Login | Register

Should aboriginal healing traditions be integrated into urban medical facilities?

Title:

Should aboriginal healing traditions be integrated into urban medical facilities?

Papadakis, Elena (2008) Should aboriginal healing traditions be integrated into urban medical facilities? Masters thesis, Concordia University.

[thumbnail of MR40842.pdf]
Preview
Text (application/pdf)
MR40842.pdf - Accepted Version
1MB

Abstract

Should Aboriginal healing traditions be integrated into urban medical facilities? In spite of public and academic interest in bringing the two systems together, existing research on the topic shows how difficult integration would be due to historical/political, practical, and philosophical challenges. Not surprisingly, logistical measures for implementing the task have yet to be formalized. Based on 3.5 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a western Canadian city, this thesis explores what health administrators, people who use Aboriginal healing traditions, and people who practice Aboriginal healing traditions think about integration, and examines how attitudes within and about health care influence participants' views. Mobilizing anthropological concepts about biomedicine, bodily ways of knowing, sensorial dimensions of healing, and multiculturalism, I argue that prevailing attitudes, assumptions, and relations of power within health care culture, when combined with historical/political, practical, and philosophical challenges, seriously encumber the integration process. In conclusion, I suggest that Aboriginal healing traditions should only be integrated into urban medical facilities where health care providers and other staff relinquish the attitudes, assumptions, and relations of power that the biomedical paradigm upholds.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Sociology and Anthropology
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Papadakis, Elena
Pagination:vii, 152 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:Sociology and Anthropology
Date:2008
Thesis Supervisor(s):Howes, David
Identification Number:LE 3 C66S63M 2008 P37
ID Code:975684
Deposited By: Concordia University Library
Deposited On:22 Jan 2013 16:12
Last Modified:13 Jul 2020 20:08
Related URLs:
All items in Spectrum are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. The use of items is governed by Spectrum's terms of access.

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads per month over past year

Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
- Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
Back to top Back to top