Being Indian: strengths sustaining First Nations peoples in Saskatchewan residential schools

Grannies, elders, and friends: aging Aboriginal women in Toronto

Based on a research project in Toronto, Canada, this article highlights the strengths and resiliency of 12 female Aboriginal Elders and seniors as they age together. For these women, being actively involved in their families and the Aboriginal community gives them a solid grounding in who they are, what their roles are and how they contribute to the whole. Of particular significance is the support and friendship the women offer each other through their commonalities, activities, and sense of humor.

Reconceptualizing determinants of health: barriers to improving the health status of First Nations peoples

Comparing the key determinants of health articulated by the Public Health Agency of Canada (the Agency) with the spiritual and cultural knowledge systems of First Nations peoples, as expressed by the Four Worlds International Institute for Human and Community Development (Four Worlds) and their 14 determinants of well-being and health, reveals differing philosophical perspectives. The key determinants of health can be interpreted as lacking a holistic and inclusive approach to public health services. As a result, many public health programs in Canada marginalize, ignore and suppress the needs of First Nations communities and people. Incorporating the Four Worlds guiding principles and its 14 health determinants model within the context of Canadian public health services geared towards First Nations populations provides the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of social determinants of health. Therefore, when implementing public health initiatives to address the health status of First Nations people in Canada, it is important that the Agency incorporate the guiding principles of the Four Worlds: Development Comes from Within; No Vision, No Development; Individual and Community Transformations Must Go Hand in Hand; and Holistic Learning is the Key to Deep and Lasting Change. Reconceptualizing the key determinants of health to encompass the worldview expressed by the Four Worlds acknowledges the cultural wisdom of First Nations people and offers the potential to develop more inclusive public health services.

Reconcilable differences? Human diversity, cultural relativity, and sense of community

Sense of community (SOC) is one of the most widely used and studied constructs in community psychology. As proposed by Sarason in (The Psychological sense of community: prospects for a community psychology, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1974), SOC represents the strength of bonding among community members. It is a valuable component of community life, and it has been linked to positive mental health outcomes, citizen participation, and community connectedness. However, promotion of SOC can become problematic in community psychology praxis when it conflicts with other core values proposed to define the field, namely values of human diversity, cultural relativity, and heterogeneity of experience and perspective. Several commentators have noted that promotion of SOC can conflict with multicultural diversity because it tends to emphasize group member similarity and appears to be higher in homogeneous communities. In this paper, we introduce the idea of a community-diversity dialectic as part of praxis and research in community psychology. We argue that systematic consideration of cultural psychology perspectives can guide efforts to address a community-diversity dialectic and revise SOC formulations that ultimately will invigorate community research and action. We provide a working agenda for addressing this dialectic, proposing that systematic consideration of the creative tension between SOC and diversity can be beneficial to community psychology.

Phenomenology of Acculturation: Retrospective Reports from the Philippines, Japan, Quebec, and Norway

Acculturation refers to cultural learning and adjustment in the context of continuous cross-cultural experience. A phenomenology based on retrospective descriptions and analyses of self-observations in acculturation contexts may contribute to the development of theory, constructs, models, and innovative interventions. This phenomenology report focuses on 1) super-ordinate decisions, e.g., to eat all local foods; 2) metacognitive stress induced by biculturalism, e.g., anticipation of faux pas; 3) cultural play to cope with cultural incompetence, e.g., writing Haiku in a new language; 4) unconscious acculturative imitation, e.g., shifts in first-language prosody, phonology, or grammar; 5) sense of freedom, e.g., foreigners being excused from norms and expectations; and 6) the role of cultural mentors, e.g., to act as go-betweens with bureaucracies.

Diversity within: deconstructing aboriginal community health in Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve

This paper analyzes the community health of the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve (WUIR), Ontario, Canada. Results are reported from fieldwork including participant observation, key informant interviewing and self-reported data measuring health status, risk behaviour, place of residence, self-identity, and personal history extracted from 350 interviews conducted during a community-wide needs assessment. The research aimed to create a health plan for the community; however, subsequent analysis of the needs assessment results indicates that internal diversity exists in health status and needs between the seven villages that comprise WUIR. The analysis suggests variation in health status and risk-taking behaviour among community members may be related to varying colonial histories among the villages. The implications of intra-community variation in health status in First Nations are discussed in relation to influential health policy theories such as the determinants of health and health transfer policy in Canada.

“You Need to Know Where We’re Coming From”: Canadian Aboriginal Women's Perspectives on Culturally Appropriate HIV Counseling and Testing

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to determine Canadian Aboriginal women's perspectives on culturally appropriate HIV counseling and testing. Data were collected through semistructured individual interviews with 7 Aboriginal women, and one focus group, in a western Canadian city. Four major categories were elucidated through thematic content analysis: Aboriginal women's life experiences that may influence their risk of HIV infection and their response to testing; barriers to HIV testing; guiding principles of the ideal HIV testing situation; and characteristics of culturally appropriate HIV testing. The fear of being judged by both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities and the need for sensitivity to the historical and current context of Aboriginal women's life experiences were pervasive themes throughout the findings.

Coping with stress among Aboriginal women and men with diabetes in Winnipeg, Canada

Many Aboriginal peoples are widely exposed to stress in their lives. This exposure to stress appears linked not only to their contemporary and immediate life circumstances (e.g., marginal economic and at-risk living conditions) but also to their historical, cultural, and political contexts. Recently, diabetes has become prevalent in many Aboriginal communities worldwide. The purpose of the present study was to gain a better understanding of the ways in which Aboriginal peoples with diabetes cope with stress. The study used a series of focus groups among First Nations and Metis women and men with diabetes in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Based on our cross-thematic analyses of the data, three overarching themes were identified: (1) individual and collective strengths of Aboriginal peoples with diabetes must be recognized and utilized to facilitate healing from or coping with the experience of stress and trauma; (2) healing must be accomplished holistically by maintaining balance or harmony among mind, body, and spirit; and (3) effective ways of coping with stress and healing from trauma potentially promote positive transformations for Aboriginal peoples and communities at both individual and collective levels. Also, sub-themes of stress-coping and healing that underlie and further describe the above three overarching themes emerged from the data. These include: (a) interdependence/connectedness, (b) spirituality/transcendence, (c) enculturation/facilitation of Aboriginal cultural identity, (d) self-control/self-determination/self-expression, and (e) the role of leisure as a means of coping with stress and healing from trauma. Accordingly, our deeper analyses resulted in the development of an emergent model of stress-coping and healing among Aboriginal peoples with diabetes, which is presented as a dynamic system in which the three overarching themes are embedded in the five specific themes of coping/healing. This evidence-based emergent model appears to provide some important insights into health policy and program planning for Aboriginal peoples with diabetes and their communities.