Reimagining Indigenous spaces of healing: Institutional environmental repossession

Abstract

Among the global Indigenous population, concepts of health and healthy living are wholistically intertwined within social, physical, natural, and spiritual systems. On-going processes of colonization and experiences of environmental dispossession have had the effect of removing Indigenous peoples from the lands, people and knowledge systems that have traditionally promoted their health. In 2014, Big-Canoe and Richmond introduced the idea of environmental repossession. This concept refers to the social, economic, and cultural processes Indigenous people are engaging in to reconnect with their traditional lands and territories, the wider goal being to assert their rights as Indigenous people and to improve their health and well-being. As Indigenous mothers, both who live in urban centres “away” from our families and traditional lands and knowledge systems, we engage with this conceptual model as a hopeful way to reimagine relationships to land, family, and knowledge. We embrace the concept of environmental repossession, and its key elements – land, social relationships, Indigenous knowledge – as a framework for promoting health and healing spaces among those who live “away” from their traditional territory. Drawing on three examples, an urban hospital, a university food and medicine garden, and a men’s prison, we suggest that these spaces do indeed offer important structural proxies for land, social relationships, and Indigenous knowledge, and can be important healing spaces. With increasingly urbanizing Indigenous populations in Canada, and around the world, these findings are important for the development of healing places for Indigenous peoples, regardless of where they live.

Incorporating First Nations, Inuit and Métis Traditional Healing Spaces within a Hospital Context: A Place-Based Study of Three Unique Spaces within Canada’s Oldest and Largest Mental Health Hospital

“…To perform geographical research in meaningful ways, Indigenous geographers have embraced a relational framework stemming from the uptake of applied Indigenous community-based participatory research approaches [ 27 , 44 , 45 , 46 ] and evolving through the development of Indigenous relational protocols [ 53 ] that are used to advance and benefit Indigenous communities’ health and wellness [ 27 , 46 ]. Indigenous geographers now seek to embody Indigenous methodologies, theoretical frameworks, and Indigenist, self-determined research [ 4 , 19 , 44 , 45 ]. Within this promising new discipline, this study builds on a process of community-engaged research, building on an Indigenous, relational worldview and privileging Indigenous voices and perspectives from the ground, while seeking to validate relationships and experiences within the THSs.…”

“…This growing inequity is reflected in healthcare, with Indigenous Peoples experiencing higher rates of unmet healthcare needs than non-Indigenous Peoples while reporting negative encounters and overall barriers in accessing care through the dominant system [ 11 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. More options are needed to address this growing health equity gap; specifically, Indigenous populations carry a disproportionate burden of mental and physical illness, yet there is a limited decolonial body of knowledge about how Indigenous health practices can be combined into mainstream healthcare, such as publicly funded institutions and hospitals, for the purposes of healing and wellness [ 17 , 18 , 19 ].…”

“…Since the time of the Indian Residential School System, institutional spaces have been widely characterized as a tool for assimilating and civilizing the original people of Turtle Island, manifesting in a harmful era where Indigenous Peoples were confined within these closed environments, far removed from places on the land [ 15 , 16 , 18 , 19 ]. Despite this negative history, institutional spaces continue to be used widely as purveyors of healthcare, education, and justice [ 19 ]. Specifically, hospitals have been called out as unsafe spaces for Indigenous Peoples [ 5 , 15 , 16 ].…”

“…To offer TH practices effectively, institutional spaces must be transformed to facilitate access to or connections with the natural environment, which may include the burning of plant medicines, often referred to as smudging [ 19 , 28 , 33 , 34 ]. In 2022, Asamoah et al presented their systematic review of Indigenous Traditional Healing programs within the mainstream healthcare systems in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, concluding that there are few examples [ 6 ].…”

Therapeutic horticulture and desistance from crime

“…Finally, other researchers suggest the need to orient more towards healing as social practice, rather than only medical models of treatment. This might involve, for instance, spaces that emphasise ‘environmental repossession’ for Indigenous groups and enable people to reclaim relationships to local ecologies in institutionalised environments (Ambtman‐Smith, 2020). The issue of healing also emphasises that correctional settings are often not ideal for truly rehabilitative or therapeutic interventions more generally (Brinkley‐Rubinstein, 2013; Jewkes et al., 2019; Pilarinos et al., 2018).…”