Conclusion
Until recently, the courts have been used as the primary mechanism to resolve disputes. However, public dissatisfaction with an adversarial system, government recognition of a range of expert decision makers, and increased awareness of the importance of acknowledging cultural differences among disputing parties are among the factors that have encouraged the rise of alternative dispute resolution processes (Bell, 2004:254).
Within the context of Canadian Aboriginal communities, Indigenous methods for resolving disputes have also been revived and applied. Within these communities, there are three distinct modes of alternative resolution processes. One approach involves Western-based paradigms such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration and mediation. A second approach applies Indigenous paradigms to resolve disputes according to the culture and custom of the Indigenous parties involved. Due to the diversity and distinctiveness of Aboriginal peoples across the continent, these methods of dispute resolution are multifaceted; they reflect the Indigenous teachings from which they come and subsequently differ across Aboriginal nations. A third approach focuses on combining the two paradigms, so that aspects of Western-based paradigms are synthesized with traditional Indigenous paradigms.
As this paper shows, these three approaches share similar challenges. Whether using an Indigenous paradigm, a Western paradigm, or some combination of the two approaches, issues of power, cultural differences, language barriers and the effects and impacts of colonialism need to be addressed. While these challenges may be perceived as overwhelming, the following story, which comes from Dewhurst’s chapter on "Parallel Justice Systems," tells the story of The Tale of Two Spiders. In keeping with the Aboriginal epistemology of storytelling, this story illustrates that these challenges are not insurmountable and there are lessons to be learned from ‘thinking outside of the box’. Dewhurst tells the story like this:
Once upon a time there were two spiders in a lodge, sitting on the roof, discussing the web of justice. After a very long time they both agreed there was injustice in the world that needed to be fixed. And, because spinning webs is what spiders do, they both agreed that they had to spin a better web. But, sadly, they could not agree on how the new web should be spun. So, each spider decided to try to solve the problem in the best way she could.
The first spider continued to sit on the roof thinking about how to build the complete and perfect web. She sat and she sat without moving, without spinning, thinking about all the things that could go wrong. If she moved too fast she might make a misstep, destroy the web, or fall to her death far below. If the creatures that sometime lived in the lodge with her didn’t like her web, or if it got in their way, she would be frustrated and hurt by building her web only to have it smashed. The more she thought, the more problems she discovered. To try and head off these disasters, she thought about the best place to start her web. While many places seemed beneficial, none seemed perfect. So, she thought about where her web should end. Again, there were too many possibilities. She couldn’t sort through them all. So then she thought about the exact design of her web. There were just too many things beyond her control that might affect the web’s shape, like the wind and the movements of the other creatures. She finally decided that she could not predict exactly how her web should turn out. When the other creatures saw her sitting there and offered to give her a helping hand, she refused for fear that the hand might crush her or be snatched away, leaving her to fall. So there she sat, without a web to sustain her, and there she died.
The second spider crawled across the roof of the lodge looking for a place to spin her web. In a little while she found an opening where no webs had been built. Although she wasn’t sure exactly how her web would turn out, she felt that it had to begin with the first strand. So, anchoring the first strand of her web securely to the framework of the lodge around her, she dropped into the empty space. There she hung, suspended in midair. She wasn’t sure where the wind or the other passing creatures would take her but she placed her faith in the forces of nature to take her to a spot where should tie off her first strand. The wind blew her back and forth. Finally, it blew her to a place where she could tie off her first strand and she quickly did so. Then she started the whole process over again. On and on she worked, and her web took shape: sometimes through her own efforts, sometimes redirected or assisted by those around her, sometimes guided by the forces of nature. As she spun, some of the old strands were cut or broken, and she replaced them or resecured them. She never knew in advance what the final shape of her web would be. As her web developed she took time to appreciate what she had done and a pattern began to emerge. In the end, after long effort, she had spun something unique and beautiful. Her web was firm and flexible, it filled the openings that she had found, and it was able to sustain her in a way that nothing had before (Dewhurst, 2004:214).
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