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Title: Singing to remember, singing to heal: Ts'msyen music in public schools.
Contributors: Anne B. Hill (author), Judith Lapadat (Thesis advisor), Margaret Anderson (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: The Ts'msyen Nation of the Terrace area of northern British Columbia has a rich cultural tradition that is not adequately represented in local public school music curricula, despite the support of government policy documents and First Nations organizations for such representation, and despite the significant proportion of First Nations students in the school district. This study seeks to develop resources for music teaching that reflect local Ts'msyen culture, heritage and language, in a manner consistent with Ts'msyen culture and protocol. The study consists of interviews with six Ts'msyen elders to determine their views about (1) the advisability of including Ts'msyen music in public schools (2) protocol for the use of Ts'msyen music in schools (3) ideas and material for presenting Ts'msyen music in schools. Finally, I examine other cultural information provided in the interviews and present teaching material that conforms to the guidelines that emerged from the study.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2009

Title: Perspectives of the influence of stigma on care-seeking behavior among ethnic Russians living with HIV/AIDS in Ida-Virumaa, Estonia
Contributors: Tyler Wood (author), Michel Bouchard (thesis advisor), Josée Lavoie (thesis advisor), Russell Callaghan (committee member), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: Since 2001, Estonia has been struggling to contain its explosive HIV epidemic, yet despite years of interventions, adherence to antiretroviral therapy remains between 20% and 40%. The purpose of this research was to examine how HIV stigma is influencing care-seeking behaviour of people living with HIV (PLWHIV) in Ida-Virumaa County, Estonia. This study identified that HIV stigma presents a serious challenge for PLWHIV. The findings not only identified clear cultural metaphors and stigma of HIV and PLWHIV, but also identified that fear of disclosure of status and discrimination from healthcare providers represent significant barriers to care for PLWHIV. The findings also identified that the combination of HIV stigma, fear of disclosure, discrimination from healthcare providers and certain state policies have fostered an environment of structural discrimination that not only limits PLWHIV in Ida-Virumaa ability to access care, but also pushes them away from the healthcare system.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2016

Title: Representations of community in Toni Morrison's fiction
Contributors: Darlene Rose Shatford (author), Dee Horne (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: In this thesis, I propose a study of Toni Morrison's novels with attention to her fictional representations of African-American communities. I demonstrate how she contests constructions of a homogeneous American communal identity through representations of diverse African-American experiences. Further, I examine the processes of communal identification depicted in her work. Some literary critics have analyzed Morrison's representations of community as either a hindrance or a help in the development of individual characters. But, because Morrison's communities are situated in different regions and decades, and formed under different circumstances, my study of her novels involves an exploration into how, why, and where these communities are formed with attention to space, place, history, and function. I argue that the communal spaces, places, and identities in the novels The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Paradise are constructed by, and out of, social interactions. I also demonstrate how communal identity is a process, not a product, and how it is consistently and continually subject to the forces of history, culture, and power. This particular perspective on identity demands an acknowledgment of the past and how it informs the present, but it also demands a recognition of the ways in which communities are constructed relationally. I also explore the significance of history, memory, and storytelling in Jazz, Tar Baby, and Beloved. I point to how these elements are vital to processes of healing and how they are important to the survival of her varied communities.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2000

Title: Examining integration of refugees in multicultural Ireland: policy, advocacy and lived experience
Contributors: Krista Ramsay (author), Ang~le Smith (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: In this study I explore refugee integration in Ireland. I focus on state policies and structures of integration as well as the lived experience of refugee integration. I ask three questions: 1) What are the state policies and structures that might influence refuge integration? 2) What are the roles of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in refugee integration? 3) How do refugees themselves understand their experience of integration in their new home country? This study uses the research methods of policy analysis and ethnographic research, specifically participant observation and semi-structured interviews. I argue that refuge integration is a complicated negotiation between positive experiences of integration into parts of a multicultural/intercultural society, and negative experiences of discrimination and racism levied against marginalized and "~different' individuals. This negotiation is influenced by the government's neoliberal approach to policy and service implementation and the reliance on NGO advocacy groups. --Leaf ii.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2016

Title: Smoke on the water: uncovering a socially complex pre-contact Babine fishing village at Nass Glee (GISQ-4)
Contributors: Cory Hackett (author), Farid Rahemtulla (thesis advisor), Theodore Binnema (thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia College of Arts, Social, and Health Sciences (Degree granting institution), Karyn Sharp (committee member)
Abstract: For the last century there has been very little modification to the geographic boundaries for the Northwest coast culture area, as defined by anthropologists. Moreover, complex hunter-gatherer models, which identify the hallmarks for social complexity of coastal First Nations, tend to exclude inland and up-river societies. Although academics recognize a post-contact complexity at Babine Lake, they have relied primarily on ethnographic sources which implied that ranked and socially stratified societies emerged only in response to the social and economic influences of the fur trade. However, recent research indicates that Babine society possessed complex trade networks, ranked houses, inherited lineages, individual wealth, and status inequality long before the fur trade era. Excavations at the salmon fishing village GiSq-4, on the Babine River, indicate that these social attributes have a much greater antiquity than the proto-historic era. ...
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2017

Title: Perspectives on the organization of lithic technology at the Punchaw Lake site---FiRs-1.
Contributors: Keli Watson (author), Farid Rahemtulla (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: The Punchaw lake village site, FiRs-1, is in the north central interior of British Columbia, a rarely researched region in terms of the archaeological record. A small area of the site was excavated in 1973 the finds of this excavation are the subject of this analysis. The lithic assemblage is classified and a technological organization approach is used with design theory to attempt to determine what activities were occurring at this site and how they fit into past lifeways. A community-based approach is attempted by bringing the finds to the Nazko First Nation, whose claimed traditional territory encompasses Punchaw Lake. Their knowledge and stories regarding these artifacts and this region are woven in to bring their voice and perspective to the interpretations. This enriched analysis determined that this village and its diverse tool assemblage could have been the centre of a complex subsistence strategy that ranged far across the landscape to best utilize the available resources. --P. ii.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2011

Title: Lone, lorn creatures: the matrix of trauma, memory and identity in Dickens' orphan heroes
Contributors: Shannon Coleen Whissell (author), Kate Lawson (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: While orphan protagonists have long been a trope in western literature, Charles Dickens expands this tradition by using his orphan characters as both fictional creations and socially relevant representations. Literary theorists Baruch Hochman and Ilja Wachs posit that the "orphan condition" is a nearly universal sense of loss of self and abandonment which can result from a variety of childhood traumas. Thus, while the characters under study are bereft of parents, and are thus literal orphans, their stories speak to a broader readership through the reader's psychic identification with the orphan. Trauma theory explicates the process of bearing testimony, an act by which the survivor of trauma can redeem a sense of self by sharing the story with an auditor. David Copperfield and Great Expectations, when situated at the matrix of trauma, identity, and language formed by trauma theory, can reveal the sometimes limited efficacy of fiction as a form of testimony. The plethora of orphan texts published in the nineteenth century warrant particular explanation. Thus, it is necessary to investigate the changes to the conception of childhood in the early- to mid-Victorian period as well as to understand the generalized anxiety of the middle class in this period of great change. The legal, social, economic and existential context for the Victorian orphan reveals powerful factors which combined to make the working class mid-Victorian orphan both a source of fear in society and a source for sympathetic representation in literature. David Copperfield is the most obviously autobiographical of Dickens' novels, yet judged as testimony, it is a failure. This failure stems from two separate causes: first, Dickens strips Copperfield of the rage and fear inherent in the orphan condition and instead focuses his energies in the culturally normative values of diligence and earnest striving, and second, the Jack of emotional reporting in David Copperfield makes the novel a story of plot and character rather than a testimony which focuses on the self. Although Great Expectations is a far briefer and less autobiographical novel than David Copperfield, Pip's fuller investigation of his orphan state and the repercussions of that trauma allows this text to acquire the status of testimony.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2001

Title: Tool stones from the Punchaw Lake Village site (FiRs-1), Nechako Plateau, British Columbia, Canada.
Contributors: W. S. Lorenz Bruechert (author), Farid Rahemtulla (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: Progress in petrography and chemical characterization of igneous lithic material and artifacts have been used to infer culture history, land use patterns, and potential exchange networks across British Columbia in recent years. This thesis examines the petrographic and geochemical characteristics of igneous flake samples collected from the Punchaw Lake Village site (FiRs-1), located west of Quesnel, British Columbia. The flakes are primarily composed of trachydacite and dacite of one or more unknown provenances. The primary objective of this study was to determine the possible sources of these igneous materials used in the production of the artifact assemblage. Three analytical techniques were employed to determine the physical composition of the specimens: (1) petrographic descriptions of the macroscopic and microscopic characteristics (2) whole sample chemistry (major elements by inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry (ICP-ES] and (3) trace and rare earth elements by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry [ICP-MS]. The geochemical data were subjected to multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis to aid the interpretations of the results. Results indicate that the lithic sample from Punchaw Lake Village site originates from more than one rock type, suggesting that the site inhabitants may have engaged in exchange and/or movement throughout the Nechako Plateau. --P. ii.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2012

Title: "It's good for the soul"
Contributors: Sean Richard O'Rourke (author), Gail Fondahl (thesis advisor), Sherry Beaumont (committee member), Henry Harder (committee member)
Abstract: Following Russian/Soviet colonization, Indigenous Siberian Eveny less frequently engage in hunting and reindeer herding—land-based activities central to their culture. Research suggests that an inability to engage in key cultural activities may hamper Indigenous peoples’ capacities to construct meaningful existences (i.e., fulfilling lives with purpose), but this has not been empirically investigated among Eveny. I conducted 14 semi-structured interviews on traditional land-use and meaning in life with Eveny men in Batagay-Alyta (Sakkyryr), Sakha Republic (Yakutia), Russia. Half of the participants lived in the village; the other half were nomadic herders. Both herders and non-herders described meaningful existences, but the groups often acquired meaning from different sources. Some sources (i.e., family, finances, reindeer) were deemed important by both groups. My findings illuminate what makes life meaningful for some Eveny, and can help policy-makers better address their unique needs.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2019

Title: Approximating the rank of a homomorphism using a Prolog based system
Contributors: Richard Kenneth Little (author), Jennifer Hyndman (Thesis advisor), Charles Brown (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: A system of Prolog based programs for the purpose of approximating the rank of algebraic operations of finite unary algebras is presented. The rank function is a measure of finite algebras and their algebraic operations. Rank is a recursive function used in universal algebra and was first introduced as a tool for proving strong dualizability. Logic programming. particularly Prolog, is commonly used in natural language processing, an area of study devoted to the use of computers to understand human (natural) languages. One goal of this thesis is to explore a relationship between the fields of Mathematics and Computer Science through the application of logic programming techniques on structures from universal algebra. This thesis is motivated by the idea that when universal algebra is viewed as a language, the ideas of natural language processing can be used to create a computer system which approximates rank. The outcome of the research is a computational model that computes the Kth approximation of rank. A set of Prolog programs that act as useful tools on algebraic structures are created.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2000

Title: The erosion of the rights of indigenous people to self determine their identity.
Contributors: Georgina Martin (author), Paul Madak (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: No abstract available.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2007

Title: Two scientific manifestos: discourses on science in Jonson's The Alchemist and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus
Contributors: J. Basia Siedlecki (author), Stan Beeler (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson and Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe have weathered considerable critical consideration and have been interpreted through the filters of a wide variety of theoretical approaches. I chose to examine the plays from a New Historical perspective. By discussing how the plays were received, and what milieu they were launched in, I hoped to learn what purpose they had, what function they carried out in their context (besides that of entertaining crowds of paying theatrical patrons). Both these plays were first published and performed in England near the cusp of the seventeenth century. They were presented in an intellectual milieu in which the idea of science was still a work in progress, a matter under consideration. It was a new social, political, and theological power, whose effects were suspiciously and cautiously observed by the authors of these two plays. A great deal of discourse was produced concerning the roles of science in relation to the existing intellectual, political, religious, and social structures, and the mechanisms available for limiting and controlling these roles. The discursive activity surrounding the philosophical and practical integration of science into the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century English social, political, and intellectual milieu was carried out through a variety of media. One of these media was the theatre. These two plays functioned in their milieu as manifestos of sorts, statements of policy and cautionary advice. They advise a sceptical approach to science. They point out its subversive qualities: how it undermines theological thought and function, how it encourages political insubordination, democratic power distribution, and republicanism, and how it inverts established social order. Science, in other words, is functioning as an autonomous and potentially seditious power. Marlowe and Jonson's plays, though distinct in tone and style, are both intensely concerned with science, and both caution against accepting it wholeheartedly into the English renaissance world view.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 1997

Title: Poems of the promised land: women's stories in the King James Old Testament
Contributors: Jacqueline Joan Hoekstra (author), Dee Horne (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: This project entails a feminist examination of women's stories in the King James Version of the Holy Bible. I focus directly on the Old Testament stories, beginning with Eve in Genesis and ending with Vashti and Esther in Esther. I have engaged these particular narratives for a number of reasons. I pick some stories because of how their oppressive patriarchal interpretation defines womanhood. I choose some other stories because of the manner in which they have been ignored. I select some stories of autonomy because of their liberatory potential for contemporary women. I explore the emancipatory and oppressive narratives concerning women in the text. This systematic approach to images of women and the narratives of women's stories will enable a loosening of interpretation.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2000

Title: Stories we tell about "others"
Contributors: Melissa Johnson (author), Sarah de Leeuw (thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution), Blanca Schorcht (committee member), Ross Hoffman (committee member)
Abstract: Indigenous peoples in Canada face significant health inequities compared to the non-Indigenous population. While the effects of historical and on-going colonialism are understood to contribute to these health disparities, the mechanisms by which pathologizing, racist, or colonial discourses contribute to the social environments underlying these health disparities remain under-examined. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, this research investigates the role of Canadian print media in disseminating pathologizing discursive representations of Indigenous peoples. Focusing on columns, editorials, and letters to the editor printed in the Globe and Mail in 2008, I analyzed mainstream media’s contribution to the discursive environment underlying racialized health inequities. This analytical process has identified multiple instances, both implicit and explicit, wherein pathologizing and stereotypical discourses about Indigenous peoples and communities are disseminated, legitimated, and perpetuated. These discourses ultimately function to maintain existing power imbalances and health inequities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2018

Title: Beyond 'La baguette et le fromage': Studying minority francophone culture and community in western Canada.
Contributors: Natalya Veresovaya (author), Michel Bouchard (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: The question of French language rights has been continuously discussed in the Canadian State. In 1982 the Canadian constitution and Article 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteed French students to receive primary and secondary education in that language. This research examines whether an elementary FFL school in Peace River, Alberta, produces a positive impact on French identity and culture. It also studies how francophone teachers and students define and construct French identity on a daily basis. In order to complete this study qualitative methods (participant observation, informal and formal interviews, questionnaires, and participatory action research) were used. The results indicate that an elementary FFL school of Peace River has succeeded in promoting positive attitudes to French language and culture and that extracurricular activities can reinforce this effect. This research demonstrates that students have more positive opinions of French language and culture once they have participated in a French cultural activity. Francophone students use the French language when they are in a FFL school and sometimes when they are among anglophones. L’École Des Quatre Vents and its teachers has become an effective tool in constructing French identity and a sense of belonging for a French-speaking community among a young generation of francophones. The status of French language has improved, whereas in the past it was stigmatized. This study reveals that education in French language helps students articulate and understand their culture better in the minority context of the Peace River region, Alberta. --P. i.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2010

Title: Human trafficking: an examination of available services and support in Prince George, B.C.
Contributors: Carolyn E. Emon (author), Neil Hanlon (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: Human trafficking is an abhorrent crime that exists throughout the world, affecting communities of all sizes. Men, women, and children are treated as slaves and are forced into exploitive situations for both labour and sexual services. While the body of research on global human trafficking is growing, there are fewer studies that look at community-level care and support of victims, and even fewer that look at conditions in smaller urban centres where human trafficking is less prominent. The purpose of this interdisciplinary research is to address both these gaps by examining service provision for victims of trafficking in Prince George, British Columbia. I employ the conceptual lenses of intersectionality and heteronormativity to understand human trafficking victimization and the theory of social care to account for systems of care and support organized in response to this victimization. Using a case study approach, I conducted key-informant interviews with service providers in Prince George and Vancouver in order to understand the nature of service coordination and how service delivery differs in a small urban centre compared to a gateway metropolitan centre where human trafficking is more prevalent. My findings indicate that service providers' understandings of human trafficking differ, and that resource access and institutional conditions create barriers for victim identification and service coordination. Finally, I offer recommendations for policy and practice intended to enhance the capacity of local care and support networks to identify and offer help to victims. --Leaf ii.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2016

Title: Mujeres autorizadas: Women's empowerment programs as a form of community development in Guatemala.
Contributors: Jennifer Reade (author), Catherine Nolin (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: No abstract available.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2006

Title: Lymph node vascular plasticity during Herpes Simplex Virus Type II infection.
Contributors: Stephanie L. Sellers (author), Geoffrey Payne (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: Lymph node (LN) blood supply has long been thought to be integral to the immune response. Recently, the phenomenon of remodeling of the LN feed arteriole during viral infection was demonstrated as a key component of induction of an effective adaptive immune response. Here, the data presented show that during infection the LN feed arteriole is capable of non-pathogenic, reversible, outward remodeling peaking seven days post-immunization before returning to pre-infection size. Using pharmacological blockade and genetic ablation models, the remodeling process is demonstrated to be dependent upon the presence of CD4⁺ T cells in the LN, the expression of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS), tumor necrosis factor alpha, and age, as well as influenced by mast cells. Collectively, these results demonstrate key links between immune response, arteriole remodeling, and vascular mediators and represent a novel mechanism of vascular modulation of immunity. --P. ii.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2012

Title: Characterization of PPAR-alpha overexpression in beta-cell lipotoxicity and its effects on obesity-induced type 2 diabetes.
Contributors: K-Lynn N. Hogh (author), Sarah Gray (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: Lipotoxicity is implicated as a mechanism for pancreatic β-cell dysfunction in obesity-induced type 2 diabetes (T2D). In vitro, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) protects against lipotoxic β-cell dysfunction preserving insulin secretion. Utilizing an adeno-associated virus (dsAAV8), we induced overexpression of PPARα specifically in pancreatic β-cells of adult, C57B16 mice that were fed a high-fat diet for 20 weeks to induce obesity. We show that overexpression of PPARα in pancreatic β-cells, in vivo, protects β-cell function in obesity, improving glucose tolerance by preserving insulin secretion compared to obese controls. No change in islet morphology or β-cell mass was observed. Despite metabolic improvements observed in diet-induced obese mice, overexpression of PPARα in pancreatic β-cells of a genetic model of severe obesity (db/db) did not improve carbohydrate metabolism. We have developed the first in vivo model of β-cell specific PPARα overexpression to elucidate the mechanisms involved in β-cell lipotoxicity in obesity-induced T2D.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2012

Title: Brown Sheep, Brown Landscape: Australia as I Remember It.
Contributors: Danielle Sarandon (author), Dee Horne (Thesis advisor), University of Northern British Columbia (Degree granting institution)
Abstract: In the following pages, I present my personal perspective on the 1950s and 1960s in Australia's development, with particular emphasis on the Second World War, the Baby Boom, the Vietnam War, women's experiences with family life and gender formation, and immigration. In this life writing, I illustrate my personal knowledge of the stresses on middle class family life during the 1950s. I also examine the conflicting desires of many middle class women to experience fulfillment in the workplace, while at the same time conforming to the societal expectations of women in suburban family life. As well, I explore personal gender and sexual identity formation pressures that I experienced as I tried to meet patriarchal expectations for young women during this period. My personal experiences have greatly informed my analysis of the social expectations for women during this period.
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Content Model: info:fedora/ir:thesisCModel
Date added: 2005