Abstract

Based on a phenomenological approach and experiential fieldwork in an Ontario Ojibway community, this thesis records and analyses a set of intercultural dialogues following the method of "sharing and listening." The dialogues are analysed with respect to three themes: humour; food; and, social issues (teen pregnancy, school drop-out rates, drug and alcohol use). The dialogues are interpreted both as counter-discourses that displace dominant discourses on Native peoples in Canadian society and as continuous with Ojibway storytelling and oral traditions. The thesis argues that mainstream media and scholarship reduces contemporary Native experience to a set of "social problems" and stereotypes thereby denying the meaning-making activities, agency and, ultimately, humanity of Native people.