Question Paper



Aboriginal People

Questions No # 2

Demonstrate how and why the assimilationists differ from the autonomists in defining and solving the so called Indian problem. Indicate the underlying assumptions, problem definition, proposed solution and anticipated outcome. Does a commitment to accommodate provide a compromise position?

The aboriginal people of the Canada can be defined as the native or the first nation of the Canada. The historians claimed that these aboriginal groups and people are those who are living within the territory of Canada from many centuries and must be considered as first nation of the Canada. A portion of these individuals also spend their lives as indigenous people in Canada. They have their own culture and are very proud of their social norms. They believed that they must have certain types of advantages over other nations because they are the original Canadians. The study showed that these aboriginal people claimed to have a place where no other nation live and they live their according to their own cultural values and norms. Due to aboriginal's traditional mind set and behavior, the country Canada witnessed too many problems. The attitudes of the aboriginal people remain offensive to the government of the Canada and few historians also consider their traditional behavior as a challenging factor for the government of the Canada. On the other hand, the Canadian government always designs policies on national front with intentions of compelling these aboriginal Canadian to get merge with other nations living in Canada (Fleras, 2012).

The aforementioned problems are also considered as Indian problem of the aboriginal people which includes that the aboriginal people wanted to have a preference over other nations just because of their race. The behavior of the Canadian government in dealing with these aboriginal people is not autonomist but it is assimilative because the government policies have never been designed in a way which just destroys their culture or social norms but the policies are more of accommodating nature. There is a different in assimilative policies and autonomous policies. The assimilative polices used to incorporate the requirements of the underlying groups which facilitates the groups in following the government polices. While the autonomous policies are like dictations where the underlying group is supposed to follow the rules and these policies do not incorporate the social values of the underlying group. In this case, the underlying group thinks that the government policies are anti cultural values ...