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      Giant Trees, Iron Men: Masculinity and Colonialism in Coast Salish Loggers’ Identity

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      OSMOND-THESIS-2016.pdf (2.589Mb)
      Date
      2016-09-07
      Author
      Osmond, Colin Murray 1984-
      ORCID
      0000-0001-6032-7855
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Masters
      Metadata
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      Abstract
      First Nations people in Coastal British Columbia have harvested and commodified the forest for centuries. With the arrival of European settlers and the inception of a commercial logging industry, Coast Salish men became highly respected and sought-after employees at logging camps up and down the coast. With attention to the twentieth century, this thesis analyzes the long history of Coast Salish forestry to highlight how cutting down trees provided Coast Salish men the ability to affirm masculine identities in both the pre and post-contact periods. In the theatre of a logging camp, Coast Salish men could ascend the racial and social limitations placed on their masculinity through skill and hard work. This thesis analyzes the various ways that First Nations men in British Columbia responded to the multiple forms of oppression placed on their identities as men by the Colonial and then Canadian governments. Colonial patriarchy took multiple forms, which created a system of hypocrisy where Coast Salish men were simultaneously expected to act like ‘men’ but were categorically denied access to certain types of masculinity. Coast Salish men could attain certain types of masculine agency through the sort of rugged masculinity valued in logging camps, but when they tried to assert their land and resource rights against patriarchal systems, they were paternalistically treated like children by the Canadian State. By analyzing Coast Salish logger’s remembrances of their time in ‘the bush,’ this thesis is a study in Indigenous historical consciousness. Considering both the continuities and changes present in Coast Salish forestry and ideals on masculinity, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, constructs an understanding of not only the colonial processes that oppressed, but also the avenues where Indigenous people carved out opportunities for themselves. Ultimately, this thesis argues that Coast Salish men were able to transcend some of the most oppressive aspects of colonialism by embracing an industry and a social environment (logging and logging camps) where they could perform an expression of masculinity that they found fulfilling, and that was simultaneously valued and accepted by colonial society.
      Degree
      Master of Arts (M.A.)
      Department
      History
      Program
      History
      Supervisor
      Carlson, Keith T
      Committee
      Labelle, Kathryn M; Clifford, Jim; Innes, Robert
      Copyright Date
      July 2016
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/7413
      Subject
      Aboriginal History
      Canadian History
      Logging
      Forestry
      Native-Newcomer Relations
      Colonialism
      Ethnohistory
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