Îyacisitayin Newoskan Simakanîsîkanisak 'The (Re)Making of the Hobbema Community Cadet Corps Program'

Abstract

In 2005, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) helped launch a unique afterschool program among the four Cree Nations of Maskwacis (formerly Hobbema), Alberta. The program, known as the Hobbema Community Cadet Corps Program (HCCCP), was widely celebrated among politicians, segments of the community, and especially in the mainstream media as an effective tool for ‘gang prevention’; however, a closer look also revealed a more complex set of negotiations occurring at the local level. This multiyear, ethnographic case study draws from a series of open-ended interviews with Maskwacis parents, youths, sports administrators, journalists, and other agents in the community to critically examine the stories behind the making of the HCCCP. Guided by Pierre Bourdieu’s relational sociology, the dissertation argues that, beyond a mere gang intervention program, the HCCCP also provided Maskwacis residents with an important site, and discourse, through which to conceive, negotiate, and, at times, contest their ideas about what it means (and doesn’t mean) to be Maskwacis in the new millennium. The study thus challenges the mainstream media’s singular depiction of Maskwacis residents, and also extends upon a body of sport studies literature that has been generally slow to integrate the diverse voices, experiences, and complex power relations that have shaped the cultural production of Aboriginal sport in distinct communities across Canada.