This paper describes two Canadian aboriginal organizations which have attempted a second-order change, a transformation of their belief system, to make their organizations operate in a manner consistent with traditional aboriginal beliefs, values, and customs. One organization completed a successful change, the other organization's change process was abandoned after 2 years. The process of organizational change followed by the two organizations illustrates the link between interpretive schemes, organizational actions, and organizational structures. The process which focused primarily on the link between the aboriginally-based interpretive scheme and actions proved more effective than the process that linked the structure and the interpretative scheme. For the successful organization, the process of organizational transformation was shown to be incremental, iterative, multifaceted and required a lengthy period of time to complete. During the early stages of process of change, both old and new interpretative schemes were present within the organization. The process of organizational change then became a dialectic involving the old and the new. As a critical mass of people began to adopt the new interpretative scheme, the dialectic focused on different ways of implementing the new scheme. Leaders, critical to the process, had two essential tasks: enabling or permitting the presentation of new interpretative schemes and keeping the dialectic going for a sufficient period of time to ensure the emergence of a interpretative scheme shared by a critical mass of organizational members.

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This article discusses Aboriginal politics through the “Indian problem” and the “Canadian problem.” It emphasizes the significant events that happened in 1969 to 1995 which fostered Canada's gradual policy shift from a country promoting Indian assimilation to one embracing Aboriginal self-government. This period saw the emergence of Aboriginal governance as a central objective of Aboriginal leaders, who sought to reestablish nation-to-nation relationships between Canada and First Nations peoples and to acquire legitimacy as governments within the Canadian federation within their own right.

This paper examines indigeneity and spatial production in the city of Winnipeg, home to the largest urban Indigenous population in Canada. Using data from semi‐structured interviews with Indigenous inhabitants, municipal officials, and Indigenous leaders, this paper argues that the right to the city and to difference are deradicalized for urban Indigenous communities. Indigenous engagement in processes of everyday urbanism occurs through broadly participatory public consultation and through mechanisms designed by City Hall to communicate with Indigenous communities about municipal initiatives. To arrive at a more robust and meaningful Indigenous urban visibility in Canadian cities, spatial production and programming mechanisms will need to be reconstituted. Guided by the perspectives of Indigenous participants, this paper considers some of what Indigenous urbanism might yet entail. Fulfilling coexistence and reconciliation is dependent on enabling Indigenous urbanism to guide the course taken in urban governance, spatial planning, and the built environment of Canadian cities.