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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Indigeneity, Institutions of Media Culture, and the Canadian State since 1990 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8j06t250 Author Crey, Karrmen Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Indigeneity, Institutions of Media Culture, and the Canadian State since 1990 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the Requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Television by Karrmen Crey 2016 © Copyright by Karrmen Crey 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Indigeneity, Institutions of Media Culture, and the Canadian State since 1990 by Karrmen Crey Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Television University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Chon A. Noriega, Chair This project investigates the exponential growth of Indigenous media in Canada since 1990, and the role of institutions of media culture in this phenomenon. During this period, Indigenous social movements, state legislation and policy, and media technologies converged in media-producing institutions across the country, contributing to the proliferation of Indigenous film, television, video, and digital media. Indigenous filmmakers, producers, and artists navigate the complex terrain of institutional discourses and practices in the development of their work, negotiations that ultimately shape screen content. This approach intervenes in analytical trends that interpret Indigenous production in terms of oppositional cultural politics, setting this work against a monolithic colonial state apparatus. Such approaches position Indigenous producers as cultural “auteurs,” whose work gives evidence of a shared cultural/political aesthetic, which risks overlooking areas of production not associated with the features of these cultural politics. ii Further, juxtaposing Indigenous media with the state does not explain why the state would create policy and programs that support a body of work that would ostensibly undermine its hegemony. This project argues that state support represents an attempt of the liberal pluralist state to “manage” Indigenous challenges to its authority by incorporating Indigeneity into the national cultural fabric. However, examination of the institutional dimensions of production reveals the unevenness and contingency of state influence, as national policy and ideology are interpreted according to a given institution’s cultures and practices, which are in turn navigated by media practitioners and their work. By doing so, this project contributes institutional analysis as a crucial but under-examined lens for the interpretation of Indigenous screen content, and applies it to areas of Indigenous production and institutions of media culture that have not yet had significant scholarly attention, including provincial television and academic research institutions, to begin recuperating these areas into the historical and scholarly record. iii The dissertation of Karrmen Crey is approved. John T. Caldwell Jasmine Nadua Trice Michelle Raheja Chon A. Noriega, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS A Note on Terminology………………………………………………………………………....ix Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………...xi Vita……………………………………………………………………………………………...xiii Introduction: Indigenous Cultural Politics, The State, and Indigenous Media…………………………………………………………………………...1 Situating the Project: Models and Methods From Minority Media Studies……………………………………………………………..5 Theorizing the State and Governmentality………………………………………………..9 The State and Media: National and Subnational Cinemas……………………………….11 Institutional Analysis and Indigenous Media in Canada………………………………...13 Indigeneity, the State, and the Stakes of Indigenous Cultural Nationalism……………..18 Indigenous Cinema and Media Theory………………………………………………….21 Indigenous Media – The Local and the Global/Transnational…………………………..24 Chapter Breakdown……………………………………………………………………...27 Chapter One: A Diverse Oeuvre – Doug Cuthand, Provincial Television, and Indigenous Communications in the Field of Indigenous Media……………………….32 From Authorship to Cultural Mediation………………………………………………...34 Communications vs. Cinema: Academic Boundary Crossing…………………………..36 v Indigenous Television and the North: Disciplinary Distinctions and Canadian Regions……………………………………….37 Indigenous Sovereignty and National Cultural Policy Across Cultural Institutions……………………………………………………………...40 The Canadian Documentary Tradition Across Film and Television…………………….42 Indigenous Journalism and Communications Media…………………………………....46 The Indigenous Public Sphere…………………………………………………………...48 SCN and Provincial Television: New Regions From Fragments………………………..54 The Canadian Documentary Tradition and the Educational Mandate…………………...57 Educational Programming and Indigenous Politics: Stay in School (1995)…………......58 Documentary Production at the NFB: Donna’s Story (2001)…………………………...62 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….70 Chapter Two: Negotiating Indigenous Self-Government – The Aboriginal Film and Video Art Alliance and The Banff Centre for the Arts…………72 Indigenous Self-Government: An Emergent Discourse…………………………………74 What’s in a Name?: The Aboriginal Film and Video Art Alliance……………………...79 Indigenous Representation at the Banff Centre for the Arts……………………………..85 Ideological Fault Lines…………………………………………………………………..90 Experiments in Self-Government: The Public Service Announcements………………...92 The PSAs and Indigenous Futures……………………………………………………….96 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...107 Chapter Three: Programming Indigeneity – Indigenous Television in the Era of APTN…………………………………………………..111 vi A Brief History of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network……………………….112 Canadian Cultural Policy, Indigeneity, and National Broadcasting……………………115 APTN in the Field of Canadian National Broadcasting………………………………..119 Issues of Scope: Indigenous Cultural Nationalism in Canadian National Broadcasting…………………………………………………….121 Approaches to Analysis of Indigenous Television Programming……………………...124 Ravens and Eagles: Haida Art…………………………………………………………128 APTN and Popular US Television Genres……………………………………………..133 Indians + Aliens: Indigenous Belief Systems Meet Reality TV……………………….137 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..144 Chapter Four: Indigenous Documentaries and Academic Research Institutions – A Comparative Case Study of Navajo Talking Picture (1986) and Cry Rock (2010)……....145 Practice-Based Film Education…………………………………………………………149 Indigenous Studies: From Methods to Theory………………………………………….151 Navajo Talking Picture (1986)…………………………………………………………153 Challenging Colonial Legacies: Anthropology and Indigenous Portraiture…………...158 Minority Media Histories and Indigenous Studies at UCLA…………………………..160 Forcing Interaction: The Crisis Structure………………………………………………163 Cry Rock (2010)………………………………………………………………………...168 Inter-institutionality: Indigenous Studies and the National Film Board………………..170 Visualizing Cultural Mediations………………………………………………………..174 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...179 Conclusion: Indigenous Media and Understandings of Nation, Genre, and Author.........181 vii Appendix I: Catalogues and Databases……………………………………………………...184 Appendix II: Indigenous Nonfiction Production, 1968-2013……………………………….185 Appendix III: Numbers of Indigenous Nonfiction Directors And Producers by Gender…………………………………………………………………….186 Appendix IV: Number of Productions by Director/Producer, 1968-2013…………………187 Appendix V: Interviews……………………………………………………………………….188 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………...189 viii A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY My use of the term “Indigenous” is meant to be broad and inclusive, and generally follows the usage of “Indigenous peoples” by the United Nations from their which does not set out a definition but rather outlines a set of characteristics through which to understand the term “Indigenous peoples:” • Self- identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and accepted by the community as their member. • Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies • Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources • Distinct social, economic or political systems • Distinct language, culture and beliefs • Form non-dominant groups of society • Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities (United Nations, “Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Voices Factsheet”) The term “Indigenous” has become more prevalent academically in the past decade in recognition of the global and transnational dimensions of Indigenous peoples’ historical experiences of colonization and ongoing struggles for political and juridical representation and authority over their traditional cultures and resources. However, the terminology referring to Indigenous peoples is highly variable, and in Canada they have different historical and legal applications. As a result, the sources used for this dissertation referring to the Canadian context employ Aboriginal, First Nations, Inuit, Métis, Indian, and Native, while sources outside of the Canadian context use Native, Native American, American Indian, Aboriginal, Indian, and Indigenous. While I use these terms when directly citing these sources, I use “Indigenous” to ix broadly refer to all the groups identified within this existing terminology. “Indigenous” is also capitalized throughout this dissertation