Burried underneath : uncovering my First Nations identity

• Main Author: Lansdowne, Robert B.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2009
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7389

This self study documents the author’s journey into the tensions, struggles and an ultimately deepening awareness of his First Nations identity. Using autoethnography as the methodological vehicle for this journey, the goal was to evocatively convey to the reader the tensions that exist between the author’s internal knowing of self and the external forces that impact this way of knowing. Autoethnography is an appropriate methodology to assist this highly personal, subjective and ultimately painful attempt to narrate the author’s experience to the reader. Through this study, the author comes to understand that he has carried feelings of shame in his body that has impacted his First Nations identity. As a result of being witnessed uncovering and addressing these feelings in this study, the author has gained new confidence and a strengthened sense of identity. The reader is invited along on this journey and asked to draw their own conclusions and consider their own stake in how this study may apply to their understanding of Aboriginal identity.