Maguire, Gerard
(2022)
Oppression to Empowerment: The Role of Education in Facilitating the Right to Self-
Determination of Indigenous Peoples.
PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
Abstract
This research investigates the role of education in facilitating the right to self-determination of
Indigenous Peoples and investigates if education has evolved from a tool of oppression to one
for the facilitation of the right to self-determination and Indigenous empowerment. The
relationship between Indigenous Peoples and international law has been a turbulent one. Over
the past sixty-five years, the status of Indigenous Peoples has slowly changed within the
international legal regime which has seen Indigenous Peoples transition from objects to
subjects of international law. This change has added immensely to Indigenous empowerment,
transforming what were once deemed to be vulnerable groups in need of protection from the
States in which they resided, to self-actualising and empowered communities demanding the
rights to which they are entitled. This progression is not only due to the changing role of
Indigenous Peoples within the international legal order, but also owing to a change within other
vital societal infrastructures, including education systems. In the context of Indigenous
children, the education systems of Colonisers have, in the past, played a sinister role. It has
been used as a thinly veiled attempt to oppress indigeneity and to disrupt the transmission of
intergenerational knowledge and customs. One example is that of the Canadian Residential
School System, designed to eliminate Indigenous identity and hinder any advancement of the
right to self-determination of Indigenous groups in Canada. In more recent times, mainstream
education and educational institutions have become a beacon of hope for the promotion and
preservation of Indigenous identity. This suggests that education and systems of education have
the potential to be valuable tools in the process of maintaining Indigenous identity in a non-
Indigenous setting, a powerful engine for Indigenous empowerment and perhaps a beneficial
tool for Indigenous self-determination and empowerment. Utilising a descriptive-normative
approach, this work explores these themes, analyses examples of their occurrence both past
and present, and offers recommendations on how this right to self-determination can be
advanced both currently and in the future through education systems. This research addresses
how education systems, in the context of Indigenous Peoples, can be reformed to be a catalyst
of empowerment from a tool of subjugation.
| Item Type: |
Thesis
(PhD)
|
| Keywords: |
Indigenous Peoples; Self-Determination; Education; Oppression; Cultural
Genocide; Empowerment; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Law |
| Item ID: |
16529 |
| Depositing User: |
IR eTheses
|
| Date Deposited: |
19 Sep 2022 13:55 |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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