A Framework for Decolonization Interventions: Broadening the Focus for Improving the Health and Wellbeing of Indigenous Communities 1

Abstract

Colonization has spread around the world and inexorably affected millions of people over the last few centuries. There have been many scattered intervention strategies to overcome some of the long-term effects of colonization, especially for health, education, and employment. With respect to the inequalities and discriminations that have remained after centuries, however, it is less clear what might make a difference on such a large scale. I reviewed ten broad interventions that have been tried, including: indigenous people’s movements, cross cultural awareness training, antiracism and antidiscrimination training, decolonization workshops, liberation theology and psychology, and truth and reconciliation interventions. Some common 1. I would like to thank Taima Moeke-Pickering for both inspiration and help with this material a long time ago, and to Pauline Guerin, Linda Waimarie Nikora, and Dennis McDermott for asking difficult questions early on. I also wish to thank the many communities in Australia and New Zealand that have talked to me, encouraged a broader focus, and shared their stories with me. This was supported by Australian Research Council Discovery Grant DP0877901: Indigenous mental health in remote communities: Applying a contextual model of community research and intervention and Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Grant G2007/7290 Indigenous mental health in remote communities.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 10 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.