Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The overall goal of this research was to create a space for individuals to express the impacts of systems, relationships and the ways in which people come to understand their overall wellbeing and connection to ancestors through stories in personal identity development. This project expressed a Muskego Inninuwuk methodology as a foundation to explore experiences of individuals who possess both Indigenous and non-Indigenous ancestry in the development of their identities. The use of natural conversations facilitated sitting with and listening to Cree Elders and engaging with the stories of mixed-blood Cree individuals about the stories of their identities. Identity is the way that we answer the question who am I? It is a search for a place to belong, to connect to those around us in a way that can provide safety and meaning in how we understand who we are. Individual's search for belonging, membership and ultimately connection is a natural human desire linked to wellbeing and health. My research explored personal stories and those stories of our ancestors, to reconnect us with our essential and authentic selves. Elders shared with me stories of disconnection and intergenerational experiences that caused diversion from the natural progression of Cree identity development as impacts of colonization. From this they also shared their stories of re-connection and healing. Common experiences expressed by mixed-blood Cree participants highlighted the impact of colonization on their understanding and expression of themselves as individuals and as members of larger community, the complexity that underlies their experiences of identity, and how their understanding of wellbeing is connected to healing. Stories shared processes of healing, decolonization and resurgence of Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing in reclamation of self.