Brotherhood and Ceremony: The Impact of Cultural Programming on Urban Indigenous Men

Summary: Due to continued colonization in Canada, Indigenous people lack opportunities to connect with cultural practices. Specifically, Indigenous men deal with negative stereotypes regarding their ability to fulfill social and cultural obligations. Indigenous men also deal with the added burden of high incarceration rates, lack of programs to address their specific needs as men and fathers, and intergenerational trauma. Despite decades of literature supporting Indigenous cultural programming as a means to increase wellness, difficulties obtaining consistent and sustainable funding lead to further program problems. Additionally, research on Indigenous men’s programming rarely follows up with participants to understand the impact of programs over time. To address this, we engage with Indigenous and Spiritual leaders through community-based action research to deliver and evaluate land-based cultural practices by hosting a program that helps connect Indigenous men to their inherent right of traditional hunting, harvesting, and drum making. The program followed Indigenous men through a traditional hunt, harvesting, creation of drums, awakening of the drums and numerous sharing circles for over a year. This presentation shares the men’s voices and photographs to tell the program's story and the importance of this type of research. We hope that by disseminating the findings of this research, and sharing the resources that were created, local Indigenous organizations will be able to secure sustainable funding and resources to continue to support Indigenous men in healing and wellness through land-based learning. Presenters: Stephanie Spence studies in the Psychiatric Nursing Program at Brandon University. She is Swampy-Cree from York Factory First Nation. Stephanie is a research-assistant with the Centre for Critical Studies of Rural Mental Health, a member of the Indigenous Education Senate Sub-Committee and Co-Chair of the Faculty of Health Studies Equity Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Mediasite Presenter

9/26/2023 7:00:00 PM