Mavis Underwood

My name is Mavis Underwood of Tsawout Community, WSANEC Nation. My interest in pursuing a PHD direction at this point in my life is related to accumulated knowledge, experience and teachings as a WSANEC Woman growing up in part of our homelands on the Saanich Peninsula. My work has been rich and varied. My learning quest has been to promote betterment in opportunities for First Nations and to influence needed social change, particularly in areas of education, human and social development, health, and housing. The themes for my work embrace Culture, Health and Inequality and Space, Place, Knowledge and Power. I am quite certain I will overlap many themes the more immersed I get into the academic stream.

My initial experience with UVIC was completion of a B.A. in Child and Youth Care in 1978, and a Professional Teachers Certification and Certification in Sexual Abuse Counsellors Training in the 80's. I completed my M.A. in Indigenous Governance in May 2018. I am hoping to incorporate lived experience and the guidance of teachings to influence and refine intersections of Indigenous Knowledge, History, and Encounter with Anthropology. Most recently I have been emphasizing the impact of history of ancient village sites, ancestral remains, and artifact remains in revitalizing history of Indigenous First Nations life, civilization in fulsome traditional homelands. Personally, for me, I want to deepen the understanding of the Truth of the extent of the WSANEC homelands that include land and marine territory, and history of prior use and occupation reinforced by numerous defenses of Douglas Treaty and the Saanichton Bay Marina Case pf 1988.