This workbook was created as part of a research project, “Beyond Window-Dressing Reconciliation in Health: Settler Clinician Responsibilities,” led by Cash Ahenakew, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples’ Well-Being. The project was funded by a UBC Catalyzing Research Clusters grant by the same name, a SSHRC Insight Development Grant, “Towards the Ethical Integration of Different Knowledge Systems: Lessons from STEM and Health,” and a SSHRC Insight Grant, “Decolonial Systems Literacy for Confronting ‘Wicked’ Social and Ecological Problems.”

The creation of this workbook was led by Cash Ahenakew and collectively authored by Indigenous and settler members of the grant teams. Contributors to the workbook include: Cash Ahenakew, Dani Pigeau, Sharon Stein, Bjorn Stime, Vanessa Andreotti, Will Valley, and Andréa Monteiro. The workbook was reviewed by several experts in health, including: Francisco Medina, Stacey Prince, Avery Fischer, inabel uytiepo, Christine Gibson, Mariana Jimenez, and Kristine Madsen.

In these research projects, we have sought to invite deeper, more nuanced, and accountable engagements with the individual and systemic colonial patterns that continue to harm Indigenous patients in mainstream healthcare institutions (e.g., hospitals), universalize western approaches to health and well-being, and invisibilize and devalue Indigenous approaches to health and well-being (Swidrovich, 2022). The text draws from the scholarly literature in this area, as well as grey literature (e.g. reports, policies, white papers, working papers), news stories, and the lived experiences of several of the authors. Parts of this text were also adapted from previous pedagogical resources produced by some of the authors (see in particular Ahenakew, 2019; Elwood, Andreotti & Stein, 2019; Stein et al., 2021).

Although we focus on the field of medicine specifically, many elements of this workbook are likely to be relevant for other health and mental health professions. Our geographic focus is on what is currently known as Canada, where we work, but the workbook is likely to have relevance for those working in other settler colonial contexts, especially the United States. This workbook can be engaged by individuals, or collectively (e.g., as the basis of a reading group).

Download the draft workbook  PDF HERE.