Being alive well? Power-Knowledge as a Countervailing Force to the Realization of Mental Well-being for Canada's Aboriginal Young People

Abstract

The First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Health Canada, commissioned a review of the current evidence on efforts to promote mental health in Aboriginal young people in Canada. A systematic review of the literature reveals that peer-reviewed ‘evidence-based’ evaluations of mental health promotion interventions with Canadian Aboriginal young people are virtually non-existent. The few published studies on mainstream young people, with their focus on those at risk, addressing individual-level factors within Western positivist conceptualizations of reality, have limited applicability to a colonized people with constructions of health that place emphasis on wholeness, connection, balance and harmony. This paper reviews several inter-related forces shaping mental health promotion discourse and programming as they pertain to Aboriginal young people in Canada today. They include colonization and neo-colonial relations, Aboriginal world views, meanings of health and selfdetermination, the conceptual and methodolo...