Guides: Indigenous Health and Wellness: Companion Resource Guide: Recommended Resources

About the Resources

Selected resources include podcasts, articles, and books to expand your knowledge and thinking regarding the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples in what is known as Canada. Topics include the decolonization of physical and mental health, land-based healing, and food sovereignty.

Resources

As We Have Always Done: Indigenous freedom through radical resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Publication Date: 2017
Simpson locates Indigenous political resurgence as a practice rooted in uniquely Indigenous theorizing, writing, organizing, and thinking. Indigenous resistance is a radical rejection of contemporary colonialism focused around the refusal of the dispossession of both Indigenous bodies and land.
Returning to Ceremony by Chantal Fiola
Publication Date: 2021
Returning to Ceremony is the follow-up to Chantal Fiola's award-winning Rekindling the Sacred Fire and continues her ground-breaking examination of Métis spirituality, debunking stereotypes such as "all Métis people are Catholic," and "Métis people do not go to ceremonies." Fiola finds that, among the Métis, spirituality exists on a continuum of Indigenous and Christian traditions, and that Métis spirituality includes ceremonies.
The Arts of Indigenous Health and Well-Being by Nancy Van Styvendale, J. D. McDougall, Robert Henry, Robert Alexander Innes (Editors)
Publication Date: 2021
In this interdisciplinary collection, Indigenous knowledges inform an approach to health as a wider set of relations that are central to well-being, wherein artistic expression furthers cultural continuity and resilience, community connection, and kinship to push back against forces of fracture and disruption imposed by colonialism. The need for healing individuals, and health systems, is clear.
Therapeutic Nations: Healing in an Age of Indigenous Human Rights by Dian Million
Publication Date: 2013
Therapeutic Nations" is the first book to demonstrate affect and trauma’s wide-ranging historical origins in an Indigenous setting, offering insights into community healing programs. The author’s theoretical sophistication and original research make the book relevant across a range of disciplines as it challenges key concepts of American Indian and Indigenous studies.
Facing the mountain: Indigenous healing in the shadow of colonialism by Catherine Lynn Richardson
Publication Date: 2021
Indigenous healing and decolonization. Nowhere in the texts on counselling, recovery, or lifespan development does it make links between well-being and not having your land stolen. Richardson goes beyond offering social analysis, and possible pathways toward healing, and shares her own experience as an Indigenous woman with Metis, Cree and Gwichin heritage."

ARTICLES

McGregor, D. (2015). Indigenous women, water justice and zaagidowin (love). Canadian Woman Studies.

Nez Henderson, P., Lee, J. P., Soto, C., O′ Leary, R., Rutan, E., D′ Silva, J., Waa, A., Henderson, Z. P., Nez, S. S., & Maddox, R. (2022). Decolonization of tobacco in Indigenous communities of turtle island (North America). Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 24(2), 289–291.

Redvers, J. (2020). “The land is a healer”: Perspectives on land-based healing from Indigenous practitioners in northern Canada. International Journal of Indigenous Health, 15(1), 90–107.

Sasakamoose, J., Bellegarde, T., Sutherland, W., Pete, S., & McKay-McNabb, K. (2017). Miỳo-pimātisiwin developing Indigenous Cultural Responsiveness Theory (ICRT): Improving indigenous health and well-being. International Indigenous Policy Journal, 8(4).

JOURNALS

Unreserved: How traditional food is helping Indigenous patients heal at Alaskan hospital
Hosted by Rosanna Deerchild. Discussing the Alaska Native Medical Center's use of traditional Indigenous foods to bring comfort to Indigenous patients
All My Relations: Healing the Land IS Healing Ourselves
Discussion with Diné woman Kim Smith about her work to heal her land as a form of decolonization, self-healing, and resilience
All My Relations: The Ancestors Know You - Real Life Connection Stories
This episode shares the stories of how two Indigenous people reconnected with their communities
Media Indigena: Indigenous Current Affairs # 179: Taking the Measure of Data on Indigenous Peoples
Dr. Jennifer Walker discusses Indigenous peoples and their relationship to data, including harmful colonial health stats taking.
Auntie Up!
A 10-part podcast discussing various topics that are significant and relevant to Indigenous women on Turtle Island or what is known as North America

Decolonizing Wellness - a two-eyed seeing approach to health and wellness. Six-part YouTube production by cə̓q̓cq̓am (Thunder) Ryan Oliverius of Okanagan Indian Band (OKIB) and Shayla Raine, a nehiyaw iskwew from Louis Bull Tribe. two-eyed seeing approach to health and wellness The documentary series details their wellness journey of decolonizing their lifestyles and embracing cultural ways of being. Includes interviews with local Indigenous Peoples and documentation of their first-person experiences embarking on a new lifestyle.

niKet (food) - CBC doc: Indigenous researchers Max Liboiron and Liz Pijogge work together in St. John’s and Nain (Labrador), to study threats to food security and food sovereignty around traditional Inuit food sources.

Library

Indigenous Health and Wellness: Companion Resource Guide

About the Resources

Resources