| Historically Aboriginal-state relations in Canada have been viewed as a top-down model where the latter imposes programs, projects and policies on the Indigenous population. However, this model fails to explain contemporary relations between the Aboriginal population residing in urban centres and the state. An alternative framework for a new model should look at how Native non-governmental organizations (NNGOs) and their Executive Directors (Aboriginal leaders) manoeuvre and practice alternative models for Aboriginal-state relations. Aboriginal leaders and Native non-governmental organizations, in this thesis, are perceived as cultural translators who incorporate Aboriginal selective traditions and "translate", in their own terms, state policy in programs and projects for Aboriginal people residing in urban centres. Simply put, Native non-governmental organizations and their Executive Directors (Aboriginal leaders) engage in hybrid social practices, which are bounded by the state and with grassroots components such as the inclusion of Aboriginal selective traditions while relating with the state and with the Aboriginal people who reside in urban areas. Aboriginal leaders and Native non-governmental organizations (NNGOs) act as mediators between the urban Aboriginal population and the state during the process of making the Aboriginal population legible to the state and state policy legible to the Aboriginal community. This alternative framework emphasizes hybridity where the new social practices are neither governmental nor Aboriginal but the product of both. Thus this research demonstrates that the Canadian Hybrid Aboriginal model better explains contemporary Aboriginal-state relations.;Key words. Aboriginal-state relations, Aboriginal people, state, Native non-governmental organizations, hybrid, Aboriginal selective traditions, Aboriginal leaders. |
