Re: Request for input regarding American Indians in science
Marlene R. Atleo (maratleo@island.net)
Fri, 09 Jul 1999 08:51:06 -0700
Hi Sophie
As a doctoral candidate in the thick of First Nations health promotion,
service delivery, research and policy issues I empathize with your
situation......instead of taking a year off so I won't lose momentum....I
have taken on a variety of contracts that are allowing me to live and
explore some of these issues on the "ground" in the policies, institutions,
with the people, etc.....My doctoral research is focussed on learning as it
is portrayed in traditional narratives.
In Canada the AFN - our Canadian First Nations national body has just
released a health report in which they also discuss the relationship
between data managment and self government/self
determination...institutional and capacity development in FN/NA communities
is dependant on unequal partnerships. The recent Royal Commission on
Aboriginal Peoples (available on line - RCAP) spent several years hearing
submissions from FN communities....capacity development came out as a huge
issue as did healing from the ravages of colonialism....In this process we
need to understand some of the inequalities of working with government and
large corporations as well as implication of doing so for the future of
FN/NA....for future generations....
O'Neil, Reading & Leader (1998) in Human Organization Vol 57, No2 230-237
Changing the Relations of Surveillance: The development of a discourse of
resistance in aboriginal epidemiology.
This article may be of interest. This group is out of U. of Manitoba which
is front and center in First Nations issues in health research. The
reading builds on the work of Foucault and may be a little "radical" but it
is recognized academic theory that does the job in delineating the issues
about how power operates through surveillance techniques in modern society
to regulate populations.....I realize that is only the start of your
concerns...but it does provide an entre into identifying the "nation to
nation" level of analysis...it gets very confounded if the level of
analysis remains personal/individual...the issues are sociohistorical,
cultural, group level....thus the analysis needs to be centered there
also....in my opinion....
Jace Weaver has recently edited a book of essays by mainly FN/NA authors
that look at some of these issues very closely also.
hope that contributes somewhat...
Mar.
Marlene R. Atleo, Ahousaht First Nation, Nuu-chah-nulth
PhD Candidate, EDST, University of British Columbia
"We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that
which others have made of us"
Franz Fanon