New Thinking for Intervention: Towards a Culturally Responsive Model of Understanding Indigenous Suicide

Abstract

This dissertation explores the meanings and explanations of suicidal behavior from the perspective of Cowichan Tribes community members. Cowichan Tribes is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. With the tribal context at the center of this investigation, this dissertation draws on Indigenous methodological approaches and theorizes suicidal behavior by engaging both settler colonial theory and the interpersonal theory of suicide. As a way to conceptualize culturally specific mental health approaches, I present a locally designed approach to assessment that draws on Cowichan’s relational and collective formations. In the particular context of the Cowichan peoples, this project speaks back to the pressures of colonialism and the implications of the establishment of settler permanency for Indigenous futurity. Broadly, this dissertation contests individualistic models of suicide and presents the specific need to theorize Indigenous suicidal behavior from a collective orientation. Keywords: Indigenous suicide, settler permanency, settler colonialism, collective, Indigenous futures