Focus Area Reflection: Canada, the North, and the Globe
I signed up to explore the focus area of Canada, the North, and the Globe in Unit 3 through reading “Conservation, Territory, and Traditional Beliefs: An Analysis of Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en Subsistence, Northwest British Columbia, Canada” by Leslie M. Johnson Gottesfeld (1994).
While not my first choice of focus area, Canada, the North, and the Globe piqued my initial interest because of its exploration of Indigenous and ecological issues. I am interested in learning more about Indigenous issues on both a personal and a professional level. Studies in this area would build upon continuing education courses that I recently completed – Indigenous Canada (University of Alberta, 2022) and The Path: Your Journey through Indigenous Canada (NVision Insight Group Inc., 2016). I think it’s important that every Canadian learn more about Indigenous issues and history, and Indigenous inclusion has recently become an area of focus for my work in health profession regulation. I believe that courses in this area would complement studies in my chosen focus area of Work, Organization, and Leadership. Additionally, courses in Canada, the North, and the Globe dealing with ecological issues are relevant to one of my personal areas of interest, veganism.
Canada, the North, and the Globe asks students to consider social, political, ecological, and environmental issues as they relate to Canada and our identity as Canadians nationally, and also within the global context (Athabasca University, 2022). I can see that studies in this area could combine theories from many different disciplines including social science, political science, biology, geography, and even literary studies. A key concept of this focus area is that the consideration of Indigenous culture and issues in integral to understanding Canada and the North, and also that its unique regional ecologies are key to understanding many of Canada’s social, political, and environmental issues (Athabasca University, 2022). It is clear that interdisciplinary studies are essential to understanding these complex issues in Canada.
In “Conservation, Territory, and Traditional Beliefs”, Johnson Gottesfeld (1994), uses interview and observation to collect information to “reconstruct” the system of traditional subsistence practices and beliefs of Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en peoples of Northwest British Columbia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The foundational beliefs and practices of this system are applied to the modern concept of conservation and analysed to determine their probable effect on resource exploitation and regeneration, noting that, in the author’s view, conservation does not necessarily require “conscious conceptualization and action” as others maintain (Johnson Gottesfeld, 1994). As such, a practice does not necessarily need to be rooted in theory to produce the desired effect.
In summary and conclusion, Johnson Gottesfeld (1994) discusses the likelihood of conservation practices developing in groups that occupy a specific geographic area that rely upon plant resources and non-migratory animals for subsistence. In the case of the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en peoples, the beliefs upon which these practices are based can be separated into “biological” and “spiritual” realms.
Johnson Gottesfeld states, “Myths or teaching stories imbue lessons on conservation, which makes possible long term sustainable adaptation, with sufficient emotional loading to make them memorable and to inspire people to put the lessons contained in them into practice” (1994). I can relate this statement to own experience with veganism in that the notion of refraining from using animal products in order to reduce harm carries an emotional motivation which allowed me to easily change my personal choices and practices – and although not my primary reason for becoming vegan, resulted in choices that are likely to be more environmentally sustainable.
References
Athabasca University. (2022, January 7). Canada, the North, and the Globe. Athabasca University.
Johnson Gottesfeld, L. M. (1994). Conservation, Territory, and Traditional Beliefs: An Analysis of Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en Subsistence, Northwest British Columbia, Canada. Human Ecology, 22(4), 443–465.
NVision Insight Group Inc. (2016). The Path – Indigenous Cultural Awareness. NVision Insight Group Inc.
University of Alberta. (2022). Indigenous Canada. Coursera.
Notes
This post is the Focus Area Reflection assignment I submitted in Week 5 of MAIS 601 Making Sense of Theory in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Athabasca University (Dr. Angela Specht, January 2022).
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