Shock and Awe: Trauma as the New Colonial Frontier
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Social Work, School of
data provider: DSpace
identifier citation: Humanities 5 (1): 14 (2016)
creator: Clark, Natalie
issued: 2019-04-12T16:24:48Z
issued: 2016-02-05
description: 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.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/69633
note: 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 …
has type: Article
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0378162
language: eng
peer review status: Reviewed
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
publisher DOI: 10.3390/h5010014
rights: CC BY 4.0
rights URI: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
scholar level: Faculty
subject: Indigenous intersectionality
subject: Decolonizing trauma
subject: Red intersectionality
subject: Violence against Indigenous girls
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/69633