Aboriginal People in Canadian Cities,

Transcription

1 Aboriginal People in Canadian Cities, Guide for Research in Summer, 2002 Evelyn J. Peters Department of Geography University of Saskatchewan 9 Campus Drive Saskatoon, SK S7J 3S9 (306) evp818@duke.usask.ca 1

2 Index Introduction 3-4 Project One: Urban Aboriginal Organisations Conceptual Framework 5-6 Research Steps 7-8 Interview Schedule 9 Information Letter 10 Consent Form Transcript Release Form 13 Project Two Conceptual Framework Research Steps Interview Schedule 18 Information Letter 19 Consent Form Transcript Release Form 22 2

3 Introduction Larger Project Description: Aboriginal People in Canadian Cities, Despite the growing size and distinctive characteristics of urban Aboriginal populations in Canada, they have received relatively little attention among Canadian urban geographers (Table 1). As a result, policymakers and academics rely on models of other groups in Canadian cities to explain and understand the geographies of Aboriginal people in cities, for example models based on immigrant groups in U.S. and Canadian cities, and models based on the U.S. urban black experience. These models do not recognise the unique histories and characteristics of Aboriginal peoples, and they do not take into account the contemporary social and economic circumstances surrounding their experience in Canadian cities. This study attempts to address this lacuna. Such an issue must be researched carefully. Work that emphasises the location of Aboriginal people in relation to areas of poverty runs the risk of reproducing an ecological fallacy that assumes that individuals living in a certain area share the same attributes. This implies that areas have casual powers, and ignores the connections between the characteristics of populations in these areas and processes in the wider city and society. In addition, while the rhetoric about race and the inner city is more muted in Canada than in the United States and other countries, ideas about the inner city as a spoiled identity and longstanding views of Aboriginal people as a disruptive urban presence, can map onto each other, to create a racist account of poverty and urban decline. Finally, an analysis that links Aboriginal identity and areas of poverty can slide into tropes of dysfunctionality, limiting a more complex understanding of Aboriginal peoples agency. I propose three main components for research in this area. The first is a comparison of Aboriginal settlement patterns in Canada s major metropolitan areas, in relation to the socio-economic structure of these areas. This analysis will rely on 1996 census data, and will compare patterns in major Canadian metropolitan areas. 1 This analysis can contribute to our understanding of the structure of Canadian cities, and provide a Canadian perspective to some dimensions of this structure. The study will compare patterns of advantage and disadvantage in these cities and explore the relationship of these patterns to concentrations of Aboriginal people. It will also explore the socio-economic characteristics of non-aboriginal as well as Aboriginal people in disadvantaged urban areas rather than focussing solely on Aboriginal residents. The reason for this is that areas of disadvantage usually have a majority of non-aboriginal people. Another component will emphasise the socio-economic heterogeneity of the urban Aboriginal population. The second component is a history of the characteristics and locations of Aboriginal populations. Here there are two foci. In selected prairie cites (Winnipeg, Edmonton, Regina and Saskatoon) Aboriginal settlement patterns will be examined for 1986, 1991, 1996 and 2001, in relation to a variety of social, economic and political factors that may influence these patterns. The research for this component will be informed by the observations of key informants, both Aboriginal and non-aboriginal, supporting census data that document changing characteristics of areas, data about the location of services and employment opportunities, and information about government 1 Appendix A describes this data base. 3

4 policies that might affect decisions about residential location. The second focus will use the manuscript census from the turn of the 19 th century, to document the nature of Aboriginal settlements in these cities. This is a neglected aspect of the historical geography of urban areas, and it makes the point that Aboriginal people have a long history in Canadian cities. The third component focuses on the strategies and intentions of Aboriginal people in choosing housing and neighbourhoods, and the social and spatial networks that underlie their experiences in these areas. It also explores the history and characteristics of urban Aboriginal organisations that have emerged to meet the varied needs of urban Aboriginal people. The research will involve Aboriginal community members and organisations in documenting their history and experience in the city. This component emphasises aspects of agency and resilience in urban Aboriginal communities, and it emphasises Aboriginal people s own perspectives and interpretations of life in the city. While this aspect of the research illuminates theoretical issues in urban geography, it also attempts to create space in the academic literature for Aboriginal people to speak about their urban experience. Research in the summer of 2002 will focus on two cities, Edmonton and Winnipeg. It will explore urban Aboriginal organizations and begin to address factors contributing to Aboriginal settlement patterns. Table 1: Aboriginal People in Major Metropolitan Centres, Halifax Montreal Ottawa-Hull Toronto Winnipeg Regina Saskatoon Calgary Edmonton Vancouver Victoria Sources: Statistics Canada, various years. 1 The 1971 data do not include the Inuit. 2 In 1991 and 1996, these statistics refer to individuals who identified with an Aboriginal. Counts for previous years refer to individuals with Aboriginal ancestry. Because of changes in the questions on which these counts are based, statistics are not strictly comparable across years before Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver had, within their boundaries, reserves that were incompletely enumerated in either 1991 or 1996 or both, affecting the counts for those years and cities. 4

5 PROJECT ONE Conceptual Framework: Urban Aboriginal Organizations Four main themes will guide the analysis of urban Aboriginal organizations: roles with respect to urban Aboriginal peoples, levels of jurisdiction or control, degree of interorganization connections, and kinds of functions. These themes are described in more detail below. The overall objective will be to explore to what degree there are changes over time within a particular city, and to explore to what degree there are differences between cities. Roles with respect to urban Aboriginal peoples The roles of the first set of urban Aboriginal organizations, Friendship Centers were defined by government funding sources as helping to assimilate Aboriginal migrants to the city. Friendship Centers were to provide culturally appropriate programming mainly in order to assist the migrants as they adapted to urban life, and the Centers were expected to refer clients to non-aboriginal service organizations as soon as possible and to the greatest extent possible. As urban Aboriginal populations increased, mainstream organizations began to realize that many of their programs were not meeting the needs of Aboriginal peoples, and that service organizations could achieve better results by designing Aboriginal-specific components. The objective changed from assimilation, to improving agency records, either by improving services, or by serving Aboriginal people separately (and by implication, separating out the statistics). Most recently, the goal of some organizations has been to maintain and enhance Aboriginal cultures in urban areas as an end in itself, rather than as a way of facilitating assimilation or improving service delivery. Some of these themes may be identifiable from changing organization mission statements. Some may be identifiable from the development of the organization, for example if it was initiated by a mainstream organization in order to improve services to Aboriginal clients, but it has now changed its focus to cultural enhancement. Levels of jurisdiction Levels of jurisdiction refer to the amount of control an urban Aboriginal organisation has over program delivery and financial matters. The level of control that represents the lowest level of authority is found in an organisation whose purpose is primarily to deliver a particular program. The organisation may have primarily Aboriginal staff, and it may attempt to introduce aspects of Aboriginal values, informally, in delivering that programming. However, standards for program delivery, such as eligibility criteria or the definition of types of programs or services provided, are determined by a parent organisation or by senior government policies or program funding criteria. An organisation that primarily delivers a program will have relatively little scope to hire personnel, define priorities or programming, and almost no flexibility over budgeting (in the sense that funds can be moved between budget items). An organisation that has an administrative level of control may be able to make decisions about personnel, manage a budget with a small amount of flexibility to move 5

6 funds between categories, undertake some management functions (for example have a board and/or an executive director), and it may have some flexibility in terms of programming to meet Aboriginal cultural needs. However standards for program delivery will be determined outside the organisation, and the organisation will not be able set program priorities. Most of the funding will come from outside of the organisation and there will be a contract-like agreement about how this funding should be used. An organisation that has jurisdiction will have the authority to determine its mission and to design appropriate programming to meet this mission. It will be able to define priorities and make budgeting decisions to meet those priorities. How funding is spent will be up to the organisation, and not an outside body. In addition, the organisation will be able to make decisions about staff. These elements will require some quite specific questions in the interview process. Kinds of functions Historically, the most urban Aboriginal organisations have focussed on delivering social services of various types, and on providing employment opportunities or training for employment opportunities. This rests on a notion that the main problems facing urban Aboriginal people have to do with poverty and an inability to adjust to the urban labour market. An emerging emphasis, though, is on meeting the cultural and spiritual needs of urban Aboriginal people. This is a different focus than providing social and employment related services in a culturally appropriate way. Urban political organisation are also relatively new that is political organisations that attempt to represent the interests of specifically urban Aboriginal populations. The emergence of the latter two types of organisations start to redefine the characteristics of urban Aboriginal people as a group with a particular cultural and political identity, rather than a needs-defined group requiring social and employment services. Degree of interaction Interaction between various organisations is a prerequisite for the development of selfgovernment in urban areas. As long as interactions are primarily between individual organisations and their parent organisation, it is difficult to develop co-ordination, share experiences, and formulate priorities that are important for capacity building in urban Aboriginal populations. Of particular interest are organisations that develop to coordinate the interests and goals of a variety of organisations. 6

7 PROJECT TWO Conceptual Framework: Exploring Urban Aboriginal Settlement Patterns Despite the growing size and distinctive characteristics of urban Aboriginal populations, they have received relatively little attention among Canadian urban theorists. It is important to think about urban Aboriginal people, if urbanists wish to understand what is happening in cities in Canada in the 21 st century, particularly in prairie areas. There are challenges, though, in identifying models appropriate for describing the experiences of urban Aboriginal peoples. In urban geography, two common models for looking at settlement patterns of migrants to urban areas include the ethnic community model, and the black inner city model. While both draw heavily on the U.S. experience, there have been some studies that show the changing locations of ethnic populations in Canadian cities. There may be some elements of these models that are applicable to urban Aboriginal peoples, bet there are also elements that are not. The ethnic community model was generated at a time when employment and housing market characteristics and relative locations were different from contemporary markets. The concentration of the black populations in U.S. inner cities was affected by the structure of American cities: the size of concentrations of urban Aboriginal people and the extent of segregation does not match that of blacks in U.S. cities. Moreover, the underclass perspective that seems to have gained currency in talk about black inner cities often ignores the economic and social roots of the problems in inner cities areas and defines black inner city populations as dysfunctional and disorderly social formations. Recently, studies of the settlement patterns of Latino populations in urban areas in the U.S. have shown that these groups do not follow settlement strategies of either earlier ethnic groups or black populations. This suggests that settlement patterns and residential strategies of different groups of migrants to the city have to take into account the social and economic characteristics of urban destinations at particular times, as well as the particular histories and cultures of migrants. Research on Latino migrant communities also shows that very different settlement patterns emerge in different cities. Studying the settlement patterns of Aboriginal peoples, then, requires models that take into account the processes in cities and in the wider society that might affect settlement patterns. Some work on the black inner city calls for an institutional perspective that looks at effects that the organizations and activities of dominant populations public bureaucracies, welfare offices, schools, police officers, housing, employment, planning and zoning legislation, by-law enforcement, landlords etc. have on creating particular settlement patterns. There is some work like this that provides a perspective on the U.S. black ghetto, but there is no such research on urban Aboriginal populations. This study begins to explore the factors contributing to patterns of residential location for Aboriginal peoples in urban areas. The study begins with two cities, Winnipeg and Edmonton, that have very different Aboriginal settlement patterns, despite the fact that they are similar in other ways. In 1991, Winnipeg had a total population of 645,000 people compared to 832,155 in Edmonton. In Winnipeg, the Aboriginal identity population was 44,970. The Edmonton Aboriginal identity population was 32,820. In other words, the two cities have roughly comparable Aboriginal and non-aboriginal 7

8 populations. Yet Winnipeg had census tracts where the Aboriginal population made up almost half of the tract population, whereas there were no census tracts in Edmonton where Aboriginal people made up more than fifteen percent of the tract population. Why are Aboriginal populations so concentrated in Winnipeg, but not in Edmonton? This is a two stage study. It begins by asking knowledgeable people in both Winnipeg and Edmonton about factors that affect Aboriginal settlement patterns in their particular city, and what might be the causes for the differences between them. The groups that will be interviewed for this stage will include planners and people involve in municipal administration; people involved in social services; academics who have relevant specialties, for example in geography, planning, sociology, and who have a knowledge of Edmonton/and or Edmonton Aboriginal people; people involved in housing, including Native housing agencies; people involved in inner city services; and other people who may be knowledgeable but do not appear in the list above. The information collected from these initial interviews will be analysed, and the second part of the study will attempt to explore some of the more important causal factors identified. 8