oriented mode of governance designed to preserve the social order from diverse types of global risk through international cooperation, militarization and privatization of the state security apparatus, surveillance technologies, community policing, and stigmatization of identities and behaviors deemed dangerous. This literature has largely been limited to English-speaking countries in the Global North, however, that are relatively “secure.”. To understand how security operates in a different context, this article focuses on the current War on Crime in México using newspaper and magazine articles, government documents, and extant academic research. In México, it is argued, the basic elements of security governance (international cooperation, militarized police, surveillance technologies, law, etc.) are present, but in modified form. Rather than focusing on external risks that could develop into future threats, security in México is turned inward against traditional forms of national economic, political, and cultural life thought to produce harm in the present. This, in turn, underscores security’s unique purpose in the country, which is not to preserve the prevailing social order, but to transform an emergent social order that through globalization has come to threaten the state’s legitimacy. These observations suggest an international divide in the operation of security that leaves those most vulnerable in the Global South to bear the greatest costs.     

Consuming the transnational family: Indonesian migrant domestic workers to Saudi Arabia

Abstract There is heated debate in contemporary Indonesia about the rights and regulation of transnational women migrants, specifically about the ‘costs to families’ of women working overseas, but little attention has been given to women migrants' own views of family or women's own motivations for migration. In this article, which is based on field work in a migrant‐sending community in West Java, I focus on migrant women's narratives of transnational migration and employment as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. I contribute to the literature on gender and transnational migration by exploring migrants' consumption desires and practices as reflective not only of commoditized exchange but also of affect and sentiment. In addition, I show in detail how religion and class inflect low‐income women's narrations of morally appropriate mothering practices. In conclusion, I suggest that interpreting these debates from the ground up can contribute towards understanding the larger struggles animating the Indonesian state's contemporary relationships with women and Islam.     

Giving Meaning to Sport Involvement in Managerial Work

I use a discursive analytical approach to explore ways in which senior managerial men working in nonprofit organizations understand the contribution, if any, of their own sport history to their work skills, how this may vary by organizational contexts and how the subtexts of these discourses may strengthen the dominance of managerial men in a specific context. I used semi‐structured interviews to ask 67 senior managerial men about the role they perceive their sport history plays in their managerial skills. Two overlapping topics emerged from the data: team and leadership skills and perseverance and toughness. I explore the meaning these topics had for the managers and the possible gendered subtexts of these meanings. The findings are situated in the critical feminist management and sport literature.     

‘Sitting on the Mourning Bench’: Mental Health Workers and an Elderly Client

Abstract

The present article documents the experience of a first year social work student on fieldwork placement in an Aged Persons Mental Health Service. The student was part of a team providing service to a long-term client of the service when he was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. The student's compassionate response to the client raises questions about grief and professionalism, which she explored through a journal and in discussion with her supervisor and other team members working with the client. As part of their reflective practice, the student, her supervisor and the client's mental health workers formed a collective to document their experience and present a staff education session. This article is the outcome of these processes and explores important grief issues in Aged Psychiatry and demonstrates the valuable contribution made by a student to the work of the team in the rich learning environment of a fieldwork placement in aged psychiatry. It is published with the kind permission of the client's next of kin.     

Globalization and the Trade in Human Body Parts*

Depuis le début des années 1980, les greffes se sont multipliées tant en nombre qu'en variété, partout dans le monde. L'augmentation s'est accompagnée de l'émergence d'un marché pour les organes humains. Il est soumis dans le présent article que, bien que le marché des organes humains dépende de progrès technologiques, il convient de le considérer dans une perspective plus large, celle de la mondialisation, soit l'extension et l'intensification du mode d'échange capitaliste. De ce point de vue, il est avancé que le commerce des organes humains reflète le système normal d'échanges inégaux qui régit les autres formes de commerce entres régions développées du monde et régions sous-développées. Since the early 1980s, the number and variety of organ transplantations has increased enormously worldwide. Accompanying this increase has been the emergence of a market for human body parts. This paper argues that, while the trade in human body parts is conditioned by technological advances, it must be understood in the broader context of globalization, specifically the extension and intensification of a capitalist mode of exchange. In this regard, it is argued that the trade in human body parts mirrors the “normal” system of unequal exchanges that mark other forms of trade between the developed and undeveloped regions of the world. “If anything is sacred the human being is sacred.” Walt Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric.” “Two dollars for an eyeball, and a buck and a half for an ear.” The Tragically Hip, “Little Bones.”     

ABORIGINALITY AT LARGE: VARIETIES OF RESISTANCE IN MALISEET LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION

Maliseet is one of many Canadian aboriginal languages that are projected to become extinct within the next twenty years. This article examines the events surrounding Maliseet language instruction that contributed to enactments of resistive strategies that corresponded to varieties of power relations—a process I call aboriginality. The local acts of resistance are situated in the Canadian nation-state ideology of “two founding cultures.” I argue the local acts of resistance challenge local asymmetrical power relations while also addressing nation-state ideologies of dominance and coercion. Initially, the focus of resistance was confined to local domains, but over a period of three years, resistive strategies changed to confront global dominance and coercion. I argue the implications of such shifts in strategies and scales of resistance reflect an “aboriginal social imaginary,” which holds promise for the survival of aboriginal languages as well as meaningful participation in the “modern social imaginary” called modernity.