Colonial Trauma and Political Pathways to Healing

Full text

Colonial trauma and political pathways to healing
Terry Mitchell, PhD, C. Psych.
Chapter 10, pp. 141-154
Indigenous Cultures and Mental Health Counselling: Four Directions for
Integration With Counselling Psychology
Edited by Suzanne L. Stewart, Roy Moodley, & Ashley Hyatt
Routledge Press, Taylor and Francis Group, New York and London(2017)

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In this chapter the unacceptable burden of psycho-social-physical-health inequalities
borne by Indigenous peoples are identified as a signifier of social injustice with political
pathways to resolution. Historical and contemporary forms of colonial violence and related
colonial trauma are social issues that settler societies need to increase awareness of, sensitivity
to, and accountability for. This chapter provides an overview of the social constructs of
Indigeneity, colonialism, and colonial trauma. These constructs provide a foundation for the
introduction of six political pathways to advancing social justice as a mental health strategy for
promoting the health and wellness of Aboriginal peoples in Canada within a larger framework of
reconciliation.
Indigeneity as a Social Construct
First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples in Canada are traditionally land based peoples who
are linked to specific territories as political and cultural collectivities with values and lifestyles
that are intrinsically linked to their relationship to the land (Blaikie, 2000; Blondin, 1997; Fry &
Mitchell, 2015 in press). Indigenous peoples share in common both a deep connectedness to their
land and often the loss of territorial homes due to the takeover or displacement of their land
(Cohen, 1999; Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1996a). The land on and with which
Indigenous peoples live encompasses their individual and collective physical and spiritual
relationship to the land (Kipuri, 2009). Barker’s (2009) definition of Indigenous identifies First
Peoples as inhabitants of a territory before colonization, stating “… Indigenous people in the
context of Turtle Island (North America) are those people whose societies predated colonization,
who exist in a complex relationship to the land and who have been and continue to be primary
targets of active colonization” (p. 328). Alfred & Corntassel (2005) in contrast view Indigeneity
as a political construct arising out of colonialism, and as a social process of resistance and

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struggle against the oppression of settler populations, stating,
Indigenousness is an identity constructed, shaped and lived in the politicized context of
contemporary colonialism...It is this oppositional, place-based existence, along with the
consciousness of being in struggle against the dispossessing and demeaning facts of
colonization by foreign people, that fundamentally distinguishes Indigenous peoples from
other people in the world (p. 597).
The 1983 definition from Cobo’s final report for the United Nations on the Study of the Problem
of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations: Conclusions, proposals, and
recommendations, identifies Indigenous communities as contemporary populations “having a
historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their
territories” (chap. xxi-xxii, para. 379). The final report (1983) bridges the pre-colonial
perspective with the response to colonization viewpoint by discussing Indigenous peoples
globally as pre-colonial societies and as a distinctive population that has resisted assimilation
through attention to the preservation and dissemination of their land base and cultures “in
accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems...” (chap. xxi-
xxii, para. 379).
The social-political definition of Indigeneity is therefore framed in terms of both a
primary relationship to traditional lands and cultural practices and as well as confrontation with
the colonial forces of land appropriation and cultural interference. Despite huge variances in
cultures and geographic location, Indigenous peoples are constituted as a politically created
world population through the shared experience of being subjected to historical and current
colonial practices which profoundly disrupt and interfere with their diverse cultures and complex
social, cultural, and spiritual connectedness to the land. Significantly Indigeneity is also

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characterized by a third factor of resistance to genocide and assimilation with enduring
persistence in the practices of cultural preservation and renewal (McGregor, 2004; Thomas,
Mitchell, & Arseneau, 2015 in press). As McGregor (2004) stated
We have learned to resist and thus have survived. Understanding colonialism and its
devastating impacts upon us, as well as learning how to resist various forms of
colonialism (including internalized forms), constitute an important part of our traditional
teachings today (p. 77).
Colonialism
The concepts of Indigeneity, trauma, resistance and renewal must be considered in terms
of their relationship to both historical and contemporary forms of colonization. Colonialism has
been defined as “The takeover of territory, appropriation of material resources, exploitation of
labour and interference with political and cultural structures of another territory or nation”
(Loomba, 2005, p. 11). Indigenous peoples worldwide have been subjected to land seizure
without being conquered through war (Asch, 1997) as well as the takeover of natural resources
and cultural and political interference (Cohen, 1999). Indigenous peoples have been “Legally
infantilized and politically patronized” (Miller 2004, p. 102), and their cultures, communities,
families and selves battered by an unrelenting “vicious assimilative assault” (p. 251). This
colonial violence, which is politically legitimated by state governments and upheld by majority
populations, persists in various forms today including resource extractive industries where
Indigenous peoples are often characterized as “standing in the way of development” (Cohen,
1999, p. 7).
Miller (2004) defines assimilation as “… ideology and policy that seeks to eradicate a
people’s identity and cultural practices in favour of another group’s way of doing things” (p.

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225). In keeping with this definition, central to Canada’s assimilation policy, the Indian
residential school system involved forcibly removing very young children from their homes
often relocating them to distant communities. These residential schools which lasted for over a
century from the 1870s until the1990s have been identified as one of the most devastating
expressions of the assimilative policy thrust of the federal government (Archibald, 2006; BBC
News, 2008; Indian and Northern Affairs, 2008; Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2015).
On June 11, 2008 the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Stephen Harper, offered an apology to
Aboriginal peoples for the nation’s regressive and harmful social policy that affected 150,000
students and their families for generations (Harper, 2008). The Prime Minister’s apology reveals
the mechanisms of the colonial assimilation project and the source of the colonial trauma
resulted in intergenerational impacts, which have been described as cumulative “becoming more
severe as it is passed onto subsequent generations” (Duran, 2006, p. 16). The government
apology is a political and social record of wrongdoing and a moral awakening to the devastating
long-term impacts of cultural interference and colonial violence.
Colonial Trauma
Indigenous peoples continue to be colonized by having their land and resources
appropriated as they experience ongoing cultural interference. The continual conflict and
interference of Indigenous land and cultures have imposed high degrees of long-term stress on
Indigenous peoples around the world. However, despite the global practice of colonialism, land
seizure and vicious assimilative assaults, non-Indigenous settler institutions generally fail to
identify and assess the impact of systemic racism, displacement, assimilation, and cultural
genocide as explanatory factors in relation to the extremely deleterious health status of the
world’s Indigenous peoples (Mitchell & Maracle, 2005). Furthermore, there is a general dearth

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of research on Indigenous mental health within Canada and around the world (Cohen, 1999). The
limited available data regarding Indigenous mental health indicates Indigenous peoples are
experiencing high rates of depression, alcoholism, suicide and violence, which have been linked
to cultural discontinuity and oppression (Kirmayer, 2000). The enduring impact of persistent and
pervasive acts of colonial violence have been described as colonial trauma characterized as
complex, continuous, cumulative and collective with long-term intergenerational effects
(Mitchell, 2011; Mitchell, 2015 in press).
Colonial trauma requires that mental health professionals place their work within the
wider scope of social justice (Cohen, 1999) to identify and address the traumagenic forces that
have impacted Indigenous communities (Mitchell & Maracle, 2005). “The state of Indigenous
people’s health, including addictions and mental health, cannot in Canada be extricated from
colonial projects” (de Leeuw, Greenwood & Cameron, 2010, p. 292). The mental, physical,
social, and spiritual health of Indigenous populations in Canada and across the world, have been
impacted by the shared phenomenon of historical and contemporary colonialism. There has been
a comprehensive and relentless assault on the spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and socio-
ecological nature of Indigenous peoples and their cultures (Duran, 2006; Mitchell, 1996).
Trauma is therefore experienced not just by individuals but also by the collective. This collective
trauma signifies an external agent and the political nature of the crimes against Indigenous
people supporting the thesis that Indigenous mental health is a social justice issue with political
pathways to healing.
Identifying Agency
There are many terms used to characterize the enduring collective trauma of Indigenous
peoples: Posttraumatic Stress (Manson, et al., 1996); Historical Trauma (Brave Heart, 1999);

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Intergenerational Trauma (Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998); Native Holocaust (Stannard, 1992);
Soul Wound (Duran, 2006), and Colonial Trauma (Evans-Campbell, 2008). I support the use of
Colonial trauma as it names the external nature and political source of the trauma and allows for
an awareness of current colonial expressions while respecting the historical wounds of elders and
ancestors. Colonial trauma is defined by Evans-Campbell (2008) as “both historical and
contemporary events that reflect colonial practices to colonize, subjugate, and perpetrate
ethnocide and genocide” (p. 335). The mental, spiritual, social, and physical health of Indigenous
individuals and communities has been impacted by the systematic and enduring exposure to
colonial violence. Colonial trauma reflects the pervasive nature of the crimes committed against
Indigenous peoples and signifies the systematic and institutionalized violence that is legitimized
by policy, law, and other institutions of government. Colonial trauma has been inflicted on
Indigenous peoples for hundreds of years due to the ravages of political interference through:
dislocation, depopulation, and the systematic repression and interference of culture (Brave Heart,
1998; Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998; Brave Heart-Jordan & DeBruyn, 1995; Cohen, 1999;
Duran & Duran, 1995; Jilek, 1981; Townsley & Goldstein, 1977).
Colonial Trauma persists into the present with a strong historical context. Colonial
trauma reflects the long-term nature of the crimes against Indigenous peoples that are neither a
brief human aberration, nor a specific historical event. Colonial violence and colonial trauma
frame a traumatic era; an era of over five centuries of political assaults against Indigenous
peoples (Whitbeck, Adams, Hoyt, & Chen, 2004). To conceptualize Indigenous trauma as
colonial trauma as a psychologist or mental health professional is to do two significant things:
first to externalize the trauma and second to identify a traumagenic agent.
The focus of this chapter is to look upstream to see what is contributing to the

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phenomenon of the psycho-social-physical health crisis of the world’s Indigenous peoples. In
externalizing the trauma and identifying traumagenic agents we begin to assign social and
political agency for the trauma. Colonial trauma is neither natural nor inevitable but rather a
socially constructed and politically maintained phenomena in which the sources of trauma are in
large part external to the individual, the community, and culture. The health status of Indigenous
peoples should, therefore, no longer be viewed simply as an individual or population health issue
but rather as a complex social justice issue with political origins and political and policy
solutions (Mitchell and MacLeod, 2014).
Political Pathways
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, widely considered
as the central instrument of protection for the right to health, recognizes “the right of everyone to
the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health” (art. 12, para. 1).
The World Health Organization maintains that most health disparities are avoidable and, health
disparities representing significant inequalities are unacceptable. Since colonial trauma, as
argued here, is a key political determinant of health and a political reality that serves as an
explanatory factor for the health inequities borne by Indigenous peoples, then colonialism itself
needs to be addressed and taken up within society as a whole and addressed within mental health
services. Working toward improving population health and reducing social disparities requires a
serious focus on both the social and political determinants of health as well as application of
social policy tools and human rights laws available both nationally and internationally.
Shifting the focus and dialogue on Indigenous mental health from the individual to the
collective, and from the personal to the political, calls for the development of political pathways
to healing. While Canadians as a whole enjoy the benefits and relative security of a social

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democracy not all Canadians benefit equally from the social arrangements within Canada. In
fact, Canadian Aboriginal peoples experience social, economic and health conditions comparable
to developing nations (Anaya, 2013; Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1996b; Mitchell &
Maracle, 2005; Waldram, Herring & Young, 2006; Young, 2003).
Increasingly we need to understand the historical, political and policy processes that have
created the enormous and unacceptable gap between the mental and physical health of
Indigenous peoples and settler populations as a social justice issue. There is a growing consensus
that we must move beyond an understanding of population health rooted in an analysis of the
biological antecedents of health, lifestyle, behaviour choices, and health systems as the primary
determinants of health (Loppie Reading & Wien, 2009; Mikkonen & Raphael, 2010). There is an
increasing need to adopt a critical social determinant of health perspective to assist in addressing
the gross disparities in health status endured by Indigenous communities. The Public Health
Agency of Canada has identified a Social Determinants of Health Framework for all populations
which includes 12 determining factors: Income and social status; Social support networks;
Education and literacy; Employment/Working conditions; Social environments; Physical
environments; Personal health practices and coping skills; Healthy child development; Biology
and genetic endowment; Health services; Gender; and Culture (Public Health Agency of Canada,
2003). However, issues of systemic racism, policies of assimilation, ongoing land and resource
struggles, cultural genocide and colonial trauma are rarely identified within the dominant culture
as explanatory factors in relation to the contemporary Indigenous health crisis. The Public Health
Agency’s framework falls short of adequately addressing the social political factors that
contribute to the poor health outcomes for Indigenous peoples. Historical and contemporary
practices of colonization, land issues and social policy need to be identified as factors

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contributing to health status. The social determinants of health need to be significantly modified
to include political dimensions such as globalization, cultural imperialism, government policy,
and environmental protection, all of which are critical to protecting and improving the health
status of Indigenous populations. There is a need to extend the determinants of health framework
to both social and political determinants as seen in Australian health innovations (Auditor
General, 2010). To address the pervasive impacts of colonial trauma I propose six political
pathways to Indigenous health and wellness: 1. Self Determination and Decolonization; 2. Social
Policy; 3. Protection of Territory and Environmental Protection; 4. Resilience and Resurgence; 5.
Reconciliation and Reparation; and 6. Revitalization.
1. Self Determination and Decolonization
Strongly linked to the mental and physical health of Indigenous peoples is the right to
self-determination which is a fundamental principle of human rights law embodied in the Charter
of the United Nations, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Common Article 1, paragraph
1 of these Covenants provides that: “All peoples have the rights of self-determination. By virtue
of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social
and cultural development.” The issue of sovereignty acknowledges the collective nature of
Indigenous health and wellness and privileges Indigenous perspectives on moving from
resilience, to reconciliation, and to revitalization.
Canadian Indigenous scholars Alfred and Corntassel (2005) view the path to healing of
individuals and collectives as integrally connected to Indigenous engagement with culture,
language, and the land. They caution against privileging colonialism as the only or most
important narrative of Indigenous peoples and urge Indigenous people to focus on reclaiming

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and engaging in Indigenous culture. They write of four interlocking concepts “sacred history,
ceremonial cycles, language and ancestral homelands” as important for healing (p. 609). They
urge people to seek healing in the strengths of their cultures not waiting for resources, consent, or
participation from the colonizer. Significantly they speak of “zones of refuge that are immune to
the reaches of imperialism and globalization” (p. 605) and the importance of decolonization.
We begin to realize decolonization in a real way when we begin to achieve the re-
strengthening of our people as individuals so that these spaces can be occupied by
decolonized people living authentic lives...true power as Indigenous people ultimately
lies in our relationships with our land, relatives, language, and ceremonial life (p. 605).
2. Social Policy
Access to social and economically supportive living conditions and the protection of
environments that promote and sustain individual and community health are issues that are
governed by social policy. Social policy is an important avenue for addressing health disparities
endured by Indigenous peoples. While ‘zones of refuge’ are critical and Indigenous leadership is
essential for political pathways to healing, settler populations also have a responsibility in
achieving historical redress, reparation, and reconciliation. As stated in the Highlights from the
report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Minister of Supply and Services Canada,
1996d) redress of the harms of the past and the social and political structures that currently
sustain them should not be left to Indigenous people to address alone,
Just as social problems spring in part from collective experience, so solutions require
change at the collective level. Aboriginal people acting alone cannot shift the weight of
disadvantage and discrimination. But solutions that lift the weight for Aboriginal people
collectively shift it for everyone (Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1996d).

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Social policy must be developed to address the social and political origins of community
and population level health problems rather than solely focussing on and allocating resources to
the symptoms of distress and disease (Mitchell & MacLeod, 2014). The improvement of social,
economic and environmental living conditions is a critical vehicle for reducing social stress and
improving population health (Loppie Reading & Wien, 2009; Mikkonen & Raphael, 2010).
Political engagement and sound social policy, developed in collaboration with the populations
they affect, are powerful pathways to addressing colonial trauma and to fostering community
conditions for social, emotional, spiritual and political wellness.
The 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) (Minister of Supply and
Services Canada, 1996c) made a number of policy recommendations that were developed
through an intensive process of engagement. Participatory policy development is a strategy for
culturally relevant redress to a multitude of interlocking social and environmental factors that
determine the health status of Indigenous communities. The RCAP participatory process
provided important, specific and powerful policy recommendations to advance the health,
wellbeing and security of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Recommendations emerging from the
Highlights from the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples addressed issues of
sovereignty, self-governance, as well as many critical social determinants of health: education,
housing, capacity building and leadership (Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1996c).
3. Protection of Territory and Environmental Protection
Critical to the process of decolonization is the recognition of the essential importance of
land and territory to Indigenous peoples to their very identity and existence. Treaty issues,
restitution and reparation as well as protection from further displacement through development,
expansionism or environmental degradation and industrial pollution must be addressed through

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all available political avenues domestically and internationally. It is critical therefore to consider
the concept of Indigeneity, the unity of Indigenous peoples and their collective rights to their
ancestral lands (National Aboriginal Health Organization, 2011). Indigenous societies are
culturally, spirituality and historically connected to their lands in complex ways that non-
Indigenous peoples have failed to understand, or simply cannot understand.
Our knowledge comes from the land, and the destruction of the environment is a colonial
manifestation and a direct attack on Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous
nationhood...In present times environmental destruction of Indigenous territories
facilitated by state governments and instituted by large multinational corporations
continues to remove Indigenous peoples from the land and prevent Indigenous peoples
from living our knowledge (Simpson, 2004, pp. 4-5).
To address colonial trauma, to promote the healing of individuals and collectives, the collective
relationship to land and territory must be addressed through decolonizing processes that respect
the significant cultural relationship to land. Historical treaties and modern day land claim
agreements, environmental protections, and the right to free prior and informed consent
regarding development on traditional territories must be honoured in order to protect, preserve
and restore Indigenous lands, resources, and cultures and community wellness.
4. Resilience and Resurgence
Decade after decade, century after century, Indigenous peoples have resisted colonial
aggression and colonial interference (Thomas, Mitchell & Arseneau, 2015 in press). The initial
development of Canada resulted in the decimation of the Indigenous population from
approximately two million people at contact to a low of one hundred and fifty thousand. In the
past decade there has been resurgence in the Indigenous population that has now surpassed a

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population of over one million (Employment and Social Development Canada, 2015). The
Aboriginal population currently represents 4.3 percent of the total Canadian population of 34
million (Employment and Social Development Canada, 2015). To discuss the Aboriginal
population as 4 percent of the Canadian population minimizes and misrepresents the important
presence of First Nation, Inuit and Metis peoples within the Canadian population, not only
because they are the descendants of the First Peoples, but because they represent 23 to 86 percent
of the population of the three territories and 15 percent to 16 percent of the population in the
provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan (Statistics Canada, 2011). This population distribution
represents a very strong political force. One of the political opportunities in exercising the
identity politics of Indigeneity is to develop national and international partnerships between
Indigenous populations to share data collection and tracking systems of social political
determinants of health and outcome data (Smylie & Anderson, 2006) and to lobby collectively
for the implementation of the United Nations declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(Association, I.B. et al, 2011; Mitchell, 2014).
5. Reconciliation and Reparation
In order to heal the wounds of colonial trauma it will be necessary to acknowledge the
nature and impact of colonial relations of the past and the present. The Canadian Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (2015) was established to create a record of the residential school
experience, to commemorate former residential school students, and repair relations between
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples. One of the principle tasks was to promote awareness and
public education about the Indian Residential School system and its impact. As asserted by de
Leeuw, Greenwood and Cameron (2010) “Comprehensive and meaningful decolonization of
both Indigenous and settler communities is required in order to heal the deeper ‘causes of causes’

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of health disparities in Canada” (p. 295).
6. Revitalization
Decolonization has been identified as a critical strategy for Indigenous wellness.
Indigenous scholars have identified cultural renewal, decolonizing of the mind, and reclaiming
languages and Indigenous concepts as critical pathways to cultural revitalization (Anderson, et
al., 2003; King, Smith, & Gracey, 2009; Kirmayer, Simpson, & Cargo, 2003). The United
Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights is an international document that provides an
opportunity for increased political action on addressing colonial trauma and revitalizing
Indigenous communities. Through parallel processes of zones of refuge, public education, and
participatory social policy we may strive to approach the national goal of respectful coexistence
and Aboriginal wellness (Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1996c; Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, 2015).
Conclusion
The social and health inequalities borne by Indigenous peoples were identified as a gross
social injustice with political pathways to resolution. Acknowledging and addressing both
historical and contemporary forms of colonial trauma is a critical mental health strategy to
advance the strength and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples. Indigeneity, defined as an essential
connection to territorial homelands and to the resistance to and survival of various forms of
colonialism and imperialism, was presented as a useful construct to both understand and address
colonial trauma. A commitment to culturally appropriate, just, and effective social policies
developed in collaboration with affected populations was proposed. Six strategies 1. Self
Determination and Decolonization; 2. Social Policy; 3. Protection of Territory and
Environmental Protection; 4. Resilience and Resurgence; 5. Reconciliation and Reparation; and

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6. Revitalization were identified as political pathways to individual and collective wellness
within a larger framework of reconciliation.

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