Coming full circle : spirituality and wellness among native communities in the Pacific Northwest

Book

Coming full circle : spirituality and wellness among native communities in the Pacific Northwest / Suzanne Crawford O'Brien.

Summary:

"Coming Full Circle is an interdisciplinary exploration of the relationships between spirituality and health in several contemporary Coast Salish and Chinook communities in western Washington from 1805 to 2005. Suzanne Crawford O'Brien examines how these communities define what it means to be healthy, and how recent tribal community-based health programs have applied this understanding to their missions and activities. She also explores how contemporary definitions, goals, and activities relating to health and healing are informed by Coast Salish history and also by indigenous spiritual views of the body, which are based on an understanding of the relationship between self, ecology, and community. Coming Full Circle draws on a historical framework in reflecting on contemporary tribal health-care efforts and the ways in which they engage indigenous healing traditions alongside twenty-first-century biomedicine. The book makes a strong case for the current shift toward tribally controlled care, arguing that local, culturally distinct ways of healing and understanding illness must be a part of contemporary Native healthcare. Combining in-depth archival research, extensive ethnographic participant-based field work, and skillful scholarship on theories of religion and embodiment, Crawford O'Brien offers an original and masterful analysis of contemporary Native Americans and their worldviews. "-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9780803211278 (hardback)
ISBN: 0803211279 (hardback)
Physical Description: xxxvi, 425 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Publisher: Lincoln, Nebraska : University of Nebraska Press, [2013]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Introduction : the case of Ellen Gray -- Part one : locations -- Theoretical orientation : embodied subjectivity and the self in motion -- Part two : illness, healing, and missionization in historical context -- "The fact is they cannot live" : Euroamerican responses to epidemic disease -- "Civilization is poison to the Indian" : missionization, authenticity, and the myth of the vanishing Indian -- Part three : restoring the spirit, renewing tradition -- "A good Christian is a good medicine man" : changing religious landscapes from 1804 to 2005 -- Both traditional and contemporary : the South Puget Intertribal Women's Wellness Program -- Coming full circle : defining health and wellness on the Shoalwater Bay Indian Reservation -- Part four : person, body, place -- "Rich in relations" : self, kin, and community -- The healthy self : embedded in place -- "A power makes you sick" : illness and healing in Coast Salish and Chinook traditions -- Conclusion : the case of Ellen Gray, reconsidered -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.