Moving and Enhancing System Change

Abstract

All Indigenous peoples across the globe have experienced multiple historical colonial aggression and assaults. In Canada and the USA for example, education was used as a tool of oppression for Indigenous peoples through residential school. Child welfare, health and health care, and forced land relocation are also sites of intensive and invasive harms. Health services continue to be a site of systemic and personal oppression for Indigenous peoples across Canada and the world (Reading 2013). For many years, Indigenous peoples have faced discrimination and racism when accessing biomedical health care. Implementation of colonization in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere, have been well documented to adversely influence aspects of health in many Indigenous communities worldwide and linked to high rates of mental health, education, and employment challenges (see Loppie & Wein, 2009; Mowbray, 2007; Paradies, Harris, & Anderson, 2008); these traumas are rooted attempts in cultural extermination and deep-set pains in regard to identity and well-being (Stout & Downey, 2006; Thurston & Mashford-Pringle, 2015).