indigenous people and intergenerational trauma

#Indigenous people and intergenerational trauma full

It is only through these sorts of actions that we can begin to reckon with past and present harms and ready ourselves for the difficult and meaningful work that reconciliation entails. These successes hinge on having supportive networks that can back these often-taxing decisions and require being centrally placed in a given work rather than having a marginalized positioning (for example, before the main text rather than preceding the references in a publication 18 or on the first rather than the last day of a conference). We have seen this truth-telling in ecological realms being frequently challenged on the basis of relevance or objectivity (for example, through the peer-review process or in conference settings), and we have witnessed how researchers can succeed in sharing their work in a good way when they defend the need for taking the space and time to share uncomfortable histories and stories of survival (for example, ref. Knowing and sharing these stories presents both an opportunity to heal past traumas and to build deeper understandings of Indigenous rights and connections to place that, by design, have been excluded from public education systems and national narratives 17. Ecologists carry a responsibility for learning about historical and/or ongoing injustices, especially those that have transformed Indigenous relationships to the Lands and Waters that they work on (or wish to). In its final reporting, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was clear that “ithout truth … there can be no genuine reconciliation”, as “too many Canadians know little or nothing about the deep historical roots” of the ongoing issues and effects that stem from settler colonialism, generally 17.

Recognize that reconciliation can only come after truth The ability of Indigenous Peoples to own, control, access and possess ( OCAP® is a registered trademark of the First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC)) their data actively recognizes that Indigenous Peoples are the ultimate authority of their own data and redefines Indigenous Peoples as partners rather than participants in research. In the context of research, this is understood to mean “that topics under investigation are identified as priorities by Indigenous people, reinforce Indigenous values, are informed by Indigenous frames of reference, and yield benefits to Indigenous individuals and groups” 10.Ī fifteenth and sixteenth century legal principle used to justify Christian colonial conquest around the world, including in North America: “the Doctrine provided that newly arrived Europeans immediately and automatically acquired legally recognized property rights in native lands and also gained governmental, political, and commercial rights over the inhabitants without the knowledge or the consent of the Indigenous eoples” 11. This is a key responsibility for researchers in upholding Indigenous rights 8.Īn expression used across many distinct Indigenous cultures to denote “participation that honors tradition and spirit” 9.

#Indigenous people and intergenerational trauma full

‘Lands and Waters’ is used throughout this text to refer to these cultural, relational and highly contextual positions that go beyond the strictly physical and geographical spaces evoked by ‘lands and waters’.Īpproval by rights holders given voluntarily, in advance of activities and based on full knowledge of what is being proposed the ‘ Three Frameworks of Consent’ by the Yellowhead Institute provides more information. Far from being incidental, these harms have been carried out with a clear purpose - to concentrate power in the hands of researchers and research institutions - and in wilful ignorance of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Lands 6.Ĭulturally imbued physical and spiritual spaces, “grounded in interconnected and interdependent relationships” between human and other-than-human beings 7. These instances reflect a blatant form of racism that treats certain segments of society as subhuman, but there is also a quieter, insidious form of harmful science and research that proliferates in institutes and academies researchers who proceed without free, prior and informed consent (Box 1), studying a community ‘to death’ 5 and deriving benefits that flow unilaterally in one direction 2 - the list goes on. Examples abound, from the misuse of Nuu-chah-nulth blood samples across decades to the rampant expropriation of tribes from their Lands and Waters (as defined in Box 1) in the name of establishing protected areas and on to Canada’s egregious nutrition experiments performed on children at residential ‘schools’ who were forcibly removed from their families 3, 4.

For many Indigenous Peoples around the world, ‘science’ and ‘research’ can be triggering terms and are often conceptualized as ‘dirty words’ owing to the tremendous harms - past, present and future - that they cause 1, 2.