Overview: My project will combine a short movie presentation with a 2000 word essay.
Movie Title: The Nisga’a Struggle: Was it Apartheid or Assimilation?
Movie Theme: The movie will provide a historical context of the Nisga’a’s history from 1867 to the 1999 land claims. The movie will provide an insight into the continuous struggle of the Nisga’a to define their sense of place in the context of a Eurocentric environment.
Essay Title: Nisga’a: Defining Sense of Place Online as a Mechanism of Reaffirming their Cultural Identity
Research Topic: This essay will examine how the Nisga’a use the internet, specifically their official government website, to define sense of place in their cultural context. Furthermore, by defining sense of place, this essay will examine how the Nisga’a has blended the experiences of the past and the internet to preserve and move their cultural forward in the 21st century.
Themes: All the themes are interconnected and will be examined to gain an understanding of how the Nisga’a use their government website as an anchor in preserving their cultural identity and moving it forward in the 21st century, as part of a global community. The website also provides evidence that the Nisga’a’s cultural identity has been shaped by interaction with a Eurocentric world view. The essay will examine sense of place through the following themes:
- Places have location,
- Place have physical and cultural characteristics,
- Places change,
- Places interact with other places, and
- Places are in regions.
Essay will answer the following question:
- What is sense of place?
- How does the Nisga’a government website represent sense of place?
- Why is it important for the Nisga’a to use the internet to define sense of place in their unique cultural context?
- Evaluate whether defining a sense of place on the world-wide-web is beneficial or harmful as the Nisga’a move forward in the 21st century.
Sources
Nisga’a Lisims Government (2013). Retrieved from: http://www.nisgaanation.ca/