DeWolfe, Sacha2024-10-092024-10-092024-08https://unbscholar.lib.unb.ca/handle/1882/38148Utilizing a Foucauldian (1975) critical discourse analysis, my research examines discourses of damage and pathology in literature focused on Indigenous issues and how they can create a discursive frame that influences identity formation in problematic ways. My study embeds three main themes of discourse: problematizing, pathologizing, and culturizing of First Nation peoples. I experienced a myriad of ways that deficit narratives in New Brunswick contributed to a damage-centred frame of reference for First Nation peoples. Consider, for example, the incessant references to the First Nation academic achievement gap or the practice of schools hosting cultural events without meaningful inclusion. These practices contribute to the essentializing of First Nation peoples. There needs to be action that goes beyond visual representations of Indigeneity and a move to address how power operates and truth and knowledge are maintained. I put forth that honouring desire is a way to challenge this framing. Through an autoethnographic documentary film, I explore how problematizing, pathologizing and culturizing discourses inform(ed) my identity, taking the audience on a journey from damage to desire. My research utilizes desire-based strategies to reconceptualize how Mi’kmaq identity might be understood. Tuck (2009) states that “desire-based frameworks are concerned with understanding complexity, contradiction, and the self-determination of lived lives” (p. 416). My research struggles for cultural negotiation and investigates how an expanded dialogue of Mi’kmaq identity informed by desire might create more space for First Nation peoples to thrive.xvii, 328electronicenhttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2doctoral thesisBenjamin, AmandaEducation