Indigenous peoples represent a unique population in Canada, with various intersectional identities and lived experiences (Greenwood, Leeuw, & Fraser, 2007).
Indigenous populations are culturally and geographically diverse, living in rural, remote, and urban environments across the country (King, Smith, & Gracey, 2009).
Although Indigenous peoples represent a rather small portion of the national population (approximately 4.9% according to census data), they are overrepresented in nearly all social institutions, such as child welfare (Sullivan & Charles, 2012), correctional facilities (LaPrairie, 2002), shelters (Baskin, 2007), and special education services (Gill, 2012).
Indigenous children in Canada were institutionalized as a means to rehabilitate them into productive members of the nation-state (McKenzie et al., 2016). Indigenous children with developmental differences and disabilities, were institutionalized in a similar fashion (Strong-Boag, 2007).
From the beginning of the 1990s until as recently as 2009, individuals with intellectual impairments and mental illness were seen as a threat to civil society and therefore confined to institutions and asylums (Jongbloed, 2003; Lemay, 2009).
Numerous accounts from both former residents and staff members illustrate the abusive and neglectful practices that characterized institutionalization (Sobsey, 2006).
The institutionalization of disabled peoples hindered participation in society based on the understanding that these individuals were less than human, and therefore a threat to the continuation of the human race (Reaume, 2012). Colonial history viewed Indigenous people with disabilities as being abnormal.
Prior to European contact, Indigenous communities lived from and with the land, in relational ways that valued reciprocity, longevity, and sustainability (Simpson, 2008). Within these collective societies, prosperity and communal strength were of utmost importance to a nation’s survival (Simpson, 2013). It is believed that because of the interconnected nature of the universe, what befalls one member of the community inherently affects all. Overcoming challenges as a community was valued as a way of preserving cultural knowledge for subsequent generations (Kirmayer, Dandeneau, Marshall, Phillips, & Williamson, 2012). In this way, developing mechanisms for including all members in most aspects of community life was welcomed as a way to foster a stronger nation (Lovern & Locust, 2013).
Colonial control through legislation and policy destroyed many of the communal ways in which Indigenous peoples lived.
Source
Disability as a Colonial Construct: The Missing Discourse of Culture in
Conceptualizations of Disabled Indigenous Children
Nicole Ineese-Nash, MA, PhD Student, OISE, University of Toronto
Research Associate, Schools of Early Childhood Education and Child and
Youth Care, Ryerson University