Place-Based Resilience: Ecologically Framed Experiences of Tlicho High School Graduates

• In Event: Roundtable Session 79
  In Roundtable Session: Diversity, Discourse, and Disruptions in Local Contexts

Abstract

This social phenomenological inquiry revealed dynamic, context-based resilience processes experienced by high school graduates from the Tlicho community of Behchokö, Northwest Territories, Canada. The place-based social, physical (Ungar, 2011), and service ecology (Masten, 2006) parameters framed narratives of lived experiences of eleven high school graduates. A tension embodied in late Tlicho Elder Elizabeth Mackenzie’s call for children to become, “Strong like two people”—competent and confident walking in both cultural worlds emerged from the narratives. This tension extended beyond bicultural pressures in the everyday lifeworlds of graduates to a temporally-framed tension. Findings suggested strengthening the social, physical, and service systems through a 21st century bicultural and ecological lens potentiates increased experiences of lived resilience for Tlicho learners.

Author

• Susan Hopkins, Government of the Northwest Territories