Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

ICS Travel Awards: Past research into Canada's history of the Indian residential school (IRS) assimilation policy (1879-1998) revealed that Aboriginal children were often traumatized. Many were diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and this trauma was found to be passed onto later generations. Research findings showed that medical professionals often viewed survivors' response to trauma from a clinical lens only and rarely considered how culture and the Indigenous holistic understanding of health would view it differently. As a result, professionals overlook the varied experiences and the possibility that while trauma existed, many survivors were able to reframe their experiences to not only strengthen themselves but next generations as well (Denham 2008). My doctoral research aims to find the broader spectrum of experiences and outcomes of the IRS experience by determining: a) What is the main concern of female IRS survivors and their daughters as it relates to the IRS experience? and b) How do they continually work to resolve this concern? I start with the assumption that variation exists in how individuals responded to the IRS experience and in the outcome and transmission of these experiences to next generations. Instead of using structured interviews that ask leading questions (e.g. about either psychiatric outcomes or resilience), I listen to female participants' own stories and words and then ask them more detailed questions based on their experiences. The goal of this research is to develop a theory that comes from the experiences of IRS female survivors and their daughters that accounts for the variation in responses and outcomes. Understanding this process by means of a theoretical framework will foster the development of culture-based tools to address family disruption and promote life opportunities. Coming from a gendered perspective, preliminary findings of this research study will be presented.