Grant: Project Grant

The aspiration of 'healthy aging in place' is central to our intergenerational health research partnership with Métis older adults (55+) and youth (13-30) (collectively M-AY) from northern Saskatchewan (NSK). We have learned that M-AY live their lives concurrently in multiple places that include northern communities and lands, and southern cities. Time spent in each varies with circumstances and each is associated with specific needs and supports. Regardless of where they are M-AY strongly aspire to maintain connections to ancestral lands, culture, family, and community. This aspiration is enacted through placemaking, especially walking with the land. Multilocality has been revealed as an emerging critical yet neglected dimension of research on aging well in place across the life course. This study will focus on the lived experience of multilocality for NSK M-AY that encompasses an NSK Métis community, the surrounding homelands, and the city of Saskatoon 500km to the south. Centered in Breath of Life Theory & Ecological Framework, health equity, and Métis methods, we will kehokatowin (visit one another) in all three locations to uncover how multilocality shapes experiences and aspirations for wellbeing and identify interventions, along with facilitators and barriers to access, that support well-being. Data will be drawn from interviews, stories, participant observation, and other measures at large gatherings, in homes, communities, and on the land. Provider and stakeholder interviews and monitoring of public social media and bulletin boards will identify existing interventions and services. Anticipated outcomes: (i) narratives of multilocality-informed wellness in place(s); (ii) integration of multilocality in a community-developed Métis health and wellness framework; and (iii) and an annotated directory of interventions supporting multilocal well-being. Outcomes may be transferable to other Indigenous contexts with similar lived realities.