Colonial Sentiments: Examining Canadian Depictions of Indigenous Suicide

Abstract

Colonialism has long impacted the health of Indigenous peoples in Canada and has had an unquestionable relationship with Indigenous suicide rates. In this thesis I hypothesized that contrary to popular conceptions, forms of colonialism still exist today in Canadian society, perhaps providing barriers to achieving maximally effective suicide prevention and support for Indigenous peoples. I used content analysis to examine existing depictions, common themes, and models of understanding of Indigenous suicide across private media and state-created Indigenous suicide prevention policies in Canada. Both private media and suicide prevention policy were found to be mainly focused on promoting a western, biomedical conception of wellness and mental health, thus forcing Indigenous peoples to conform to one homogeneous way of healing and understanding suicide. I argue that this lack of conceptual malleability is incongruent with the particularity that the phenomenon of suicide demands.