The Historical Experience of Indigenous Patients in Canadian Assylums

history, history of medicine, history of psychiatry, colonialism, racism, discrimination, Indigenous peoples, Canada, mental illness, assylums

Research Mentor: Dr. Tyler McCreary, he/his
Department, College, Affiliation: Geography, Social Sciences and Public Policy
Contact Email: tmccreary@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor):
Research Assistant Supervisor Email:
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:

Looking for Research Assistants: Yes
Number of Research Assistants: 4
Relevant Majors: History, Geography, Sociology, Psychology, Political Science, Criminology, Environment and Society
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
Research Assistant Transportation Required: No, the project is remote
Remote or In-person: Partially Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 5-10, Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link: Not participating in the Roundtable

Project Description

This research project examines the historical experiences of Indigenous patients in the Canadian mental health system from the early twentieth century until the mid-twentieth century (1900-1944). The project particularly explores how Canadian mental health institutions ordered the conduct of care for Indigenous people, and compares it to Indigenous practices of traditional psychological and spiritual care. We examine how settler authorities sought to control care for Indigenous life, presenting Indigenous peoples as broken and lacking the capacity to heal themselves. The objective of this research is threefold. We seek to examine how settler institutions: a) normalized their psychiatric and medical authority to save Indigenous people; b) erased the coexistence of Indigenous healing practices, and c) consistently neglected consideration of the broader the violence of colonialism as a source of Indigenous psychological and spiritual harm.

Research Tasks: students will engage in: identifying Indigenous patient records; collecting reports on conditions in the provincial hospitals and photographic material on mental health hospitals; preliminary document analysis; review of the relevant academic literature

Skills that research assistant(s) may need: archival research, historical document analysis, critical reading skills