Unikkaartuit : Meanings of Well‐Being, Unhappiness, Health, and Community Change Among Inuit in Nunavut, Canada (original) (raw)
Related papers
Suicide among young Inuit in the Canadian Arctic is at an epidemic level. In order to understand the distress and well-being experienced in Inuit communities, a first step in understanding collective suicide, this qualitative study was designed. Fifty Inuit were interviewed in two Inuit communities in Nunavut, Canada, and questionnaires asking the same questions were given to 66 high school and college students. The areas of life investigated here were happiness and wellbeing, unhappiness, healing, and community and personal change. Three themes emerged as central to well-being: the family, talking/communication, and traditional Inuit cultural values and practices. The absence of these factors were most closely associated with unhappiness. Narratives about community and personal change were primarily about family, intergenerational segregation, an increasing population, more trouble in romantic relationships among youth, drug use, and poverty.
Unikkaartuit: Meanings and Experiences of Suicide Among Inuit in Nunavut, Canada
International Journal of Indigenous Health, 2014
Inuit in Arctic Canada have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Most of these suicides occur among youth, especially males, between the ages of 15 and 24. The goal of this study was to gain an understanding of Inuit experiences with suicide and what suicide means to Inuit, including suicide attempters and bereaved survivors. Fifty Inuit between the ages of 14 and 94 were interviewed about suicides in two communities in Nunavut. Sixty-three high school and college students were also surveyed with the same questions. It was found that suicide was most closely related to romantic relationship and family problems, and to experiences of loneliness and anger. These findings are interpreted in the context of massive social change, ongoing colonization, and multigenerational trauma following the colonial government era of the 1950s and 1960s, when family and interpersonal relationships were significantly affected. The study stresses that suicide prevention strategies focus on youth and family, particularly on parenting, and ensure that Inuit communities take control of prevention programs. It recommends that family and community resources be further mobilized for suicide prevention.
Canadian Inuit Community Engagement in Suicide Prevention
To review suicide patterns among Inuit in Canada and highlight new developments in Inuit-driven and community-based suicide prevention. Study design. Narrative overview of suicide among Inuit in Canada, strides towards Inuit autonomy, and community and government action towards suicide prevention. Methods. Review of Inuit meanings of mental health, movements towards Inuit control across Inuit Nunaat (the 4 Inuit regions) of Canada, and of community and government action towards suicide prevention. Results. Economic advancement is occurring in Inuit Nunaat following land claim settlements, and territorial and provincial governments are overseeing Inuit well-being. Inuit community engagement in suicide prevention is taking place and studies are being planned to evaluate the efficacy of such action for suicide prevention and community mental health. Initial evidence demonstrates that community control over suicide prevention itself can be effective towards preventing suicide.
Inuit youth suicide is at an epidemic level in the circumpolar north. Rapid culture change has left Inuit in a state of coloniality that destabilized their kin-based social organization, and in spite of advances in self-governance social problems such as suicide continue. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork I carried out in Nunavut, Canada (2004, including 27 interviews with Inuit between the ages of 17 and 61, I examine male youth in particular in the context of recent colonial change, gender ideologies and behavior, youth autonomy, and the family. Anger is common among Inuit male youth, often directed toward girlfriends and parents, and suicide is embedded in some of these relationships. Many Inuit male youth are struggling with a new cultural model of love and sexuality. Inuit speak about a need for more responsible parenting. Evidence is beginning to show, however, that local, community-based suicide prevention may be working. [suicide, Inuit, youth, gender, colonialism]
Suicide and Suicide Prevention among Inuit in Canada
The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 2016
Inuit in Canada have among the highest suicide rates in the world, and it is primarily among their youth. Risk factors include known ones such as depression, substance use, a history of abuse, and knowing others who have made attempts or have killed themselves, however of importance are the negative effects of colonialism. This took place for Inuit primarily during the government era starting in the 1950s, when Inuit were moved from their family-based land camps to crowded settlements run by white men, and children were removed from their parents and placed into residential or day schools. This caused more disorganization than reorganization. The most negative effect of this colonialism/imperialism for Inuit has been on their family and sexual relationships. Many Inuit youth feel alone and rejected. Suicide prevention has been taking place, the most successful being community-driven programs developed and run by Inuit. Mental health factors for Indigenous peoples are often cultural....
Isumagijaksaq: mindful of the state: social constructions of Inuit suicide
Social Science & Medicine, 2004
Inuit suicide is the most significant mental health issue in the newly created Nunavut Territory of Canada's eastern Arctic. Suicide rates in Nunavut are 6 times those of Canada's southern provinces. Consistent with other Canadian populations, males aged 15-29 years of age are most at risk. Various social constructions have been used to make sense of Inuit suicide, a phenomenon of historical interest to anthropologists, who popularized the idea of elderly Inuit voluntarily abandoning their lives to the elements so as not to burden their surviving relatives. An examination of the literature and research dealing with Inuit suicide suggests that three typologies have typically been used to explain the problem: organic or quasi-organic explanations, social explanations involving concepts of social change and social disruption, and socio-psychological models of two types; a risk assessment approach focusing on the circumstances surrounding the deceased or the person with suicidal thoughts and another dealing with norms, values, thought processes and relationships within Inuit culture. We argue that these approaches offer incomplete explanations of the current problem. Attempts to complete the picture by identifying risk factors have produced contradictory and unsatisfactory results. We conclude that the impact of colonial relations of ruling has much to do with the current problem and advocate an approach that combines narrative research and intergenerational communication with community action to address the problem. Low Inuit inuusittiaqarniq (self-esteem) is an important factor in Inuit suicide, but rather than a psychological problem, has its roots in a history of colonialism, paternalism and historical events.
Suicide amongst the Inuit of Nunavut: An Exploration of Life Trajectories
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
This article reports results of the life trajectories from 92 Inuit who died by suicide, matched for age and gender with 92 living-controls. A proxy-based procedure and semi-structured interviews with informants were conducted to obtain trajectories of developmental events occurring over the life course for suicide and community-matched controls. Results from this research indicate two different trajectories that differentiate the control-group from the suicide-group throughout the life course. Even though the number of suicide attempts are similar between both groups, the suicide-group had a more important burden of adversity, which seemed to create a cascading effect, leading to suicide.
Suicide Among the Inuit of Canada
Across Canada, Aboriginal people suffer from suicide rates two to three times that of the general Canadian population (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1995). Many reasons have been advanced for this disparity including socioeconomic disadvantage, geographic isolation, rapid culture change with attendant acculturation stress and the oppressive effects of a long history of internal colonialism (Kirmayer, 1994). In this chapter, we will focus on the Inuit who have had particularly high rates of suicide in recent years (Dickason, 1992; Petawabano, Gourdeau, Jourdain, Palliser-Tulugak & Cossette, 1994; Young, 1994). The 1991 census recorded some 43,000 Canadians with Inuit origins (Waldram, Herring & Young, 1995). Most Inuit live in communities of 200 to 1000 or more, across the coastal regions of the Canadian North. Across all regions, the rate of completed suicide among Inuit is currently estimated at about 3.9 times that of the Canadian average; among Inuit young people, the suicide rate is about 5.1 times that of non-Aboriginal youth, based on data from 1987-1991 (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1995). The Inuit of Canada share culture and history with Inuit across the Arctic and subArctic from Siberia to Greenland. While there are regional variations in dialect, beliefs and practices, underlying this diversity is a remarkable consistency in language, mythology and lifestyle. Accordingly, we will draw on data from Alaska and Greenland to supplement Canadian studies. In the first section, we summarize what is known about the epidemiology of suicide among the Inuit and review studies that have examined risk and protective factors. The second section takes an excursion through the ethnographic literature to reconsider the historical stereotype of “easy” or altruistic suicide. This ethnographic history then provides a basis for considering the impact of culture change in the third section. Finally, we consider current initiatives to reduce the high prevalence of Inuit suicide.
2015
In this report, we set out a rationale and plan of action for suicide prevention and mental health promotion in the First Nations and Inuit communities of Québec. The recommendations are based on the best available information and evaluations of existing programs. We hope this will be a useful resource for communities and individuals developing and implementing programs to meet their local needs. This report draws from earlier reviews prepared by our group for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In response to requests for program materials on suicide prevention from the public health department of Nunavik and social services of the Atikamekw Nation, we have attempted to review the available literature and distill practical guidelines that take into account the specific needs and constraints of remote rural Native communities in Québec and across Canada.