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.     

Social exclusion,mobility and access1

Much of the literature on social exclusion ignores its ‘spatial’ or ‘mobility’ related aspects. This paper seeks to rectify this by examining the mobile processes and infrastructures of travel and transport that engender and reinforce social exclusion in contemporary societies. To the extent to which this issue is addressed, it is mainly organized around the notion of ‘access’ to activities, values and goods. This paper examines this discourse in some detail. It is argued that there are many dimensions of such access, that improving access is a complex matter because of the range of human activities that might need to be ‘accessed’, that in order to know what is to be accessed the changing nature of travel and communications requires examination, and that some dimensions of access are only revealed through changes in the infrastructure that ‘uncover’ previously hidden social exclusions. Claims about access and socio‐spatial exclusion routinely make assumptions about what it is to participate effectively in society. We turn this question around, also asking how mobilities of different forms constitute societal values and sets of relations, participation in which may become important for social inclusion. This paper draws upon an extensive range of library, desk and field research to deal with crucial issues relating to the nature of a fair, just and mobile society.     

Mitigating the Combined Distributional Consequences of the Georgia Lottery for Education and the HOPE Scholarship*

Objective. Research demonstrates that nonwhite, lower‐income households bear the Georgia Lottery's tax burden, yet receive fewer benefits. However, local disparities in grading standards may mitigate the observed income redistribution. Our objective is to determine whether certain localities obtain more HOPE scholarships than expected, mitigating the observed redistribution. Method. We use fixed‐effects regression and a sample of Georgia's counties (1996–2002). Results. Our results indicate that some localities obtain more HOPE scholarships than expected, mitigating the observed redistribution. Conclusions. We conclude the income‐redistribution research result does not reveal a complete picture because it overlooks the HOPE scholarship's extraordinary allocation mechanism.     

Telecare for women with postpartum depression

Data were collected to pilot test the feasibility and effects of telecare as an intervention for depression in a small group of mothers with postpartum depression. Treatment involved a 10-week telecare therapy consisting of three related aspects: cognitive-behavioral therapy, relaxation techniques, and problem-solving strategies. Beck Depression Inventory II scores were significantly lower after telecare treatment. Women identified psycho-education as the greatest help to them.     

Going to work without educational qualifications: school-to-work transitions of early school leavers in Belgium

ABSTRACT

Risks of exclusion can occur in multiple forms and start early in life. Early school leavers are especially at risk of social exclusion as this is strongly related to turbulent school-to-work-transitions. These young people often find themselves in low-qualified work or unemployment. In this article, we explore the labour market experiences of early school leavers in Flanders, Belgium. In total, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted with nine early school leavers and analysed following a grounded theory approach. Our results demonstrate the difficulties early school leavers encounter in their transitions from school to work and their precarious situation in the labour market. Of particular relevance are the insights gained in revealing the perspectives of young people on the importance of educational qualifications, work experience and participation in the labour market, as well as the strategies they develop to enter the labour market without educational qualifications.     

Transect-spacing design of ice cores on the Antarctic continent

Chemical analyses of ice cores, drilled deep into an ice sheet, provide a historical record of the earth's atmosphere that dates back as far as 400,000–500,000 years. Although the atmosphere mixes quite well, it is recognized that spatial variability associated with ice-core locations should be allowed for. In this article, spatial statistical methodology is applied to the design question of finding the best spacing of ice-core locations on a partial transect of Antarctica.     

Anthropological Takes on (Im)Mobility

In this introduction, we outline the general conceptual framework that ties the various contributions to this special issue together. We argue for the importance of anthropology to “take on” mobility and discuss the advantages of the ethnographic approach in doing so. What is the analytical purchase of mobility as one of the root metaphors in contemporary anthropological theorizing? What are the (dis)advantages of looking at the current human condition through the lens of mobility? There is a great risk that the fast-growing field of mobility studies neglects different interpretations of what is going on, or that only patterns that fit the mobilities paradigm will be considered, or that only extremes of (hyper)mobility or (im)mobility will be given attention. The ethnographic sensibilities of fieldworkers who learn about mobility while studying other processes and issues, and who can situate movement in the multiple contexts between which people move, can both extend the utility of the mobilities approach, and insist on attention to other dynamics that might not be considered if the focus is first and last on (im)mobility as such. In this special issue, we do not want to discuss human mobility as a brute fact but rather analyze how mobilities, as sociocultural constructs, are experienced and imagined.     

Coordination in Games with Strategic Complementarities: An Experiment on Fixed vs. Random Matching

In this article, we study behavior in a series of two‐player supply chain game experiments. Each player simultaneously chooses a capacity before demand is realized, and sales are given by the minimum of realized demand and chosen capacities. We focus on the differences in behavior under fixed pairs and random rematching. Intuition suggests that long‐run relations should lead to more profitable outcomes. However, our results go against this intuition. While subjects' capacity choices are better aligned (i.e., closer together) under fixed pairs, average profits are more variable. Moreover, learning is slower under fixed pairs—so much so that over the last five periods, average profits are actually higher under random rematching. The underlying cause for this finding appears to be a “first‐impressions” bias, present only under fixed matching, in which the greater the misalignment in initial choices, the lower are average profits.     

Trust games: A meta-analysis

We collect data from 162 replications of the Berg, Dickhaut, and McCabe Investment game (the “trust” game) involving more than 23,000 participants. We conduct a meta-analysis of these games in order to identify the effect of experimental protocols and geographic variation on this popular behavioral measure of trust and trustworthiness. Our findings indicate that the amount sent in the game is significantly affected by whether payment is random, and whether play is with a simulated counterpart. Trustworthiness is significantly affected by the amount by which the experimenter multiplies the amount sent, whether subjects play both roles in the experiment, and whether the subjects are students. We find robust evidence that subjects send less in trust games conducted in Africa than those in North America.