Creating a Space for Decolonization: Health through Theatre with Indigenous Youth

This article reports on a research project that used theatre with Indigenous youth to address health issues. Youth participated in a three day workshop adapted from David Diamond (2007) and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed (1979) where theatre techniques were used to create a space for youth to examine the choicesthey made. Drawing on the youths’ dramatic images and responses shared in interviews, the authors theorize that the dramatic creative space sets up possibilities for decolonizing experiences where youth are asked to think for themselves, to use their bodies and to exercise their imaginations in making decisions for actions

Like Braiding Sweetgrass Nurturing Relationships and Alliances in Indigenous Community-based Research

The shifting environment of Indigenous community-based research demands reflexivity because the negotiation and maintenance of relationships are central (Findlay, Ray, & Basualdo, 2014). This paper expands on the importance of social relationships in the Nehinuw (Cree) worldview by reflecting on an ongoing research partnership among a team of Indigenous and Settler researchers from three universities and one Indigenous community agency. The Nehinuw relationships of weechihitowin (supporting and helping each other), weechiyauguneetowin (partnership, collaborative or shared action), otootemitowin (respectful openness and acceptance of others), and weechiseechigemitowin (alliances for common action) (L. Goulet & K. Goulet, 2014) form the theoretical framework for analyzing the challenges and successes that have sustained this collaboration for almost 10 years. This article will enhance understanding of Indigenous community-based research to promote an epistemological shift toward Indigenous modes of inquiry

“You Might as well Call it Planet of the Sioux”: Indigenous Youth, Imagination, and Decolonization

Colonial institutions, such as residential schools, suppressed First Nations peoples’ imaginations, punishing those who sought to exercise their imaginations. Creating imaginary spaces is an important aspect of the process of decolonization and includes the reclamation of traditional modes of relationships in new forms, the co-creation of new possibilities, and the transformation of political and personal histories. In this article, we describe a workshop with First Nations youth, focusing on two arts-based activities used to evoke imaginative spaces for First Nations youth to explore, critique, and re-imagine their histories, current realities, and futures in a safe and comfortable environment. The process of imagery and imagining facilitated awareness of things not easily expressed in words as youths’ imaginative ideas emerged through their drawings. Through these activities, youth expressed their view of healthy communities that included cultural traditions and leadership. They described leadership as enacting good communication, organization, protection, and maintenance of cultural traditions, as well as providing guidance and defending the rights of the community. These imagined possibilities provided meaningful blueprints that youth can use, alter, and be inspired by as they move towards being leaders of healthy communities

Kiskenimisowin (self-knowledge): Co-researching Wellbeing With Canadian First Nations Youth Through Participatory Visual Methods

Indigenous youth represent one of the most marginalized demographics in Canada. As such they must contend with many barriers to wellness that stem from oppression, including historical and ongoing colonization and racism. Developing effective health programming requires innovation and flexibility, especially important when programs take place in diverse Indigenous communities where local needs and cultural practices vary. This article reports the findings of an after-school program in 2014 that blended a participatory visual method of research with Indigenous knowledge, methodologies, and practices to provide sociocultural health programming for youth in a First Nation in southern Saskatchewan, Canada. Engaging with youth to co-research wellbeing through the arts was conceptualized as both research and health promotion. Participatory arts methods created a safe space for youth to express their views of health and wellness issues while developing self-knowledge about their individual and cultural identities.

Review of \u3ci\u3eBefore the Country: Native Renaissance, Canadian Mythology.\u3c/i\u3e By Stephanie McKenzie

In Before the Country, Stephanie McKenzie examines Canadian literature of the 1960s and 1970s to identify mythological patterns that are likely to become formulas when critics assume that Canada is like any other nation to have emerged since the breakdown of Charlemagne\u27s empire. A time when Canadians were struggling to invent a collec~ tive identity, the years surrounding Canada\u27s centennial were critical for the development of Canadian literature and culture. In the 1960s and 1970s, Indigenous people, in contrast, were experiencing what McKenzie terms the Native Renaissance, and their literary output caused a crisis for settlers: a nationally inspired myth, which had set out as early as the nineteenth century to fulfil its own prophecy, buckled. McKenzie challenges the settler myths of the new world and the empty land by drawing our attention to the ancient mythological codes present in con~ temporary Indigenous literature in English. Settler myths, she contends, ignore the Indigenous peoples and [loom] long and hard in Canadian literature, seeming to resurface when fervent nationalism is in need of something

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