The following examines factors associated with Indigenous secondary student success with a focus on wise practices in quality education in a northern Ontario city, Canada. Wise practices are an ...Indigenous perspective on best practices that recognizes there are a diversity of Indigenous ways of knowing and being, and that local histories, communities, and cultural practices are relevant. Results of qualitative research with Indigenous students, staff, teachers, and graduates suggest that parents and the social environment are determinants in Indigenous student success and that Indigenous students negotiate their identity in the pursuit of success. Furthermore, Indigenous curriculum and Indigenous teachers and administrative staff are essential in supporting student success and nurturing the educational journeys of students. Wise practices in Indigenous education in northern Ontario reflect localized land-based learning and teaching in collaboration with urban Indigenous organizations and Elders, and Knowledge holders and administrative officials.
The legacy of colonialism in Canada manifests through land dispossession, structural violence and assimilative policies. Casinos are an anomaly emerging in Canada, becoming major economic engines, ...generating capital for housing, education, health, and language and cultural rejuvenation programs. On the other hand, the literature on Indigenous casinos raises crucial questions about compromised sovereignty, addiction, and neocolonial economic and political entrapment. This article theorises Indigenous casinos as a modern expression of the windigo. In Algonquian oral history, the windigo is a mythic giant cannibal. The underlying meaning of the windigo is the consumption of Indigenous peoples leading to illness and death. One can become a windigo and consume others, and one must always be cautious of this possibility. I propose casinos and Indigenous-provincial gambling revenue agreements are modern-day windigook (plural form of windigo). This framework provides an urgently needed new theorisation of casinos, grounded in Indigenous epistemology and ontology.
Canadian health care systems have failed to recognize that traditional healing practices and ceremonies are central to Indigenous culture and identity. The roots of this failure date back to colonial ...policies such as amendments to the federal Indian Act in 1885 (persisting until 1951), that made Indigenous ceremonies, like the Sun Dance and Potlatch, illegal to attend. They also relate to how the most authoritative forms of medical knowledge have evolved without consideration of the cultural needs of Indigenous Peoples. Recently, a policy framework has emerged with the potential to support a more inclusive approach to health care for Indigenous Canadians who value ceremonies, land-based teachings, identity formation and connection to family and community as part of health and healing.
Photovoice is a community-based participatory visual research method often described as accessible to vulnerable or marginalized groups and culturally appropriate for research with Indigenous ...peoples. Academic researchers report adapting the photovoice method to the sociocultural context of Indigenous participants and communities with whom they are working. However, detailed descriptions on cultural frameworks for transforming photovoice in order for it to better reflect Indigenous methodologies are lacking, and descriptions of outcomes that occur as a result of photovoice are rare. We address the paucity of published methodological details on the participant-directed Indigenization of photovoice. We conducted 13 visual research group sessions with participants from three First Nations communities in Northern Ontario, Canada. Our intent was to privilege the voice of participants in a mindful exploration aimed at cocreating a transformation of the photovoice method, in order to meet participants’ cultural values. Gaataa’aabing is the Indigenized, culturally safe visual research method created through this process. Gaataa’aabing represents an Indigenous approach to visual research methods and a renewed commitment to engage Indigenous participants in meaningful and productive ways, from the design of research questions and the Indigenization of research methods, to knowledge translation and relevant policy change. Although Gaataa’aabing was developed in collaboration with Anishinaabek people in Ontario, Canada, its principles will, we hope, resonate with many Indigenous groups due to the method’s focus on (1) integration of cultural values of the respective Indigenous community(ies) with whom researchers are collaborating and (2) placing focus on concrete community outcomes as a requirement of the research process.
In this interview, Darrel Manitowabi speaks to Sheila Wahsquonaikezhik, Director of Indige-Spheres to Empowerment, a non-profit organization addressing Indigenous health and wellness. This interview ...explores Sheila Wahsquonaikezhik’s Indigenous gambling experience including work in an Indigenous casino in Ontario, gambling harm reduction outreach in northwestern Ontario First Nations, and gambling research collaborations. An outcome of this interview is a revelation that the practice of Indigenous gambling is connected to the wider context of colonialism and Indigenous gambling research requires greater inclusion of Indigenous peoples.
The opioid crisis is disproportionately impacting Indigenous communities in Canada. There is a need to evaluate practical approaches to recovery that include community-based opioid agonist treatment ...(OAT) and integration of cultural treatment models. Naandwe Miikan, translated as The Healing Path, is an OAT program that blends clinical and Indigenous healing concepts and providers in a community-based setting. Aside from OAT pharmaceutical treatment, clients work with Indigenous counsellors that integrate culture with treatment, such as land-based activities, that reconnect the community to Indigenous teachings and harvesting. In this paper, we present a case study showcasing community advocacy in creating innovative funding models and engaging with clinicians to provide a shared care OAT model with traditional Indigenous counselling, cultural programs, and data sovereignty. Policy needs are identified.
In this interview, Darrel Manitowabi speaks to Sheila Wahsquonaikezhik, Director of Indige-Spheres to Empowerment, a non-profit organization addressing Indigenous health and wellness. This interview ...explores Sheila Wahsquonaikezhik’s Indigenous gambling experience including work in an Indigenous casino in Ontario, gambling harm reduction outreach in northwestern Ontario First Nations, and gambling research collaborations. An outcome of this interview is a revelation that the practice of Indigenous gambling is connected to the wider context of colonialism and Indigenous gambling research requires greater inclusion of Indigenous peoples.
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