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WIDENING THE CIRCLENewsletter of the National Network for Aboriginal Mental Health Research

Volume 8, Issue 2 Fall/Winter 2006

The National Network for Aboriginal MentalHealth Research was developed in December2001 as a partnership between Aboriginalcommunities and academic researchers. TheNAMHR is funded by the Canadian Institutes ofHealth Research (CIHR) and includes a networkof researchers from across Canada with extensiveexperience in Aboriginal health and related areas.

The priority of the Network is to develop researchcapacity. To that end, the emphasis is onnetworking and training for existing researchersand conducting a series of pilot projects thatprovide a basis to seek funding for larger scaleprojects from other sources including regularCIHR competitions, federal and provincialprograms and Aboriginal organizations.

NAMHR Annual Meeting 2006:Summary

Aboriginal Mental Health: Rethinking theResearch Agenda

Shannon Dow, NAMHR Coordinator

The NAMHR 2006 Annual Meeting titled“Aboriginal Mental Health: Rethinking theResearch Agenda” was held October 19 & 20 inMontreal, Quebec. The meeting was hosted by Dr.Laurence Kirmayer, and held at the JewishGeneral Hospital. The meeting consisted ofpresentations by NAMHR co-investigators,special guests and collaborators, as well asworkshops and a film screening.

The theme of this year’s Annual Meeting was“rethinking the research agenda” for Aboriginalmental health research. This theme was chosenbecause the NAMHR is planning a series of newresearch projects. These projects will be includedin the NAMHR’s proposal to receive furtherfunding from the Canadian Institutes of HealthResearch (CIHR). The NAMHR’s funding is soon

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

1 NAMHR Annual Meeting 2006:Summary

3 Pedagogy of Healing

4 Toward community-based definitionsof the relations between culturalcontinuity and youth health

4 Speaking of Cancer on the Path toHealing

5 Examination of the socio-historicalsetting of Inuit healthcare in northernCanada

5 Resource Materials

6 Announcements

6 Upcoming Events

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coming to an end, and a new CIHR grant wouldextend the NAMHR for three more years. Withthe idea of rethinking the research agenda in mind,the Annual Meeting therefore covered a variety oftopics, including ecocentric orientations,decolonizing methodologies, healing andresilience.

T’hohahoken Michael Doxtater, Mohawk elder,opened the meeting by welcoming the participantsto the territory of the Mohawk people. This wasfollowed by an opening address by Dr. LaurenceKirmayer, James McGill Professor of Psychiatry& Director of the Division of Social &Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill University andDirector of the Culture & Mental Health ResearchUnit at the Jewish General Hospital.

Ecocentric orientations

The morning of Day 1 of the meeting started witha discussion of ecocentric orientations.Ecocentrism is a philosophy that recognizes theimportance of the environment, and that no singleorganism is more important than another. Dr.Robin Rodd, Lecturer in Anthropology at JamesCook University in Australia in his presentation,Eco-affective reasoning, ethos and resilience,discussed how there is currently a gap in ourunderstanding of social, biological and ecologicalroots of resilience because researchers have notpaid enough attention to the importance ofindigenous belief systems. He used the example ofthe Piaroa people of southern Venezuela to talkabout indigenous healthcare systems from anecocentric perspective.

Joseph Gone, Assistant Professor in theDepartment of Psychology and the Program inAmerican Culture at the University of Michigan,also talked about ecocentric orientations. Heexplained how some people in Fort BelknapIndian reservation in the United States believe thatpeople can have good mental health if theyparticipate in indigenous rituals in sacred placeson or near the reservation. Dr. Gone talked abouthow mental health clinics on the reservation maynot be welcome by community members because

community members see them as colonialinterference on native land. He said thatcommunity members may not use these clinicsand their health services if they are not welcomeby community members.

Decolonizing methodologies

The meeting also included a panel discussion ondecolonizing research methodologies. This paneldiscussion asked a variety of questions, including:What are the implications of decolonizingmethodologies for researchers working inAboriginal communities? To what extent haveparticipatory research methodologies influencedpolicy and programming relating to Aboriginalhealth? What are the benefits and shortfalls of theprinciples of ownership, control, access andpossession (OCAP), principles that have beenadopted by many First Nations organizations?

During this panel discussion, Dr. Ann Macaulay,Sheila Whitebean and Terry Young from theKahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project(KSDPP) gave an overview of KSDPP and talkedabout the strong benefits of using community-based research where community membersparticipate in the research process. In addition,Michael Kral, a clinical psychologist andAssistant Professor in the Department ofPsychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Assistant Professor in theDepartment of Psychiatry at the University ofToronto, talked about “the indigenization ofresearch.” He gave examples of his work inNunavut and Alaska to talk about whydecolonizing methodologies may be important toAboriginal people.

Healing

During the session on healing, T’hohahokenMichael Doxtater, Director of Indigenous Studiesin Education Research and Teaching at McGillUniversity, presented the film F o r g o t t e nWarriors: The Story of Canada's Aboriginal WarVeterans. This film shares memories of CanadianAboriginal veterans of World War II. The film

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reveals how they were negatively affected by theCanadian Soldier Veteran's Settlement Act, whichwas meant to reward veterans for their service.The film tells the story of how First Nationspeople chose to enlist in Canada's armed forces inhigher numbers than many other communities.After the war, Aboriginal veterans were notoffered land entitlement. Some returned home tofind the government had already taken away partsof their own reserve land to give to non-native warveterans. Following the film, Dr. Doxtater talkedabout how the recognition of Aboriginal warveterans by their communities is part of a healingprocess that has been undertaken by manyAboriginal communities in Canada. He also talkedabout how he uses the film in workshops toprovide an opportunity for adult learners tounderstand grieving as the first step on thepathway to healing.

Resilience

During the session on resilience, Dr. Ron Neizen,Professor in the Department of Anthropology andCanada Research Chair in the Comparative Studyof Indigenous Rights and Identity at McGillUniversity, and Chris Lalonde, AssociateProfessor in the Department of Psychology at theUniversity of Victoria, talked about suicide andsuicide prevention among Aboriginal youth. Dr.Neizen argued that using the media to achievehealth care funding and autonomy may actuallynormalize suicide in Aboriginal communities. Hesuggested that communities need to promoteresilience through long-term political planningand intervention, instead of through the media. Dr.Lalonde talked about three community-basedresearch projects in British Columbia that look atthe relationship between cultural continuity andAboriginal youth health. He explained that theseprojects are trying to find ways of looking atcultural continuity from the point-of-views ofAboriginal communities.

Student workshop

The meeting also included a student workshop onresearch methodologies. The purpose of this

workshop was to allow graduate students topresent their research and get feedback fromsenior researchers with expertise in researchmethods. The workshop was for graduate studentswho are currently planning their research projectsin the area of Aboriginal health. Seniorresearchers who attended this workshop includedDr. Naomi Adelson, York University, Dr. AdrianTanner, Memorial University, Dr. Joseph Gone,University of Michigan, and Dr. Chris Lalonde,University of Victoria. The two student presenterswere Gregory Brass, McGill University, andDarien Thira, Fielding Institute of GraduateStudies.

Gregory Brass talked about his PhD researchproject, Speaking of Cancer on the Path toHealing: Identity, Medical Pluralism, and theMetastasis of Knowledge in First NationsC o m m u n i t i e s . His research looks at theexperiences of cancer among First Nations menliving in different community settings inSaskatchewan. Darien Thira also talked about hisPhD research project, From Suicidal Crisis ToSocial Activism: Healing Transformations AmongMembers of the Kwakiutl and Coast SalishNations. Darien explained how his research willlook at how suicide among Aboriginal people isrelated to colonization.

The meeting ended with a presentation by Dr. GailValaskakis, Director of Research at the AboriginalHealing Foundation (AHF). Dr. Valaskakispresented the results of the three-volume FinalReport of the AHF, which reports on six years ofresearch. The first volume, A Healing Journey:Reclaiming Wellness, summarizes what the AHFhas learned through research and evaluation. Thesecond volume, Measuring Progress: ProgramEvaluation, combines the data collected fromthree national surveys in 2000, 2002, and 2004.The third volume, Promising Healing Practices inAboriginal Communities, is about the AHF-fundedhealing programs that are working well forAboriginal communities.

Overall this year’s Annual Meeting was a successand brought together many different perspectives

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about Aboriginal mental health. The meeting alsobrought together students and researchers who areinterested in Aboriginal health research, and whoplan to become more involved with the NAMHR.

Pedagogy of HealingAbstract from Annual Meeting 2006 program

Thohahoken Michael Doxtater, PhD, McGillUniversity

In the era after 1992 Indigenous scholarsidentified healing unresolved historical grief as thepathway to stable social change for Indigenouspeoples. Physical, emotional, or spiritual damagecaused by exposure to traumatic events over thepast 200 years created direct and collateral traumacomplete with survivor guilt, blame, and shame,denial, and numbness. Ironically, these symptomsexist in cultures that have long traditions ofhealing practices across the continent such as“Wiping each others tears” (East), “Drying of thetears” (Midwest), and “Washing of the tears”(West Coast). One contemporary modality forhealing unresolved historical grief derives fromresearch-informed storytelling that strives to benot merely didactic, but has an experimentalimpact on adult learners. This session focuses onthe documentary film “Forgotten Warriors” (NFB1996) and workshops using the film that providean opportunity for adult learners that allow themto experience perspective transformations tounderstand grieving as the first step on thepathway for healing.

Toward community-baseddefinitions of the relations betweencultural continuity and youthhealthAbstract from Annual Meeting 2006 program

Chris Lalonde, PhD, University of Victoria,Michael Chandler, PhD, University of BritishColumbia, Anne George University of NorthernBritish Columbia

This presentation offers a brief overview of threeinterrelated community-based research projectsmeant to explore relations between measures ofcultural continuity and youth health. Building onour earlier epidemiological research (Chandler &Lalonde, 1998), these new efforts will focus onexpanding our measures of cultural continuity bypartnering with representatives of 28 First Nationscommunities and asking them collaborate with usin creating measures that best capture the workbeing done in their own communities. That is,cultural continuity will be defined at a local ratherthan provincial level. In addition, we are workingto expand our list of youth health outcomemeasures to include not only suicide, but alsomeasures of intended and unintended injury,health system utilization, and school performance.Importantly, the injury data will be collectedwithin the communities (rather than assembledfrom outside sources) using a newly developedsurveillance tool and will be used by thecommunities to monitor the effects of community-based programs aimed at supporting youth.

Speaking of Cancer on the Path toHealing: Identity, MedicalPluralism, and the Metastasis ofKnowledge in First NationsCommunitiesAbstract from Annual Meeting 2006 program

Greg Brass, MA, McGill University

My research project investigates the experiencesof cancer and explores the differences in patternsof resort among First Nations males residing indifferent community settings in the Canadianprovince of Saskatchewan: 1) Rural First Nationscommunities or Indian reserves, 2) Semi-ruralmulti-ethnic townships, and 3) The city ofSaskatoon. The objectives of this ethnographicstudy are twofold: firstly, it aims to understand therole social networks – communal, familial, andclinical / practitioner / healer – play in creatingexplanatory models of a chronic disease &structuring allegiances to specific types of

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treatment and curing practices; secondly, it willdocument the causes, consequences andcontradictions of disparate systems of knowledgeabout cancer and various therapeutic practices fortreating it. This research hypothesizes that cancer,its discourses, and urban / rural transmigrationamong First Nations populations plays a centralrole in the hybridization of indigenous identity.Whether or not this process of hybridization leadsto increased rates of survival may be beyond thescope of the project but some anecdotal evidenceof enhanced quality of life should be apparent.

Examination of the socio-historical setting of Inuithealthcare in northern CanadaNAMHR Student Research

Lisette Colleen Hoeltzel, Visiting Scholar

My research project is an examination of thesocio-historical setting of Inuit healthcare innorthern Canada, and an exploration of currentsuicide research and prevention efforts inNunavut.  I am analyzing the evolving effortsaimed at improving Inuit mental health andalleviating high rates of suicide, and thecorresponding gaps in the existing literature andpolicies.  Currently, I am working to obtaininterviews with Nunavut government officials andsuicide prevention organizations to directlyunderstand what are the perceived problems andaccomplishments for effective suicide preventionin the territory.

Lisette can be reached at 06lchoel@alma.edu.

Resource Materials

The following are recent publications by theNAMHR co-investigators and collaborators:

Adelson, N. (2005). The embodiment of inequity:Health disparities in Aboriginal Canada. CanadianJournal of Public Health, 96, s45-s61.

Adelson, N. (2005). In appreciation of the goose:The relationship between of food, gender andrespect amongst the Iiyiyu’ch of Great Whale,Québec. In L. Biggs & P. Downe, (Eds.),Gendered Intersections: A collection of Readingsin Women’s and Gender Studies. Halifax:Fernwood Publishing.

Adelson, N. (2005). La Souffrance Collective:Une Analyse Anthropologique De L'IncarnationD'Injustice. (2005). Revue québécoise depsychologie, 26(2), 111-127.

Chandler, M. J., & Proulx, T. (2006). Changingselves in changing worlds: Youth suicide on thefault-lines of colliding cultures. Archives ofSuicide Research, 10(2), 125-40.

Fiske, J. (2005). Spirited subjects and woundedsouls: Political representations of the im/moralfrontier. In M. Rutherdale & K. Pickles (Eds.),Embodied Contexts. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Fletcher, C. (2006). Environmental Sensitivities:Equivocal Illness in the Context of Place.Transcultural Psychiatry, 43 (5-6), 86-105.

Kidd, S.A., & Kral, M.J. (2005). Practicingparticipatory research, Journal of CounsellingPsychology, 52, 187-195.

Kirmayer, L.J. (2006). Beyond the ‘New Cross-cultural Psychiatry’: Cultural Biology, DiscursivePsychology and the Ironies of Globalization.Transcultural Psychiatry, 43 (1): 126-144.

Waldram, J.B. (2006). The View from the Hogan:Cultural Epidemiology and the Return toEthnography. Transcultural Psychiatry, 43: 72-85.

A bibliography of Arctic social science theses anddissertations, updates July 15, 2006, is available atwww.mcgill.ca/namhr/resources/articles/.

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Announcements

The NAMHR has a new coordinator. ShannonDow has a master’s degree in Social & CulturalAnthropology. Her master’s research exploredperceptions of type 2 diabetes in Kahnawake, aMohawk reserve community near to the city ofMontreal.

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The schedule for the Division of Social andCultural Psychiatry’s 13th Annual SummerProgram is now available online. The SummerProgram will run from May 7 – June 4, 2007. Foraddit ional information please consultwww.mcgill.ca/tcpsych/training/summer/.

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The Indian residential schools settlement processhas begun, and courts across Canada are holdingpublic hearings to consider whether the settlementis fair, reasonable, and adequate. For furtherinformation about the settlement process and theTruth and Reconciliation Commission, please visithttp://www.irsr-rqpi.gc.ca/english/index.html.

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The Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) hasreleased a three-volume Final Report that presentsthe AHF’s activities over the past six years. Thevolumes include: Volume I, A Healing Journey:Reclaiming Wellness, Volume 2, MeasuringProgress: Program Evaluation, and Volume III,Promising Healing Practices in AboriginalCommunities. To find out more information aboutthe reports, or to order copies, please visitwww.ahf.ca or call 1-888-725-8886 (toll-free).

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The First Nations Leadership CouncilRepresenting the BC Assembly of First Nations,the First Nations Summit and the Union of BCIndian Chiefs, the Government of Canada, and theGovernment of British Columbia signed the First

Nations Health Plan Memorandum ofUnderstanding on November 27, 2006. Forinformation about the Memorandum ofUnderstanding, please visit www.gov.bc.ca._______________________

The Assembly of First Nations recentlyannounced a new campaign called “Make PovertyHistory: The First Nations Plan for CreatingOpportunity.” The campaign was launched incollaboration with the global and national effortsto eliminate poverty, with a focus specifically onFirst Nations communities. For more informationabout the campaign, please visit www.afn.ca.

Upcoming Events

Division of Social and TransculturalPsychiatry, McGill University

Annual Advanced Study Institute in CulturalPsychiatry

Psychopharmacology in a Globalizing WorldJune 12 – 15, 2007

McGill’s Division of Social and TransculturalPsychiatry organizes an annual one week institutefor advanced study of current issues in culturalpsychiatry. The 2007 Institute will involve a two-day workshop for researchers limited to 40participants, followed by a two-day conferenceopen to clinicians, policy-makers and others.

DatesWorkshop: June 12 – 13, 2007

Conference: June 14 – 15, 2007

LocationInstitute of Community and Family Psychiatry4333 Côte Ste-Catherine Road, Montreal, Quebec

For information about the Advanced StudyInstitute and this year’s program, please visitwww.mcgill.ca/tcpsych/training/advanced/.Alternatively, for information call 514 398 7302,or email tc.psych@mcgill.ca.

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Community-Based Participatory Research

Workshop offered in the McGill SummerProgram in Social and Cultural Psychiatry

June 4, 200709h00-18h00

This workshop is offered by Dr. A. C. Macaulayand the Kahnawake Community-ResearcherTeam, and facilitated by the Kahnawake SchoolsDiabetes Prevention Project researchers andcommunity members. The workshop will addressparticipatory research based on their experiences.Topics will include: participatory research theory;building and maintaining healthy respectfulpartnerships; developing collaborative projectstrategies from design through dissemination;ownership of research data; maximizing benefitsand minimizing community risks; capacitybuilding and sustainability. The development andapplication of the Kahnawake Schools DiabetesPrevention Project Code of Research Ethics willbe highlighted. Obligations of researchers andcommunity partners will be discussed in thecontext of the new ethic of respecting community.For more information please visi twww.mcgill.ca/tcpsych/training/summer/.

National Network for Aboriginal MentalHealth Research

Widening the Circle

is published by the National Network forAboriginal Mental Health Research

Culture & Mental Health Research UnitInstitute of Community &

Family PsychiatrySir Mortimer B. Davis –Jewish General Hospital

4333 Cote Saint Catherine RoadMontreal, Quebec H3T 1E4

Phone: (514) 340-8222 ext. 2192Fax: (514) 340-7503

Web: www.mcgill.ca/namhr

NAMHR Mailing List

The NAMHR mailing list is for researchers, healthprofessionals, and others interested in Aboriginalmental health. The mailing list is a useful place topost announcements (e.g., conferences, jobopportunities, etc.), pose questions or locateresource people.

To subscribe to the NAMHR listserv, send aregistration email directly to the listserv programat listserv@lists.mcgill.ca. In this email the subjectline is to be left blank, and the body of the emailshould contain the following one line:

SUB NAMHR firstname and lastname (replace thefirstname and lastname with your first and lastnames).

Everyone is welcome to subscribe to the listserv,and we encourage you to sign up!

Alternatively, for more information aboutNAMHR visit www.mcgill.ca/namhr/, or contactShannon Dow, NAMHR Coordinator at: 514-340-8222 ext. 2192 or by email atshannonaudrey.dow@mail.mcgill.ca.