| In this study 77 Canadian introductory sociology textbooks ranging in date from 1961 to 2002 are analysed for the way that they present Aboriginal peoples. This analysis is informed by critical theorists such as Michel Foucault, Dorothy Smith, Jean Baudrillard and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, as well as by the writings of a good number of Aboriginal writers. In the thesis, special focus is placed on three subjects: the sociological myth of culturally determined Inuit elder suicide; the potlatch and the 1990 Oka confrontation. In this work it is argued that as the discipline of sociology developed in Canada, the writers/editors of these introductory sociology textbooks denied Aboriginal voice in the production of knowledge in these texts. In so doing, they portrayed Aboriginal peoples in limited, often distorted ways. |
