Strengthening Âhkamêyimo among Indigenous youth: The social determinants of health, justice, and resilience in Canada’s north

The wellbeing of Indigenous youth living in Canada’s northern communities continues to lag behind the rest of the Canadian population. To a large extent, these health inequities are perpetuated by processes of colonisation that significantly impact the social determinants of health in Canada’s Indigenous north. The purpose of this article is to review the history of colonisation and its impacts on the wellbeing of Indigenous youth in Canada’s north, as well as processes of resilience that have helped Indigenous youth live healthy lives despite social challenges. Academic articles published between 2000 and 2016 outlining resilience from Indigenous perspectives are reviewed in the contexts of Canada’s Indigenous north. Analysis focuses on what insights about resilience emerge from Indigenous communities, particularly as they related to the health inequities of circumpolar regions. The concept of Âhkamêyimo is discussed and how systems of Indigenous knowledge offer important insights into resilience in general, and can be utilised in health promotion, education, and prevention programs targeting Indigenous youth in northern Canada. We conclude that attention should be turned toward issues of social justice and health equity that are desperately needed in order to create healthy environments whereby Indigenous youth within northern Canadian communities can be assisted to flourish

The Interpersonal Skills of Community-Engaged Scholarship: Insights From Collaborators Working at the University of Saskatchewan’s Community Engagement Office

Perhaps more clearly than other research approaches, community-based research or engaged scholarship involves both technical skills of research expertise and scientific rigor as well as interpersonal skills of relationship building, effective communication, and moral ways of being. In an academic age concerned with scientific precision, cognitive skills, quantification, and reliable measurements, the interpersonal skills required for research—and particularly community-based research and engaged scholarship—demand growing importance and resources in contemporary discourse and practice. Focused around the University of Saskatchewan’s Community Engagement Office located in the inner city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the authors draw on over 50 years of collective experience to offer critical reflections on the notion of interpersonal skills in community-engaged scholarship that manifest particularly in place-based contexts of Indigenous community partnerships. Overall, we argue that discourse and practice involving community-engaged scholarship must pay attention to the notion of interpersonal skills in various aspects and across multiple dimensions and disciplines. This approach is crucial to ensure that research is done effectively and ethically, that good quality data are produced from such research, that subtle, systematic forms of micro-aggression and oppression are minimized, and that community voices and knowledge have a meaningful and significant place in scholarship activities