Browsing by Author "Thomas, Melanee Lynn"

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    Digging Droughts: Maasai and Palaeoanthropological Knowledge, Subsistence, and Collaboration in Oldupai Gorge, Tanzania
    (2018-04-16) Lee, Patrick; Mather, Charles; Mercader, Julio; Hayashi, Naotaka; Oetelaar, Gerald A.; Thomas, Melanee Lynn
    Tanzania’s Oldupai Gorge is a flagship human origins research destination, yet less recognised is that the Maasai inhabit the region. This thesis uses actor-network-theory to ethnographically compare palaeoanthropological and Maasai epistemology and ontology in Oldupai, and to understand why collaboration between the groups has been sporadic. Researchers and locals constructed knowledge in equally logical forms, combining established facts and artefacts with novel data to produce new facts and artefacts. Instead of fundamental epistemic disparities, the content of each group’s knowledge differed, and this content was tied to subsistence strategies and culture. Scientists and the Maasai acquired resources in non-scientific and non-pastoral worlds to support their respective livelihoods, and multiplied ontologies by enacting composite – yet conflicting – versions of hybrid drought. Even though both groups dug in Oldupai, palaeoanthropological and Maasai subsistence exigencies have precluded meaningful collaboration. However, mutually beneficial partnerships are emerging in the birthplace of humanity.
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    Direct and Indirect Effects of Authoritarianism on Policy Preferences in Canada
    (2018-09-21) Santos, John Bernard; Thomas, Melanee Lynn; Stewart, David K.; Tuxhorn, Kim Lee
    Authoritarianism, as a value orientation that prioritizes conformity over autonomy, is a popular explanation for political preferences and behaviour but it is misunderstood as existing only on the right; as either an all-powerful or insignificant predictor of policy preferences; and as a predisposition that is activated by threat. Our understanding of it is further hampered by a lack of research outside of the United States. I address these problems by constructing a model where authoritarian values, moderated by perceived threat, exert a direct effect on policy preferences and indirect effects through prejudice, ideology, and partisanship. Testing this model on data from the Canadian Election Study, I find evidence that authoritarianism cuts across the political spectrum; is not activated by threat, but rather has greater effects in the absence of threat; and is partially mediated by prejudice and ideology. This shines a new light on some Canadian policy debates (especially the banning of religious facial coverings) and replicates previous American findings.
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    Navigating Turbulent Waters: The Politics of Municipal Water Governance in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Hamilton
    (2018-08-22) Klain, John Andrew; Lucas, Jack; Thomas, Melanee Lynn; Franceschet, Susan
    In Canada, water utilities are traditionally managed by municipal governments. Declining financial support from senior levels of government, public service reforms, and provincial policy interests in the 1990s caused Canadian municipalities to consider reforming their local water utilities. The current water governance literature argues that local financial circumstances condition the types of public policy decisions and governance reforms municipalities make, making these decisions contextual. However, amid similar political and economic circumstances, municipal governments in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Hamilton chose distinctly different governance models. Calgary considered privatizing its water utility, later reorganizing its department as a business unit. Edmonton considered privatization, only to corporatize its water utility alongside its electric utility. In Toronto, the city considered a municipal corporation, and a quasi-independent service board, only to keep its water utility a separate business unit. Hamilton signed a private contract, only to recreate a municipal water department after the contract ended. I argue that local dynamics conditions the decision-making process in municipalities, where politicians must balance the ideas and interests of local actors when making policy decisions. This thesis then, examines the decision-making process in each city between 1990 and 2005, demonstrating that water reform, and municipal public policy more broadly, is both contentious and politically driven.
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    Our Home on Native Land: Navigating Tensions between Reconciliation and the Liberal Democratic State
    (2018-08-15) Thiessen, Dylan Wayne; Voth, Daniel; Thomas, Melanee Lynn; Rice, Roberta
    Historically, reconciliation has helped states transition from authoritarian regimes to democratic regimes after a period of violent conflict. More recently, settler states, including Canada, have adopted this approach to try to heal relationships between settler and Indigenous populations. How reconciliation can be used in a non-transitional setting (in an already-established democracy), however, is uncertain. As such, this thesis analyzes points of tension between liberal democratic principles and reconciliation, focusing on liberal individualism, private property, political institutions, and multiculturalism. I then offer a reconceptualization of reconciliation informed by the work of Hannah Arendt to clarify the role of forgiveness, show reconciliation as relational, and introduce non-reconciliation as a genuine possibility. The thesis ends by scrutinizing the role that private property and political institutions play in themselves creating roadblocks on a path toward reconciliation. Ultimately, my argument is twofold. First, I argue that reconciliation is not suitable for the Canadian context when defined traditionally, and that Canadian liberal democratic principles must also be subject to change, adaptation, or removal. Second, I argue that substantive reconciliation will only come about through a radical and fundamental shift in Indigenous-settler relations that allows for the emergence of Indigenous sovereignty and puts an end to the power and control that the Canadian state currently exerts over Indigenous nations.
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    Re-Membering Our Nations: Indigenous Custom Adoption and Determining Belonging Beyond the Indian Act
    (2022-08-08) Wilson, Ariane; Voth, Daniel Jacob-Paul; Starblanket, Gina Nicole; Thomas, Melanee Lynn
    This is a study and analysis of Indigenous membership and belonging. Specifically, this thesis takes up the historical and contemporary harms of colonialism and the Indian Act (1876) have had on First Nations band membership codes and Indigenous practices of determining belonging. The central task of this study is to determine how Indigenous nations can determine membership and belonging beyond colonial confines. I draw on literature on Indigenous nationhood and peoplehood to develop a framework that outlines pathways for belonging that are embedded within networks of kinship and relationality, rather than the arbitrary boundaries of colonial legislation. Throughout the thesis, I argue that Indigenous custom adoptions, in the way they occur within Indigenous legal, political, and kinship systems, are inherently acts of self-determination and as such, provide insight into how Indigenous nations can move beyond the Indian Act.
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    The political disengagement of Canada's young women
    (2006) Thomas, Melanee Lynn; Young, Lisa