Walking with SAGE Clan Patrol: practicing Niitsitapiikimmapiiyipitssinni in healing addiction

• Main Author: Cran, Amy
• Other Authors: Wilson, Patrick
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Anthropology 2023
• Subjects: SAGE Clan Patrol; Addiction treatment; Culture as treatment; Blackfoot-led outreach; Opioid crisis; Niitsitapiikimmapiiyipitssinni; Public safety > Alberta > Lethbridge; Decolonization; Reconciliation; Opiod abuse > Alberta > Lethbridge; Harm reduction; First Nations; inuit
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10133/6593

116 pages This thesis will examine if and how a local, grassroots, Blackfoot-led outreach organization, SAGE Clan Patrol (Serve, Assist, Guard, and Engage) is guided by traditional Blackfoot Ways of Knowing, and how the work of this organization intersects with other proposed approaches to addiction treatment in Southern Alberta, including harm reduction framework and abstinence-oriented treatment. Through an ethnographic account of patrols from June to August 2022, it will explore how the work of this organization fits into narratives of ostensibly competing FNMI (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) and Western frameworks of health in the context of addiction treatment, and specifically, whether SAGE Clan's approach can be said to map onto a "Culture as Treatment" model. Further, it will explore the possibilities (and limits) of conceiving of the work of this organization under the banners of decolonization and reconciliation.