An experiment in therapeutic planning : learning with the Gwa'sala-'Nakwaxda'xw First Nations ...

• Main Author: Erfan, Aftab
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2013
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0074273; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0074273

Many of the communities in which planners work are characterized by deeply rooted conflict and collective trauma, a legacy of various forms of injustice, including some that have been enabled by the planning profession itself. In this context, can planning play a healing or therapeutic role, without recreating or perpetuating the cycles of oppression? This dissertation reflects on my community-based action research on Tsulquate, a small First Nations reserve on Vancouver Island, where the Gwa’sala and ‘Nakwaxda’xw people have lived since relocation in 1964. Between 2009 and 2012, and particularly over a year of intensive fieldwork, I engaged in this community to assist in the ambitious task of addressing intergenerational trauma, the importance of which was expressed within the Band’s newly created Comprehensive Community Plan. Written as mixed-genre creative analytic process (CAP) ethnography, the dissertation tells the stories of my engagement, and in particular of a series of public, intergenerational ...