Arts, Faculty of
Social Work, School of
DSpace
Humanities 5 (1): 14 (2016)
Clark, Natalie
The health of Indigenous girls in Canada is often framed and addressed through health programs and interventions that are based on Western values systems that serve to further colonize girls’ health and their bodies. One of the risks of the recent attention paid to Indigenous girls’ health needs broadly and to trauma more specifically, is the danger of contributing to the “shock and awe” campaign against Indigenous girls who have experienced violence, and of creating further stigma and marginalization for girls. A focus on trauma as an individual health problem prevents and obscures a more critical, historically-situated focus on social problems under a (neo)colonial state that contribute to violence. There is a need for programs that provide safer spaces for girls that address their intersecting and emergent health needs and do not further the discourse and construction of Indigenous girls as at-risk. The author will present her work with Indigenous girls in an Indigenous girls group that resists medical and individual definitions of trauma, and instead utilizes an Indigenous intersectional framework that assists girls in understanding and locating their coping as responses to larger structural and systemic forces including racism, poverty, sexism, colonialism and a culture of violence enacted through state policy and practices.
humanitiesArticleShock and Awe: Trauma as the New Colonial FrontierNatalie ClarkSchool of Social Work, 2080 West Mall, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1T2, Canada;natalie.clark@ubc.caAcademic Editor: Sonya AndermahrReceived: 30 September 2015; Accepted: 21 January 2016; Published: 5 February 2016Abstract: The health of Indigenous girls in Canada is often framed and addressed through healthprograms and interventions that are based on Western values systems that serve to further colonizegirls’ health and their bodies. One of the risks of the recent attention paid to Indigenous girls’ healthneeds broadly and to trauma more specifically, is the danger of contributing to the “shock andawe” campaign against Indigenous girls who have experienced violence, and of creating furtherstigma and marginalization for girls. A focus on trauma as an individual health problem preventsand obscures a more critical, historically-situated focus on social problems under a (neo)colonialstate that contribute to violence. There is a need for programs that provide safer spaces for girlsthat address their intersecting and emergent health needs and do not further the discourse andconstruction of Indigenous girls as at-risk. The author will present her work with Indigenous girlsin an Indigenous girls group that resists medical and individual definitions of trauma, and insteadutilizes an Indigenous intersectional framework that assists girls in understanding and locatingtheir coping as responses to larger structural and systemic forces including racism, poverty, sexism,colonialism and a culture of violence enacted through state policy and practices.Keywords: Indigenous intersectionality; decolonizing trauma; Red intersectionality; violence againstIndigenous girls1. IntroductionIndigenous Hawaiian scholar Manulani Aluli Myer says “See your work as a taonga (sacredobject) for your family, your community, your people—because it is” ([1], p. 219). Opaskwayak Creeresearcher Shaun Wilson calls for starting from our intentions, our beliefs in the work we do. Similarly,protocol within many Indigenous communities requires a person to situate themselves and theirrelationships to the people and the land [2]. I write this paper from unceded Musqueam territory, butthe coming to know, slexlexs, of my readings and learning on the land was completed from my timespent in Secwepemlux. This work is grounded in my own intersecting relationships to Indigenouscommunities and the systems in which our lives are shaped. I was born in Saskatchewan, Canada inCree territory but have been on Secwepemc territory since I was young. In many ways, my worldviewhas been shaped by Secwepemc land and through kinship relationships. My identity is formed notonly through my own metis roots but also through my own connection to the Secwepemc community,through what Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson calls a “feeling citizenship” ([3], p. 173). I knowwhom I am accountable to, and whom I belong to. These are the important questions that define myresponsibility and my role within the Secwepemc nation. My work is informed and mobilized throughmy interconnected identities as a solo-parent of three children who are Secwepemc and from the landsof the Secwepemc peoples, and my twenty years as a community based researcher, activist and traumacounsellor with Indigenous girls in urban and rural spaces. Furthermore, I draw upon the insightI have gained through conducting interviews and sharing stories with many Indigenous therapistsHumanities 2016, 5, 14; doi:10.3390/h5010014 www.mdpi.com/journal/humanitiesHumanities 2016, 5, 14 2 of 16who address violence, healing and trauma in the Secwepemc nation, and who have also witnessed theongoing resilience, survivance, and positive resistance of Indigenous children and youth.2. ContextSeveral years ago a 14-year-old Indigenous girl walked into a girls group I was facilitatingand asked if she could make an announcement. She proceeded to tell the other girls that she hadbeen sexually abused since age seven by her stepfather, and that she was not going to remain silentanymore, and, moreover, wanted them to know that they did not need to tolerate abuse. In theweeks and months that followed this act of truth-telling and collective witnessing, she was labeled,stigmatized, pathologized and ignored by police, social workers and mental health professionals whoshe encountered. Instead of focusing on the disclosure, it was suggested that she was “using drugs”,her mental health repeatedly questioned. These were provided as evidence of her credibility, herbelievability, and her motivation.Weeks passed, and I then saw this young woman walking on the street. I stopped the car andsaid hello and asked how she was doing. We exchanged cell phone numbers and the advocacy began.The other girl’s group facilitator and I began making phone calls. I became more strident with eachone as I encountered the labeling of this young woman. It was clear that a very different narrative hadbeen formed by the agencies and health care providers of a young woman who made up a story inorder to leave her small community. I was told that she used drugs, that she is a lesbian, and that shehad a clear plan to leave her community. Together, the other facilitator and I supported this youngwoman in calling a meeting, where she, together with us as supports, presented a different “picture” ofherself. She was articulate, strong and clear about the abuse and about her right to live in a safe homeand attend school where she chose. She got her day in court and the judge marveled at her strengthsand her ability to represent herself and her needs. She became a leader in the new girls group she wasattending, speaking up and naming her feelings, and her challenges. She wrote a support letter aboutthe need for Indigenous girls groups and presented the model at a School District board meeting.Caught in a web of government policies and community norms around violence towardsIndigenous girls and women, her act of resistance to longstanding abuse was shaped by intersectingcolonial discourses and practices. On paper, these relevant policies and practices may have appeared toacknowledge the unique intersecting factors that impacted her safety, health and mental health, but they(and the people who administered them and had written them) lacked an analysis of colonialismand were, in fact, part of a legacy of colonialism in perpetuating violence against her and otherIndigenous girls.I suggest that the current construction of trauma continues to create a colonial subject who requiresintervention, support and saving. A focus on trauma as an individual health problem, as in this girlsstory, prevents and obscures a more critical, historically-situated focus on social problems under a (neo)colonial state that contribute to violence and harm. This paper will consider the following: What arethe historic and current impacts of the creation of a “trauma industry” within Indigenous communities,and how does the individualized and medicalized approach to trauma undermine community andindividual girls’ resilience and resistance?The young woman’s story that begins this paper joins with the voices of Indigenous girls andwomen who have been truth-telling and speaking about violence at the intersections of Indigeneity,gender, age, and geography since colonization began. These “word warriors” are and were alwayswriting, re (membering), and re-telling complex stories of Indigenous girls and women. Zitkala-Sa,Lee Maracle, Maria Campbell, Jeanette Armstrong, Joy Harjo, Gloria Anzaldúa, Chrystos are a fewwomen among many others. As Indigenous feminist Dian Million states, “Our voices rock theboat and perhaps the world. They are dangerous. All of this becomes important to our emergingconversation on Indigenous feminisms, on our ability to speak to ourselves, to inform ourselves and ourgenerations, to counter and intervene in a constantly morphing colonial system. To ‘decolonize’ meansto understand as fully as possible the forms colonialism takes in our own times” ([4], p. 55, emphasisHumanities 2016, 5, 14 3 of 16added). The young woman in the girl’s group I was facilitating was not only speaking to otherIndigenous young women, as Million describes it speaking to ourselves in order to inform ourselvesa form of Indigenous storytelling, but she was also engaging in this truth-telling in an intimaterelational space of Indigenous witnessing. This young woman and the circle of girls and women whoreceived her story, were all engaged in an intimate act of decolonizing, both through theorizing aboutviolence and the forms that it takes, but through the telling in certain spaces and relationships, such asthe Indigenous girls groups that facilitate and allow for relational witnessing and accountability.3. Shock and AweIn a discussion on trauma, Freud states, “the causal relation between the determining psychictrauma and the hysterical phenomena is not of a kind implying that the trauma merely acts like anagent provocateur in releasing the symptom, which thereafter leads an independent existence” but “thepsychical trauma—or more precisely the memory of the trauma—acts like a foreign body which longafter its entry must continue to be regarded as an agent that is still at work” ([5], p. 6). This begs thequestions: How is trauma theory and practice not the same invader that is reverberating in Indigenouscommunities and mental health practice? In what way is trauma as it is currently constructed andenacted within Indigenous health, an invader, and a colonial form of warfare that continues to actlong after?Health programs and interventions that are based on Western values systems and/or regulatedthrough State interventions serve to further colonize and pathologize Indigenous children and youths’health and their bodies. This is evidenced through increasing rates of Indigenous child and youthincarceration, mental health diagnosis, and child welfare intervention. Moreover, the increasedattention to Indigenous mental health needs both broadly and through the framework of trauma morespecifically, is contributing to what I call the “shock and awe” campaign against Indigenous childrenand youth who have experienced violence. This leads to ineffective interventions resulting in theongoing removal of children from their land. I utilize the term “shock and awe,” from Naomi Klein’sseminal work The Shock Doctrine (2007) and apply it to the ongoing colonization of Indigenous childrenand youth through trauma discourse, policies and practices that perpetuate statistics of horror andshock in order to justify child protection intervention and ongoing colonial control and intervention [6].It is well recognized within critical scholarship that in order to get to the land, the colonizers had toremove the power and central role of women in Indigenous communities [7–9]. Similarly, I wouldargue that neo-colonialism has extended this to Indigenous children and youth through child welfareremovals, incarceration, and mental health interventions.Policy and policy processes have been, and continue to be, central to the colonization of Indigenouspeoples, locally and globally [7,8,10,11]. In order to understand the violence experienced by Indigenouschildren and youth today, it is necessary to situate this violence within the violence of colonizationand consider how it continues to be enacted through policy. Colonization required the silencing ofIndigenous women, as the matriarchal and co-operative societies did not fit within the individualisticand patriarchal ways of the colonizer. To get to the land, they had to remove the women andchildren [9–13]. In Canada, this violence did not end with the closing of residential schools. It continueswithin the Indian Act and with the removal of children through child welfare policies and practicesthat further disconnect and displace Indigenous children and youth through adoption and fosterplacement [10]. In my own practice, I continue to witness the harm and violence that intersectingpolicies have on Indigenous children, youth and families Indigenous children and youth are morelikely to be in the child welfare system, and in the juvenile justice system, not only in BC andCanada, but internationally [12]. Indigenous lawyer and scholar Patricia Monture-Angus asserts thatcriminalization is as a strategy of colonization that not only locks up Indigenous children and youthbut also does not address the violence, including through state policies of child welfare that firstcriminalized them in the first place [13].Humanities 2016, 5, 14 4 of 16Trauma discourse has become part of the mainstream narrative in Indigenous and non-Indigenouscommunities, globally and locally. Alternatively described as the “age of trauma” [14] an “empireof trauma” [15] and as a “trauma economy” [4], trauma has become an umbrella term that includesexperiences ranging from single incident experiences such as car accidents, to genocide. MauriceStevens describes how trauma is the centre of thousands of articles within social work, psychiatry,literature; however, a universal notion of trauma is yet to be defined [16]. The dominant discourses of“trauma” continue to define violence within normative neo-colonial constructions, thereby functioningto obstruct and erase the naming of certain kinds of violence such as experiences of racism, structuralviolence enacted through state policy [11], and violence to Indigenous lands through mining andother development [17]. Craps suggests that definitions of trauma are rooted in European hegemony,resulting in psychiatric and medicalized definitions of trauma, thereby perpetuating a subsequent formof cultural imperialism [18]. Foucault describes discourse within the colonial project as the “way ofseeing that is produced and reproduced by various rules, systems and procedures—forming an entireconceptual territory on which knowledge is produced and shaped” ([19], p. 3). Trauma theory hasemerged out of a time, place and history of ideas, and since its original formation, has been raced,classed and gendered [16,20]. Young argues that trauma theory “is glued together by the practices,technologies, and narratives with which it is diagnosed, studied, treated, and represented and by thevarious interests, institutions, and moral arguments that mobilized these efforts and resources” ([21], p. 5).Examples of the “conceptual territory” of trauma can be evidenced in state funded and controlledresearch and media coverage of Indigenous children and youth that ultimately perpetuates statistics ofhorror and shock in order to justify intervention and ongoing colonial control and intervention. In fact,there is a global phenomena and expansion of trauma into Indigenous and racialized communitiesand Nations throughout the world, with a focus on children and youth as inherently vulnerable and inneed of Western intervention, and with practices rooted in Western models of trauma and ideas ofchildhood and adolescence [22,23]. As Summerfield asks “whose knowledge is privileged and whohas the power to define the problem?” ([22], p. 1449).Some scholars argue that even the Indigenization of government services in many ways continuesthe colonial project [24,25] as it has increased the reach into the community, with trauma often beingused as a justification for child welfare removals [24]. As Landertinger writes, “they do not establishan alternative but rather carve out the same space within a system that continues to work in favour ofthe settler society” ([26], pp. 81–82). This echoes the work of both Fanon and Coulthard who call fora turning away from the state for the solutions, as in the words of Secwepemc leader George Manuel,“they must convince the conquered” [27–29].Evidence of the use of trauma as a justification for child welfare intervention and removals is alsofound within recent child protection responses within Australia. In 2008, the Howard governmentlaunched a national emergency response to address the sexual abuse of Indigenous children in theNorthern territories. This program utilized the “shock and awe” terminology that is most oftenassociated with going to war and deployed troops to over 70 Aboriginal communities. The Howardgovernment seized control of these Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and forcedAboriginal parents to follow strict conditions in order to receive their welfare and family supportpayments. One newspaper described how “the troops posed for the cameras as they were dispatchedinto action, and the government issued an urgent national call for volunteer recruits, as policy wasunfurled on the run. A year later, and the military analogy still seems appropriate for a campaign thathas been, in the words of one doctor, like a bomb going off”. Dr. Tamara Mackean, the president ofthe Australian Indigenous Doctors Association, spoke of the link to colonization and further trauma,stating, “If you take away people’s sense of autonomy and control, we know that’s bad for their health,”she says, “like any act of fear and disempowerment, it’s another layer of trauma for Indigenous people.People are exhausted. They’re overwhelmed and overloaded by this whole thing that’s been called theintervention.” ([30], p. 7).Humanities 2016, 5, 14 5 of 16Left uninterrogated and unchallenged, this dominant discourse of trauma not only erases theharm done to Indigenous children and youth through policy but can also function to silence the localand Indigenous ways of knowing and of addressing the wellness of our children and youth. Thedefinitions of trauma and the meanings we make of it are historically constructed and defined, and areshaped by the intersection of structural factors, including our access to power and our experiences ofoppression. Further, these constructions of trauma shape what we consider as violence, what kinds ofviolence are erased, and the kinds of supports and access to services that flow from this.4. The Master’s Tools May Not Dismantle the House but Will Get You in the DoorIt is important to assert that knowledge of how to address violence and wellness in ourcommunities has always existed. This knowledge of what Indigenous scholar Eduardo Duran called the“soul wound” has been with us since time immemorial. Engagement with the discourse and languageof trauma emerged within Indigenous communities in the 90s [31], and there has been an increase inIndigenous writings on Indigenous mental health and trauma in the last 20 years [32–39]. EduardoDuran and Bonnie Duran assert that situating the discourse of the “soul wound” within currentWestern constructs of trauma was important to bring “some validation to the feelings of a communitythat has not had the world acknowledge the systematic genocide perpetrated on it” ([31], p. 341).Other Indigenous scholars such as Maria Yellowhorse Brave Heart, an Oglala Lakota socialworker also worked within the mainstream model of trauma, while widening the frame through thedevelopment of what she called Historical Trauma Theory [34]. Brave Heart developed this out of herover 20 years of clinical experience with Indigenous communities and in response to what she sawas the inadequacy of post traumatic stress disorder as a diagnosis within Indigenous communities.More recently, Indigenous scholar and social worker Tessa Evans-Campbell (Snohomish) offers whatshe calls Colonial Trauma Response (CRT) as a theory that links historical and contemporary acts oftrauma within Indigenous communities [38]. It is important to honour the work of these scholars inexpanding the framework of trauma to include naming colonialism and genocide within the discourseof trauma.In spite of the work to expand the framework of trauma to include the experiences of Indigenouspeoples, there has continued to be a domination of Western constructs of trauma and the relatedevidence-based practices with Indigenous peoples. Further, the failure of these approaches withIndigenous people who have experienced violence has been well documented [39–41]. Consequently,there is widespread recognition, both within Indigenous [39,42,43]. and non-Indigenous criticalscholarship [44] of the need for a radical re-visioning of theoretical and practical approaches to“trauma” theory, intervention and training in Indigenous mental health. My past scholarship andthat of other Indigenous and critical trauma scholars have attempted to address this need throughoffering new ways of understanding trauma within decolonized, feminist, intersectional, social justice,liberatory and politicized approaches [45–48].Recently, Indigenous critical scholars have been at the forefront of rejecting state interventionsand western defined framing of Indigenous communities health and healing. Duran, Firehammer, andGonzales describe counsellors as the “new priests” of the society, the authors argue that therapistsperpetuate racism and injustice through imposing incongruent helping paradigms [46]. Similarly,Indigenous psychologist Joseph Gone writes, “mental health professionals are the missionaries fora new millennium” ([39], p. 391). Further, Kirmayer, Simpson, and Cargo argue that there is greatdanger in framing this ongoing violence of the state in mental health language, as it may in fact “deflectattention from the large scale, and, to some extent, continuing assault on the identity and continuity ofwhole peoples”([49], p. 597).Indigenous critical theorists and activists such as Leanne Simpson, Dian Million and GlenCoulthard, argue that sovereignty and the future health of Indigenous nations will not be foundthrough state recognition, and that the “processes of engagement” including state recognition, andthe resulting discourses of healing, can and will replicate the very harms of colonialism [4,28,50].Humanities 2016, 5, 14 6 of 16As Leanne Simpson says “We need to rebuild our culturally inherent philosophical contexts forgovernance, education, healthcare, and economy. We need to be able to articulate in a clear manner ourvisions for the future, for living as Indigenous Peoples in contemporary times. To do so, we need toengage in Indigenous processes, since according to our traditions, the processes of engagement highlyinfluence the outcome of the engagement itself. We need to do this on our own terms, without thesanction, permission or engagement of the state, western theory or opinions of Canadians” ([50], p. 17).In his seminal essay Subjects of Empire: Indigenous Peoples and the “Politics of Recognition” in Canada,Coulthard engages with the work of Fanon in the context of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Coulthardargues that Indigenous communities need to be less concerned with the politics of recognition bya settler society, and instead focus on recognizing Indigenous ways and practices, in what he describesas “our own on-the-ground practices of freedom” ([28], p. 444).I echo the work of Indigenous scholar Dian Million in applying this same reasoning to theconcept of trauma and suggest that the theory, practice and ways of doing trauma in Indigenouscommunities, and with children and youth in particular, are part of the process of reproducingthe colonial system, and are an example of what Foucault called “power-knowledge” [19]. Thispower-knowledge, through the discursive framework of trauma functions to efface the naming andaddressing of the real harm and violence done through colonial systems, at both the structural, andwhat Fanon called the “psychoaffective” level [27]. I would argue that trauma theory and practicesfunction at both levels of colonialism, that is, they simultaneously erase the naming of the structuralacts of violence, while creating and exacerbating the psychological symptoms, through a form ofcolonial recognition or misrecognition [51]. According to Taylor, “Nonrecognition or misrecognitioncan inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reducedmode of being” ([51], p. 25). I suggest that this is what has happened within trauma theory. We havemoved from a space and place of nonrecognition of the harms of colonialism, to what I would argue ismisrecognition of these harms through the frame of trauma, as put forward by Indigenous traumascholars and others. Both are, as Coulthard and Fanon argue, a form of oppression, and over timethese images and the power relations that co-construct them will then be related to as natural [27,28].I do not want to take away from the work by Indigenous scholars and other critical scholars whohave worked to make space for the recognition of the violence and genocide that have, and continueto, impact Indigenous peoples worldwide. However, I do believe that it is time to evaluate the impactand effectiveness of including these acts of violence within the frame of trauma.5. Red IntersectionalityAs the early writings of Sioux activist Zitkala-Sa and Sarah Winnemucca remind us, the binary ofgender and race as a result of colonization were identified long before the writings of the early AfricanAmerican women activists part of the Combahee Collective or Kimberle Crenshaw, the critical racescholar who coined the term intersectionality [52–55]. These early activists were central in fighting theissues of violence on the land and on the body as they witnessed it at the turn of the century. Theydid not separate out their activism around tribal rights and water rights from their activism againstviolence under colonialism. Sarah Winnemucca describes not only her own experience of being buriedalive as a child by her mother to protect her from the settlers, but also her own sister’s rape at thehands of settlers: “My people have been so unhappy for a long time they wish now to disincrease,instead of multiply. The mothers are afraid to have more children, for fear they will have daughters,who are not safe even in their mother‘s presence ([53], p. 48). Similarly, Zitkala-Sa1 was instrumental incollecting the testimonies of three Indigenous girls violated by the imposition of capitalism through oiland mining in the tribal lands. Zitkala-Sa put together the legal argument of gender, race, and age in1 I had already found the writings of Zitkala-Sa and Winnemuca but I am indebted to Dory Nasson (2010) for the three casesdescribing Zitkala-Sa’s activism.Humanities 2016, 5, 14 7 of 16her essay “Regardless of Sex or Age”, describing how “greed for the girl‘s lands and rich oil propertyactuated the grafters and made them like beasts surrounding their prey” ([56], p. 52). Zitkala-Sareminds us again and again in her writing that violence has always been gendered, aged and linked toaccess to land.This paper argues for an Indigenous wholistic and intersectional-based framework of violence,which I call Red Intersectionality. Red intersectionality is inspired and informed by Sandy Grande’s“Red pedagogy” [57], Dory Nason’s “Red feminism” [56] and the rich tradition of Indigenouscritical scholars including Rigney [58], Grande [57], and more recently Tuck and Wang [59] whoadvocate for methodologies that are rooted in Indigenous sovereignty and are grounded in specificIndigenous Nations’ ontologies and epistemologies. Red intersectionality is grounded in five principles:respecting sovereignty and self-determination, local and global land-based knowledge, holistic healthwithin a framework that recognizes the diversity of Indigenous health; agency and resistance, andapproaches that are rooted within specific Indigenous nations relationships, language, land, andceremony [57,60,61].This critical analysis allows us to consider the construction of Indigenous girls within policyand the structural intersections of this in their life as a form of violence. An anti-colonial andIndigenous intersectional perspective of violence does not center the colonizer but instead attends to themany intersecting factors including gender, sexuality and a commitment to activism and indigenoussovereignty. It helps understand and address violence against Indigenous girls as it foregroundscontext, which in Canada’s case has to include gendered forms of colonialism and dispossession ofIndigenous lands.6. Decolonizing Trauma: Implications for Wise PracticeIndigenous social workers Yellow Bird, Coates, Gray and Hetherington challenge social workto not only address the complicity in the past colonial projects, but also the ongoing colonialinterventions: “Decolonizing social work requires that the profession acknowledge its complicityand ceases its participation in colonizing projects, openly condemns the past and continuing effectsof colonialism . . . and seeks to remove the often subtle vestiges of colonization from theory andpractice” ([62], pp. 6–7). Decolonization and transformation within trauma requires us to note sitesof struggle between Western and indigenous and the need to reclaim the intellectual knowledge ofIndigenous communities, healers and to reassert Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies ([44], p. 41)Indigenous scholar Renee Linklater in her 2011 doctoral thesis describes her research as decolonizingin two ways: not only the critique of mainstream approaches but also the importance of advancing“principles of self-determination and community control in regards to Indigenous health in the contextof healing” ([43], p. 243).“Mom I know what you do. You don’t think I know history, I do. Why would you be a socialworker? How does that help children?” (Cohen Clark, age 9). Present in the question from mySecwepemc twin son is the truth-telling, or naming of the harms past, and ongoing to Indigenouschildren and youth through State interventions, in this case through social work. However, in myson’s question is also the resistance of Indigenous children and youth through acts of naming, andrelational accountability through questioning and processes of relational witnessing. In this nextsection, I will outline how a framework of Red intersectionality that centers resistance and resistancespaces, can point the way forward.Wesley-Esquimaux and Snowball reveal how Indigenous healing approaches and epistemologieshave been ignored and erased within the Western health care system [63]. The authors argue thatan Indigenous “wise practices” model of healing is required in order to move forward and address theinequities within our current system. This paper will build on the call for “on the ground practices offreedom” ([28], p. 456), through the framework of Red intersectionality to identify examples of “wisepractices” or practices rooted in Indigenous communities’ “unique body of knowledge, manifestedthrough oral histories and lived experiences” ([64], p. 3). Thoms proposes the term “wise practices” asHumanities 2016, 5, 14 8 of 16better suited to reflect “the fact that the Aboriginal world is culturally heterogeneous, socially diverse,and communally ‘traditional’ while at the same time ever-changing” ([65], p. 8). Furthermore, “wisepractices” are called for given the diversity of Indigenous communities, in particular within BritishColumbia where there are “more than 200 contemporary bands, that collectively speak 14 mutuallyuninterpretable languages, occupy a territory bigger than Western Europe, live in sharply differentecological niches and spiritual worlds, and have radically different histories” ([64], p. 3).Trauma treatment and social service agencies exist within a web of evidence-based treatmentapproaches that are evaluated, and “proven” through empirical testing and evidence-based research.These “best practices” however are often deeply rooted in Eurocentric perspectives, and biased testingthat fails to recognize the realities of Indigenous peoples [39,40,65], and Indigenous young peoplein particular [66]. In a review of the evidence-based literature on Indigenous youth mental healthpromotion in Canada, researchers Williams and Mumtaz note “of equal concern are the glaringabsence of Aboriginal epistemologies in recognized approaches to evidence and largely unquestionedacceptance of this situation by policy makers. Indeed, it would appear that much work needs to bedone with communities in re-discovering traditional knowledges and ensuring their legitimizationwithin institutions” ([66], p. 29).Further, best practice approaches to mental health and trauma or “West knows Best” [39]approaches are foreground, or Indigenous needs are addressed through an add-on approach ofculture through cultural competency while specific Nations and community approaches are ignored,decimated, and systematically eroded within these dominant paradigms [67]. An example of this canbe found in the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) review of 103 projects to examine what theycalled “promising healing practices”. Their research revealed that more than 80% of these projectsincluded Indigenous cultural activities and traditional healing interventions [68]. These includeda range of activities such as “[E]lders’ teaching; storytelling and traditional knowledge; languageprograms; land-based activities; feasts and pow wows; learning traditional art forms; harvestingmedicine; and drumming, singing, and dancing” ([68], p. 130). Further, in the AHF review of fivehealing programs they attempted to identify best practices but realized these could not be identified,and, in fact, the language of best practice can often contribute to a pan-Indigenous approach ashealing [69]. The authors conclude, however, that given the diversity of Indigenous nations and theirrespective healing approaches, there is no one Indigenous best practice approach [69].I would argue that best practices are colonial practices, and often these forms of covert colonizationare difficult to see and name. These medical model approaches towards mental health issues furtherlabel and pathologize Indigenous children and youth, and result in increased criminalization ormedicalization. These approaches often do not address the long-term wellness needs of children andyouth who have experienced structural and individual acts of violence, nor the intersecting factors ofage, gender, and rurality that put Indigenous children and youth at risk for violence. The resultingcoping mechanisms and acts of resistance that place Indigenous children and youth in contact withmental health or the criminal justice system are also left unaddressed.We need programs that provide safer spaces for Indigenous children and youth to addresstheir intersecting and emergent health needs, without furthering the discourse and construction ofIndigenous girls and women as “at-risk”, or further criminalizing and medicalizing our children,our families and our communities. Programs such as the Indigenous girls group model offered inthe next section resists medical and individual definitions of trauma, and instead uses an Indigenouswholistic, or intersectional framework that assist girls in understanding and locating their coping asresponses to larger structural and systemic forces including racism, poverty, sexism, colonialism anda culture of trauma.7. Centering Resistance and ActivismThe issue of violence against Indigenous children and youth, as represented in the State discourse,media, mental health and counseling systems, and child welfare interventions are important toHumanities 2016, 5, 14 9 of 16understand. At the same time other images of strength, resilience and resistance, beyond narratives ofrisk and harm of Indigenous children and youth, are missing from the discourse. Many studies havefocused on the harms of colonization, and this deficit-based research has identified disproportionatelyhigh health challenges as a result of the interlocking oppressions for Indigenous youth such as higherrates of sexual and physical abuse, suicide as a leading cause of death especially for Indigenous males,higher rates of violence for Indigenous females, experiences of racism, and increased tobacco andmarijuana usage [70–73].Research has only recently begun to consider Indigenous understandings of resilience and healthychild development [73] in contrast to the deficit and binary construction of children within Westernchild development. Recent research has linked strong cultural beliefs and values with resiliency amongyouth and with positive health outcomes, including improved educational achievement, self-esteem,and less risky drug and sex activities [70–76]. Research linking positive health outcomes for Indigenousyouth living in reserve communities where there is strong cultural continuity has been established [75].Further, there has been an increased focus on Indigenous youth in large cities. Similarly, Mohawkscholar Rod McCormick describes how in his research Indigenous youth with a strong cultural identityidentified this as key in recovering from suicidality [74]. There is a need for research that documentsand centers the ongoing resilience, survivance, and positive resistance of Indigenous children andyouth by Indigenous youth themselves. The work of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network is oneexample of research and practice that exemplifies this.There is a gap in the literature in considering what healing practices exist with Indigenous childrenand youth who have experienced violence, and, in particular, their acts of resistance. In my recentresearch with Indigenous youth in the Secwepemc nation, my colleagues and I attempted to addressthis gap of strengths-based research. We found that, 96% of the youth were proud of their Indigenousidentify, and those youth who spoke their language and practiced their culture and traditions, ratedtheir health the highest [76]. Furthermore, consistent with other research with urban Indigenousyouth [75], we found that the binaries of rural and urban and on-reserve and off-reserve need to bechallenged, as cultural identity is formed within a wide circle of activities including access to Elders,language, First Nations education workers in schools, community health spaces such as in FriendshipCentres, and the internet [76].I turn again to the work of Fanon and the role of resistance, what Fanon has been critiquedfor as advocating for violence, but instead I take up resistance in all its forms as necessary to freeoneself and to create a “change of fundamental importance in the colonized’s psycho-affectiveequilibrium” ([27], p. 148). Indigenous communities have always resisted colonialism not onlyindividually but through the creation and maintenance of “resistance communities” [48]. This Iwould argue is an essential element of healing for Indigenous children and youth and Nations, not inacts of violence themselves but in acts of resistance for liberation [77]. Cree Elder and Scholar MadelineDion Stout describes in her powerful memoir of residential school how her parents’ resilience isworking through her now, and how even her triggers give her life: “Their resilience became mine.It had come from their mothers and fathers and now must spill over to my grandchildren andtheir grandchildren” ([78], p. 179). Similarly, Indigenous scholar Vizenor describes survivance, as“a narrative resistance that creates a sense of presence over absence, nihility and victimry” ([79], p. 41).I know that many of the young women I work with write poetry, songs, short stories, plays, and thesetruth-telling, theorizing narratives need to be centred in our work. Part of my practice with Indigenousgirls is supporting their writing and art making, reframing and restorying their behaviors as resistanceto larger colonial systems, instead of the mental health labels they are invited to carry and identitywith. Resilience and survivance are thus not viewed as individualistic but are instead linked to past,present and future generations.Humanities 2016, 5, 14 10 of 168. Indigenous Girls Groups as Relational Spaces of Resistance and WitnessingReturning to the young woman’s story that begins this paper, I invite the reader as a witness tothis to consider the meaning of her sharing in the context of the Indigenous girls group she was part of.Bahtkin writes that “a word uttered in that place and at that time will have a meaning different thanit would have under any other conditions; all utterances are heteroglot in that they are functions ofa matrix of forces practically impossible to recoup, and therefore impossible to resolve” ([80], p. 2631).Thus, if context is primary, then the spaces that Indigenous girls name acts of violence, and thewitnessing of this naming through spaces such as girls groups are important.In 1992, in my Master’s thesis I wrote, “I believe that all young women engage in daily acts ofresistance” and I situated the key role of women as partners in the resistance, to witness and namegirls resistance and to receive their stories ([81], p. 133). Trinh T. Minh-ha writes, “the world’s earliestarchives or libraries were the memories of women” ([82], p. 121). The storyteller in Indigenouscommunities is often a mother, sister, auntie, poet, teacher, warrior, musician, historian and healer ofher community. Minh-ha states that storytelling involves a speech, which is “seen, heard, smelled,tasted and touched” ([82], p. 121); and the process of telling the story “destroys, brings into life,nurtures” ([82], p. 121) bell hooks echoes this when she writes, “It should be understood that theliberatory voice will necessarily confront, disturb, demand that listeners even alter ways of hearingand being” ([83], p. 16). Thus, as listeners or receivers of these stories, we are witnesses and essentialpartners in the resistance of young women. Indigenous women and girls have always resisted theconstruction of themselves within policy and media. Storytelling and other forms of creative writinghave been a political act and have provided an important space for Indigenous women to resist andreplace the colonial images. Choctow scholar Devon A. Mihesuah writes that poetry and literature area source rarely utilized, and yet are essential as they reveal the complexity and diversity of Indigenouswomen: “Indeed, it is through their writings that we can learn that Native women were and arepowerful, they were and are as complex as their cultures are diverse” ([84], p. 5).Indigenous women and girls’ stories can provide understandings of strategies and uniquesolutions to challenges facing indigenous communities. For example, Leslie Marmo Silko writesabout the Laguna Pueblo’s concept of story as: “the old folks said the stories themselves had the powerto protect us and even to heal us because the stories are alive; the stories are our ancestors” ([85], p. 152).Similarly, intersectionality scholar, Patricia Hill Collins also describes the importance of story-telling,in particular, the process of call and response, in order to link emotion with reason and as such situatesknowing, within the context of the relationship with the larger community [86]. This is similar topractices such as “counter-memory” as described by Foucault, it is a form of storytelling that “combatsour current modes of truth and justice, helping us to understand and change the present by placing itin a new relation to the past” ([87], pp. 160, 163–64) while problematizing the dominant discourse andunderstanding of a particular issue.Indigenous witnessing invokes not only a responsibility to the stories, but truth-telling andactivism linked to what we have heard [88]. Indigenous scholar Sarah Hunt says, “As witness wehave a role that is not to take up the voice or story of that which we have witnessed, nor to change thestory, but to ensure the truths of the acts can be comprehended, honored and validated” ([88], p. 38).Similarly, Rwandan social worker Rwigena, in writing of the ethics of witnessing with Rwandansurvivor communities, describes the power of relational and intimate spaces of witnessing withinfamily and community where testimony is woven into every day alongside laughter and food and ispart of building an intergenerational collective knowledge [89]. She calls for attending to the context ofrelationships and spaces involved in listening. Spaces such as the Indigenous girls groups that I havebeen part of.Through a violence-informed and Indigenous intersectional approach, the groups that mycolleagues and I have developed provide the girls with the space to name, comprehend, honourand validate their experiences of abuse, sexual exploitation, body image and violence, as well as theirstrengths and daily lived realities in a safe and non-threatening environment [45,90,91]. My work inHumanities 2016, 5, 14 11 of 16partnership with the Secwepemc community through the Interior Indian Friendship Centre and schooldistrict 73 has involved developing an Indigenous girls’ group within a framework that reintroducesSecwepemc Nation specific cultural teachings of girlhood, or “rites of passage”. The model for thegroup was developed in a unique format—with youth, Elders, community leaders and practitioners ina traditional circle and facilitated by an Elder in the community. This talking circle identified the keyissues for Indigenous youth in our community, and how to address them. Through partnerships withcommunity, the school district and Elders, the goal of these groups are to provide Aboriginal/FirstNations girls, aged eight to 18, with a space to explore a range of issues affecting their daily lives.A violence-informed and intersectional girls’ group locates the source of girls’ challenges withinstructural and systemic problems such as racism, poverty, sexism and the intersections of these in theirlives. We support the young women in healthy resistance to these problems, and in their efforts to moveback into connection with themselves and others. We do this through a range of violence-informedstrategies of naming, educating and supporting healthy resistance strategies [78]. Violence-informedpractice allows us to provide girls with safety, support and the tools to deal with violence and itseffects in their daily lives within an intersectional framework. Key violence-informed practices thatinform my work include truth-telling and conscious use of self, safety and containment, naming andnoting, and fostering healthy resistance strategies. These practices are elaborated on in our girls’ groupmanual [90] and in a chapter on trauma informed practice [45].In addition, the essential elements of the groups include indigenous worldview through thetraditional Secwepemc values and seven sacred teachings, a focus on strengths and healthy resistance,and trauma-informed wholistic and relative safety that recognizes the diversity within and betweenIndigenous girls and their identities and communities. In an interview with my friend and colleagueSarah Hunt, I described Indigenous girls groups as forms of ceremonial models of supporting girlsthrough adolescents into adulthood: “If the circle is that piece of ceremony we can reclaim until theother ways of witnessing violence are returned or remembered or rehonored then that’s maybe why initself it’s been of value” ([88], p. 40).The following key questions are important to consider in our work to decolonize trauma:Honouring coping: How do we name and frame girls’ coping as healthy resistance strategies andsupport their movement toward healthy resistance while honouring their current strategies? Locatingviolence, strength and resistance: What are the daily experiences girls are resisting? What strengthsand resistance can you identify in their stories?9. ConclusionsIndigenous scholar Eve Tuck has called for a need to stop research focused on problems inIndigenous communities in order to “suspend the damage” of “deficit-based” research [92]. Extendingthis to the concept of trauma, I propose that we need to develop models for addressing violence thatare aligned with Indigenous values, Indigenous paradigms and epistemologies and that are based instrengths, resistance and survivance. I suggest that we should move beyond decolonizing Westernmodels of trauma, and instead attend to the centering of “wise practices” and specific IndigenousNations approaches to within a network of relational accountability. A form of “hands forward, handsback” that holds us accountable within non-linear ideas of time and space [93]. This paper offers analternative model, one that centers, remembers and revitalizes the historic and ongoing resistance ofIndigenous girls and women, and articulates an Indigenous relational process of decolonizing andcentering “wise practices” such as the example offered through Indigenous girls groups.As Indigenous activist Winona La Duke challenges us “And the question, I think, that shouldbe asked and needs to be asked of each of us is how much and how brave we are in our ability todeconstruct some of the paradigms which we have perhaps embraced. If we are able to liberate ourminds to be the people that are going to be here on this land. The people who are going to protect ourmother, and care for ourselves” [17].Humanities 2016, 5, 14 12 of 16Acknowledgments: My work with Indigenous girls is rooted in my over 20 years of front-line work withIndigenous girls as an activist, auntie, sister, violence counselor, community-based researcher and group facilitator,and finally my own journey of identity as an Indigenous woman and mother. I acknowledge the many childrenand youth I have been privileged to work with and who have been my teachers, any mistakes in this are minealone. I also would like to acknowledge the peer reviewers of this paper, in particular the truth-telling of onewho wrote “I am I am an Indigenous grandmother raising grandchildren because of addictions in the family.Counseling is, hopefully, saving our family from replicating the dysfunction in a future generation. 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Indigenous intersectionality
Decolonizing trauma
Red intersectionality
Violence against Indigenous girls
Shock and Awe: Trauma as the New Colonial Frontier
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