List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgments Dedication

Preface Relational Accountability About this Book How the Book is Organized

1.Introduction The Importance of Power and Place: Place-Based Consciousness Who is Indigenous? Indigenous Peoples and the Urban Landscape in Canada Indigenous Perspectives on the Good Life The Link Between Social Capital and Indigenous Well-Being

2. The Impacts of Colonization on Indigenous Health and Well-being Setter State Policy and Indigenous Peoples Assimilation Policy and Poor Health Outcomes The Indian Reserve System The Residential School System Historical Trauma for Generations to Come Acts of Reconciliation The 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

3. Decolonizing Bodies and a Self-Governing Health System Indigenous Well-being and Urban Life Beyond the Western Medical Model and Decolonizing Bodies Health Transformation and Self-Determination Health Governance and the First Nations Health Authority

4. Social Capital Theory, Health Indicators and Indigenous Communities Historical Overview: Bourdieusian Social Capital and Health Status Social Capital Analysis and Applied Social Research Social Capital Theory and Colonization Moving Beyond the GDP: Social and Economic Indicators of Well-being How is Well-Being Measured in Canada? How is Indigenous Well-Being Measured in Canada? Indigenous Health Indictors Frameworks

5. Decolonizing Data and Critical Research Methods Decolonizing Methodologies Ethics: Honoring Indigenous Protocols and Relational Accountability Participation Action Research and Indigenous Communities Two-Eyed Seeing and Indigenous Health Outcomes Qualitative Findings The Origin Story of the First Nations Perspective on Health and Wellness Traditional Knowledge Data Governance and Ownership From Illness Models to Wellness Perspectives A Critical Data Approach Decolonizing Data and Indigenous Health Outcomes The 2012 Aboriginal People’s Survey and Measuring Historical Trauma Individual and Community Level Factors Affecting Indigenous Health Outcomes Quantitative Findings Transgenerational Trauma and Health Outcomes Indigenous Culture as Resistance to Trauma

6. Conclusion Indigenous-Based Determinants of Health and Wellness Social Capital and Indigenous Health and Wellness Critical Reflections Allyship and Solidarity Relational Allyship and Responsive Research Responsive Research, the TRAC Method and Indigenous Data Sovereignty The Limitations of Two-Eyed Seeing Indigenous Data Sovereignty References

Since the onset of 2020 we have been confronted by a global pandemic that continues to evolve at an accelerated pace in all countries around the world. According to the World Health Organization, a viral infectious disease of the coronavirus family that was discovered when an outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 (WHO, 2020). There is no doubt that we are living in a time that is rife with uncertainty, social distancing, isolation, and fear and there is a critical need to understand how the social determinants of health have an impact on individuals as well as whole communities and nations. José Francisco Cali Tzay (Guatemala), Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples for the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (2020), warns of the impact of the pandemic on Indigenous peoples worldwide. Indigenous peoples in Canada already have high rates of chronic health conditions such as diabetes and hypertension that, coupled with social factors such as climate change, systemic racism, discrimination, and poverty, could heighten the risk of infection for many Indigenous peoples.

Canada has a colonial history that has had a devastating impact on Indigenous peoples and I believe that amid the pandemic, addressing the social dimensions of health should be ranked high among priorities for future health policy considerations. This book is part of a pandemic ready scholarly response that focuses on gaining a deeper understanding of the social dimensions of health as applied to Indigenous peoples who have been historically underfunded and excluded when it comes to health services, programs, and quality of care. The social dimensions of health, especially during a global pandemic, should indeed also be part of academic institutional responses to working with and supporting Indigenous research initiatives.

Since the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2015, the Indigenization of Canadian universities has been high among priorities set by university administration offices. Many post-secondary institutions across the country are now sharing their strategic priorities regarding their Indigenous plans, territorial acknowledgments, and active Indigenous hiring and are striking task forces and committees. Post-secondary institutions across Canada and major funding agencies such as the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) have been responding in various ways to address the TRC’s ninety-four multifaceted Calls to Action. One Call to Action in particular, number sixty-five, is worth noting:

We call upon the federal government, through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, post-secondary institutions and educators, and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and its partner institutions, to establish a national research program with multi-year funding to advance understanding of reconciliation. (TRC, 2015, p. 242)

In the past several years, Canadian universities and colleges have been moving forward with research protocols. As well, the SSHRC has summarized how it intends to fund Indigenous research through SSHRC initiatives to support Indigenous research and talent as well as upcoming SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grants about Indigenous peoples’ reconciliation (SSHRC, 2016). In fact, Ted Hewitt, president of the SSHRC, has held the position that “social science and humanities scholars and their partners across the country are in a position to facilitate access to knowledge in all of these areas – knowledge properly grounded in relations of respect, diversity and reciprocity between Indigenous and academic communities” (Hewitt, 2016, p. 1). There is currently considerable interest inside and outside the academy in a range of issues associated with decolonizing research methods and Indigenizing health research. Part of the challenge is that the link between the ninety-four Calls to Action of the TRC and research work, especially among non-Indigenous researchers, is still not clear. Indigenous peoples and communities have long experienced exploitation by researchers and to counter that there is increasing focus on participatory action research and decolonizing research processes (Smith, 2006, 2012). As researchers, we must consider that our research practices and outcomes are “affiliated with mainstream institutions – and irrespective of our personal commitments and intentions – we are located at a nexus of power in the dominant society” (Menzies, 2001, p. 22). This means that applied research methodologies should not remain inaccessible to the people and communities we work with in generating knowledge and outcomes.

As a settler-ally and a sociologist, I have been reflecting on what this means for our research and pedagogical practices and for student learning and how we can better focus our attention on Indigenization and decolonization. I do not think I am alone when I ask, “As a non-Indigenous scholar, how does one move forward with decolonization of research practices and where should I begin?” I wrote this book as a unique scholarly contribution for other researchers, practitioners, and graduate students who may be pondering similar questions about Indigenization and decolonization of their research work. In doing so, I offer a careful and respectful reflection based in many years of my own research experience with Indigenous communities and organizations on how to “unsettle conversations” about research.

The central argument of this book is that state-centric colonial structures exert a form of structural violence on Indigenous peoples because they exercise colonial power over them by legitimizing western ways of thinking about well-being over Indigenous ways of “being well.” This argument is based in evidence-supported research findings. If non-Indigenous researchers are to understand and address health inequalities that exist today for Indigenous peoples, then I suggest that careful consideration is needed about how the ways in which we teach our research practices to students and apply them as practitioners support a colonial way of thinking about and doing social research. We must ask ourselves if what we are doing is derived from colonial praxis. This book is an invitation for non-Indigenous researchers to look at the ways in which everyday research practices, particularly within the social sciences, contribute to the colonization of research practices and data. These practices have caused and continue to cause harm for Indigenous peoples. Non-Indigenous scholars need to start to look at doing research in different ways, which means that this conversation will most likely be uncomfortable for many people but it is through this discomfort that we will gather valuable insights into respect and relational accountability as pathways that open space for Indigenization. I have come to understand that Indigenization is about infusing the academy with Indigenous knowledge and applying decolonial practices through our research work to strip away the colonial knowledge systems and institutions that prevent Indigenous knowledge from flourishing.

I am a second-generation immigrant, which means, like the majority of people, a settler on Turtle Island (an Indigenous name for the continent also known as North America). I am an ethnically blended and biracial person of mixed European (Irish/ British) and Indian ancestry. My father, grandparents, and ancestors are from the communities of Secunderabad and Hyderabad in central India and, although my father settled on Turtle Island in 1967, several of my relatives still live throughout India. My personal journey of cultural diversity reads more as a story of paradox. At times, I embrace a rich sense of cultural awareness and at other times I suffer from my family’s assimilation processes after their arrival to Canada, including dispossession from their native Hindi language, traditions, and customary clothing and adherence to the angloconformity model of mainstream western culture. It seems to me that dominant society has played an instrumental role in telling us who we are and how we should recognize and express our Indian identity. Throughout much of my life, I have internalized racism and negative stereotypes and know what it feels like to be silenced and have social worth assigned by others based on skin colour and ethnic origins. As a blended person, my identity is not inseparable from these experiences but emerges from an intersection of structures of oppression such as my gender, family origins, skin colour, and the tensions experienced through a relational process with various social institutions and other groups along the way. I feel accountable to my research relationships and the types of research work I have been doing for nearly two decades. I started my research career fresh out of my undergraduate degree in sociology in my first job as a research assistant working at the Population Research Lab at the University of Alberta, and a few years later was delighted to become employed as a researcher and course instructor at Statistics Canada. At this time, I was 25 years old and eager to learn as much as possible about “how to” do good research. It seemed that I was well positioned to learn everything there was to know about all aspects of research design processes, applying mixed methods research, and working with diverse groups of people.