Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

My research is focused on the relationship between aboriginal psychological health and natural ecosystems; how has the abrupt transition to modern food systems affected psychological resilience and the ability to recover from trauma? I utilize and Ecosystems Approach because indigenous food systems were imbedded in the ecological environment and because it is consistent with indigenous perspectives as a systems approach. I examine the facets of psychological resilience within indigenous ecological food systems to from both western and indigenous perspectives because: 1) First Nations have experienced a more abrupt transition from ecological to modern food systems, 2) it demonstrates that indigenous and western ways of knowing are not different realities but rather different metaphors of a similar reality, and 3) because First Nations have a vital perspective to share with a world increasingly burdened by poor mental health: the importance of natural ecosystems, and a systems approaches, to mental health.