The determinants of health for aboriginal women appear to be closely related to sense of identity, which has a direct impact on feelings of self worth and belonging. Colonization was a tool through which sexism and racism were reinforced, which has had a lasting impact that continues to diminish power and resources available to Aboriginal women. Furthermore, the colonial legacy in Canada disrupted the cultural and social identities of Aboriginal women, wherein white men delegitimized the identities of many Aboriginal women beginning with the imposition of violent assimilative policy under the Indian Act (Bourassa,  2004). Thus, in researching Aboriginal women's experiences accessing mainstream maternal health services in urban centres in Canada, it was not surprising to find that many women expressed that they perceive identity as playing a large role in both the ways health care providers view them, as well as the ways in which they make decisions about whether or not to access certain spaces and resources (Browne & Fiske, 2001; Van Herk, Smith, & Andrew, 2010).

 

Across space and time, childbirth has been an important life event in part due to the way it says so much about one's position in the world. In her ethnography on childbirth in a rural Indian village, medical anthropologist Sara Pinto wrote about the significance of academic inquiry into the ways in which "the female and fertile bodies [have become] sites upon which national and transnational interests have been lodged" (Pinto, 2008). I believe this quote is interestingly applicable to views of childbirth universally, with particular relevance to the ways in which systematic forces shape Aboriginal women's birthing experiences in Canada. With reference to globalized neoliberal and (post) colonial structures, birth has become a social, political, and economic act due to the way it simultaneously has the ability of disrupting and reinforcing aspects of identity- both on the individual and community levels. 

 

Aboriginal women’s identities as mothers remains highly tumultuous within the health care setting as a result of historical and present day violence and discrimination attached to their role as mothers. This is mostly a result of the introduction of patriarchy, residential schools, the "sixties scoop" and the ongoing disproportionate removal of Aboriginal children from their homes (Van Herk, Smith, & Andrew, 2010). Understandably, Aboriginal women often do not feel safe accessing mainstream services for themselves or their children in fear of being labelled ‘bad mothers’ (Browne & Fiske, 2001). This is especially true for those identified as being particularly oppressed, including women visibly darker in colour or who ‘appear’ more Aboriginal, the elderly, women who are street-involved, and women from very remote communities (Herk, Smith, & Andrew, 2010). As racism, sexism, and colonialism are dynamic processes that operate through the imposition of external categories or an ‘othering’, women who bear their otherness in more than one way suffer from multiple oppressions under the mainstream health system where they are always already racialized and sexualized (Bourassa, 2004).

 

On the other hand, Aboriginal women reclaim an aspect of their identity through their roles as women in the acts of giving birth and mothering, both on an individual level but also within their communities and on a societal level. In this sense, birth and the role of ‘mothering’ can be viewed as ‘resisting’ the dominant narrative that has attempted to disrupt traditional mothering roles (Van Herk, Smith, & Andrews, 2010). 

 

 

References

 

Bourassa, C., Mckay-McNabb, K., & Hampton, M. (2004). Racism, sexism, and colonialism: The impact on the health of aboriginal women in canada. Canadian Woman Studies, 24(1), 23.

 

Browne, A. J., & Fiske, J. (2001). First nations women's encounters with mainstream health care services. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 23(2), 126-147.

 

Pinto, S. (2008). Where there is no midwife: Birth and loss in rural india. New York: Berghahn Books.

 

van Herk, K. A, Smith, D., & Andrew, C. (2010). Identity matters: Aboriginal mothers' experiences of accessing health care. Contemporary Nurse: A Journal for the Australian Nursing Profession, 37(1), 57-68.