Indigenizing the healthy built and social environment: A public health case study of O-Pipon- Na-Piwin Cree Nation (OPCN)

Abstract

Beginning around the 1800’s, Indigenous peoples were environmentally dispossessed and moved to Indian Reserves to make space for European colonization, but O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation (OPCN) was then again displaced with a flood diversion in the 1970s. This thesis documents the factors impacting affecting health in OPCN. Through in-depth interviews, participants (n=7) described changes and outcomes to their traditional way of life, health, economics and social aspects of OPCN, and the dysfunction resulting from colonial interference. This research links unhealthy aspects of the built environment (community design, housing, food, transportation, natural environments) to colonial environmental dispossession and identifies solutions. The healthy built environment framework was helpful to look at the aspects, but only after it was indigenized, based on Indigenous priorities of self-determination, reconciliation, policy, economics, traditional ecological knowledge reclamation, and de-colonialization that created the Indigenous Healthy Built and Social Environment framework, which addresses disparities in Indigenous communities.