Feeding Indigenous people in Canada

2020 ◽  
pp. 002087282091621
Author(s):  
Tabitha Robin (Martens) ◽  
Mary Kate Dennis ◽  
Michael Anthony Hart

Historically, hunger was used as a tool of coercion and manipulation, and as a weapon to eradicate Indigenous populations. Through policy decisions, the support for and removal of Indigenous children, and other assimilative practices, social work has contributed to the perpetuation of ‘helping practices’ which damaged Indigenous cultures and well-being. Today, experiences of hunger are still tied to colonialism. There is a need to examine the complex history of feeding Indigenous peoples in Canada and to work to reclaim and heal Indigenous food systems. For social work, this requires an emphasis on Indigenous ways of helping led by Indigenous peoples.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-36
Author(s):  
Vanessa Ambtman-Smith ◽  
Chantelle Richmond

Among the global Indigenous population, concepts of health and healthy living are wholistically intertwined within social, physical, natural, and spiritual systems. On-going processes of colonization and experiences of environmental dispossession have had the effect of removing Indigenous peoples from the lands, people and knowledge systems that have traditionally promoted their health. In 2014, Big-Canoe and Richmond introduced the idea of environmental repossession. This concept refers to the social, economic, and cultural processes Indigenous people are engaging in to reconnect with their traditional lands and territories, the wider goal being to assert their rights as Indigenous people and to improve their health and well-being. As Indigenous mothers, both who live in urban centres “away” from our families and traditional lands and knowledge systems, we engage with this conceptual model as a hopeful way to reimagine relationships to land, family, and knowledge. We embrace the concept of environmental repossession, and its key elements – land, social relationships, Indigenous knowledge – as a framework for promoting health and healing spaces among those who live “away” from their traditional territory. Drawing on three examples, an urban hospital, a university food and medicine garden, and a men’s prison, we suggest that these spaces do indeed offer important structural proxies for land, social relationships, and Indigenous knowledge, and can be important healing spaces. With increasingly urbanizing Indigenous populations in Canada, and around the world, these findings are important for the development of healing places for Indigenous peoples, regardless of where they live.


ILUMINURAS ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (43) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Roca

Este trabalho identifica e analisa as imagens ‘nacionalizadas’ sobre os índios dos atuais territórios brasileiros e argentinos, a partir de dois conjuntos iconográficos elaborados pelo artista-viajante alemão Johann Moritz Rugendas em ambos os países: as 16 litografias sobre os indígenas reunidas no seu álbum Viagem Pitoresca através do Brasil e as 25 ilustrações vinculadas ao poema La Cautiva, do escritor romântico argentino Esteban Echeverría. Comparando ambos os conjuntos, demonstro que os contextos e as redes sociais do artista lhe deram a oportunidade de ‘ver’ o que ‘se podia’ pintar. A análise oferece ferramentas centrais para refletir sobre as políticas visuais envolvidas na construção e divulgação das representações sobre os indígenas no Brasil e na Argentina durante os séculos XIX, XX e XXI, demonstrando-se aqui o trabalho social dessas imagens e suas penetrantes consequências políticas até os nossos dias.Palavras-chave: Imagens sobre os indígenas. Rugendas. Brasil. Argentina. Políticas visuais.Nation building images: Rugendas and his drawings of Brazilian and Argentinian indigenous peoplesAbstractThis text identifies and analyses ‘nationalized’ images of Indigenous populations from contemporary Brazilian and Argentinean territories. The analysis is centered on two iconographic sets authored by the German artist traveller Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858): the 16 lithographs gathered in his album Picturesque Travel through Brazil and the 25 drawings illustrating the poem The Captive, written by the Argentinean romantic writer Esteban Echeverría. Comparing both sets of images, I argue that the artist’s contexts and social relationships, framed what there was ‘to see’ and what could be ‘painted’. This analysis offers central resources to understand visual policies involved in the processes of construction and dissemination of images of indigenous peoples in Brazil and Argentina during the 19th, the 20th, and the 21st century, demonstrating the social work of these images and its resilient political consequences until the present.Key words: Images about indigenous people. Rugendas. Brazil. Argentina. Visual policies.  


Author(s):  
Margo Greenwood

Article 30 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) sets out the rights of Indigenous and minority children to learn about and practice their own culture, religion, and language in countries where these practices are not shared by the majority of the population. The provisions of Article 30 are particularly relevant in nations such as Canada that are built upon a history of colonization, where for generations Indigenous children have been dispossessed of their cultures, languages, territories, family and community ties—all of the foundational elements of healthy and whole Indigenous identities. The colonization of the life-worlds of Indigenous children represents, in short, a primary mechanism through which nations have attempted to eliminate and assimilate the Indigenous populations within their borders, with devastating multi-generational consequences for surviving Indigenous peoples.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy M. Mikecz

Ethnohistorians and other scholars have long noted how European colonial texts often concealed the presence and participation of indigenous peoples in New World conquests. This scholarship has examined how European sources (both texts and maps) have denied indigenous history, omitted indigenous presence, elided indigenous agency, and ignored indigenous spaces all while exaggerating their own power and importance. These works provide examples of colonial authors performing these erasures, often as a means to dispossess. What they lack, however, is a systematic means of identifying, locating, and measuring these silences in space and time. This article proposes a spatial history methodology which can make visible, as well as measurable and quantifiable the ways in which indigenous people and spaces have been erased by colonial narratives. It presents two methods for doing this. First, narrative analysis and geovisualization are used to deconstruct the imperial histories found in colonial European sources. Second it combines text with maps to tell a new (spatial) narrative of conquest. This new narrative reconstructs indigenous activity through a variety of digital maps, including ‘mood maps’, indigenous activity maps, and maps of indigenous aid. The resulting spatial narrative shows the Spanish conquest of Peru was never inevitable and was dependent on the constant aid of immense numbers of indigenous people.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annahita Ball

Abstract The persistent and systemic inequities within the U.S. public education system have grave implications for children’s and youth’s outcomes, yet these inequities go far beyond academics. Marginalized and vulnerable students experience injustices across the educational system, including disproportionality in school discipline, unequal access to advanced courses, and poor conditions for learning. Social work has a solid history of addressing issues that intersect across families, schools, and communities, but the profession has had little engagement in the recent educational justice movement. As educational scholars advance a movement to address educational inequities, it will be increasingly important for social work researchers to provide valuable insight into the multiple components that make up youth development and support positive well-being for all individuals within a democratic society. This article encourages social work researchers to extend lines of inquiry that investigate educational justice issues by situating social work practice and research within educational justice and suggesting an agenda for future social work research that will advance equity for all students.


Author(s):  
Soledad Torrecuadrada García-Lozano ◽  
Vladimir Aguilar Castro ◽  
Carlos Grimaldo Lorente

In this chapter, the authors attempt to demonstrate that respect for cultural identity of all human groups should be seen as a fundamental right. Ignoring Collective rights of indigenous peoples, those related to their cultural traditions, generally causes the lack of respect. Thus, knowledge of the cultural manifestations and their origin and meaning (as part of the history of the territories they inhabit) can conquer this respect on a par with its defense. This obviously with comprehensive training aimed to sensitize the general population in the positive assessment it deserves it different. The actions of nation-states governments with strong indigenous population has been characterized, until recently, by a remarkable disregard for indigenous cultures, having as a result the result of which such attitude, today from the non - indigenous perspective indigenous cultural manifestations are reduced to colorful folklore shows, when not seen as backward and primitive traditions. This chapter delves deeply into the legal framework for the protection of collective and cultural rights of indigenous peoples. The authors also attempt to show the weaknesses of the law and how states should act to strengthen them. Proposed article does emphasis on indigenous traditional knowledge and not in a wider debate on the topic of knowledge in general.


2020 ◽  
pp. 089801012097913
Author(s):  
Lucy Joo-Castro ◽  
Amanda Emerson

Historical trauma refers to the collective depredations of the past that continue to affect populations in the present through intergenerational transmission. Indigenous people globally experience poorer health outcomes than non-Indigenous people, but the connections between Indigenous people’s health and experiences of historical trauma are poorly understood. To clarify the scope of research activity on historical trauma related to Indigenous peoples’ health, we conducted a scoping review using Arksey and O’Malley’s method with Levac’s modifications. Seventy-five articles (1996-2020) were selected and analyzed. Key themes included (a) challenges of defining and measuring intergenerational transmission in historical trauma; (b) differentiating historical trauma from contemporary trauma; (c) role of racism, discrimination, and microaggression; (d) questing for resilience through enculturation, acculturation, and assimilation; and (e) addressing historical trauma through interventions and programs. Gaps in the research included work to establish mechanisms of transmission, understand connections to physical health, elucidate present and past trauma, and explore epigenetic mechanisms and effects ascribed to it. Understanding first what constitutes historical trauma and its effects will facilitate development of culturally safe holistic care for Indigenous populations.


Author(s):  
Nivea Ivette Núñez de la Paz E Renate Gierus

Este artigo, embasado em relatos de experiências, quer compartilhar processos educativos vivenciados a partir de duas organizações da sociedade civil - OSCs, o Centro Ecumênico de Capacitação e Assessoria - CECA e o Conselho de Missão entre Povos Indígenas-COMIN, instituições que tem suas sedes localizadas em São Leopoldo/RS. O CECA atua na formação de lideranças estudantis, comunitárias, de movimentos eclesiais e sociais; e o COMIN, com povos indígenas, ambas na promoção de cidadania e direitos humanos. Iniciamos o relato com um breve histórico de cada instituição, seguido da descrição metodológica da experiência, finalizando com uma análise da mesma.This article, based on experience reports, wants to share educational processes experienced based on two civil society organizations - OSCs, Ecumenical Centre for Training and Consultancy - CECA and Council of Mission among Indigenous people - COMIN, institutions that have their headquarters located in São Leopoldo / RS. CECA acts with formation of student leaders, community, ecclesial and social movements; and COMIN with indigenous peoples, both promote citizenship and human rights. We begin this reporting with a brief history of each institution, followed by the methodological description of the experience, ending with an analysis of that experience.


Author(s):  
Cyndy Baskin ◽  
Danielle Sinclair

This article explores social work with Indigenous Peoples in Canada, beginning with the history of colonization and the role this profession played, as well as outlining promising approaches to helping based on Indigenous worldviews and the challenges of putting these into practice.


2021 ◽  
pp. 000486742098524
Author(s):  
Fiona Charlson ◽  
Bruce Gynther ◽  
Karin Obrecht ◽  
Ed Heffernan ◽  
Michael David ◽  
...  

Objective: The relationship between psychosis and contact with the criminal justice system for Indigenous people living in rural and remote areas is not well understood. In this study, the authors examine patterns of incarceration among Indigenous people living with psychosis in Cape York and the Torres Strait over two decades. Methods: Data were collated from a clinical database of complete psychiatric records from 1992 to 2015, extracted for all Indigenous patients with a psychotic disorder from the Remote Area Mental Health Service, and linked to the Queensland Corrections Service database. Descriptive statistics were calculated to compare characteristics between those incarcerated and those not incarcerated during the study period and to quantify patterns of incarceration including types of offences, time spent in custody and frequency of incarceration. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to assess associations between reported variables and ‘first incarceration’. Results: Forty-five percent of Aboriginal patients ( n = 116) were incarcerated compared with 31% of Torres Strait Islanders ( n = 41) ( p = 0.008), and the proportion of males incarcerated (51%, n = 141) was approximately twice that of females (24%, n = 35; p = 0.001). A cluster of first incarcerations were observed in close time proximity to diagnosis of psychosis. Individuals who had a history of both alcohol and cannabis use had approximately two times higher risk of being incarcerated following positive diagnosis compared to those without a history of substance use (hazard ratio = 1.85; 95% confidence interval: [1.08, 3.17]; p = 0.028). Males accounted for approximately 85% ( n = 328) of sentences. The most common most serious offence was causing physical harm to others (assault – n = 122, 31%). Conclusion: Our study found that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with a psychotic disorder in North Queensland, criminal justice responses with resultant incarceration occurs frequently. Access to appropriate mental health services and diversion options for Indigenous Australians with psychosis should be a key public health and justice priority.


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