limited space, declining health fnat 102 – arts one lecture spring/2008
Post on 21-Dec-2015
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TRANSCRIPT
Quick Review: Making Native Space
• Term 13 prevented Fed. Gov’t fr. following the guidelines for settling treaty est. by the Royal Proclamation 1763
• Modus Vivendi—Joint Indian Reserve Commission
• Forced the Fed. Gov’t to abandon its policies & considerably strengthened the stranglehold the province had on First Nations territories
• Issue of title subsumed in the vision of each commission
Looking Back Through Lee Maracle’s Ravensong
• Sto:lo/Cree/Squamish• Born 1950 • Granddaughter of
Chief Dan George • Widely acclaimed,
prolific writer who challenges assumptions about First Nations people in popular culture
“I AM NOT A MARGINALIZED FIRST NATIONS WOMAN!” Lee Maracle
Taking the “Master” out of the Master Narrative
• Stacey’s people, stories, value system set the norm against which all who live in ‘white town’ are judged
• Along all points of comparison, ‘white town’ ways are found wanting
• Points of Comparison • Disrupt the common
direction of judgment & turns on repercussions of oppression for Stacey’s people
Surveillance & Survival
• Despite Fish & Game monitoring of river, Old Nora who continues to fish despite surveillance
• “She watched her fish the river without a boat, alone under the cover of darkness, one eye on her children, the other watching for the game warden while her hands worked her dip net, filling it with fish” (22).
Momma Momma Jim Jim Ned Ned
Stacey
Celia
Jim
Benny
Kate
STACEY’S FAMILY
on the periphery of field of vision, psychic
Helpful, quits school
Has a vision, goal
Differences Similarities Differences Graphic Organizer by Neil Smith
ObjectEvent
Person
Object, Event
Person
Sex
People, like the birds & the bees, do it
Not hidden
Not repressed
Young people are teased
Babies are encouraged
Hidden
Repressed
Patriarchal rules
Women are dependent
Courtship rituals
Mating rituals
Sex
Village Funerals
White TownFunerals
Differences Similarities Differences Graphic Organizer by Neil Smith
ObjectEvent
Person
Object, Event
Person
As if grieving is individual
Death
Mourning Rituals
More overt displays of emotion
Emphasis on decorum
Grieving is shared
Space is made for grieving
More a public formality
grief shared Expressed differently
Mary Ellen Kelm’s Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British
Columbia 1900-50“Aboriginal ill health was
created not just by faceless pathogens, but by the colonial policies and practices of the Canadian gov’t.” (xix)
Aboriginal medicine was not supplanted by western medicine.
Introductions
• Acknowledges her position of privilege • Stresses that she doesn’t speak for First Nations
peoples but rather speaks from a place of seeking to undo the racist teachings of history
• Attributes cause for high First Nations mortality rates to policy makers rather than to First Nations genetics
• Policy makers assumed – High mortality was to be expected– First Nations leaders had no voice in the matter– Social construction of the body/disease is ultimately shaped
by historical forces
Kelm’s Study draws from:
• Archival records from Indian Health Services
• Ethnography • Anthropology• Oral testimony • As with Cole Harris, she acknowledges
her own background & maintains this text is her contribution to the necessary process of decolonization
Transformed Landscapes; Transformed Lives
Legislated changes in environment, food resources, traditional methods of healing, religious ceremonies, contributed to the highest mortality rates of First Nations people on any scale one cared to measure.
Uneven Effects of Colonization
• Attributes variations in population figures between 1895 and 1939 to uneven effects of colonization
• Indian population figures reached lowest point in 1934 followed by a slow increase in subsequent years
“No doctor, no help…”• “Under the shabby
arguments about hospitals being full and doctors already overworked lay an unspoken assumption: white folks were more deserving of medical care. There is a hierarchy to care.” (Maracle, 69)
Environmental health
• The move from well ventilated big house structures to smaller housing (often w/lack of running water) & the cramped quarters of cannery row housing, hopfields housing created the conditions ripe for infectious diseases.
“Statistics tell a Similar Story” (6)
Per 1000 live births, Aboriginal mortality rates for new born babies peaked in ’37 & ’39
Per 1000 live births for children w/in their first five years, Aboriginal mortality rates peaked in ’37
Tuberculosis Epidemic
• Kelm said that one of the biggest ethical dilemmas facing Aboriginal health is lack of informed consent of medical testing and research. Aboriginal people have been exposed to tuberculosis drug testing without consent for example. . .
Raven’s Eye Top News Dec. 2005