"They're not just fire pits, they're Sacred Fires": Traditional healing spaces as sites of anticolonial resistance in a Toronto hospital

Abstract

Globally, there is a movement to revive ancient Indigenous practices of traditional healing (TH) that utilize Land-based medicine and emphasize a wholistic approach to wellness. In Canada, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action urges the integration of Indigenous TH practices into healthcare systems. Drawing from anticolonial theory and Indigenous health geographies, this research examines traditional healing spaces (TH spaces) at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) as an in-depth case study to understand how TH spaces transform institutional 'space' into Indigenous 'place' while challenging dominant biomedical paradigms. Using an Indigenous community-engaged methodology and qualitative interviews with Indigenous and allied health care staff at CAMH (n = 22), this study analyzes how TH spaces function as sites of both healing and resistance across multiple scales - individual, institutional, and societal. The research compares perspectives between staff groups to understand the roles, responsibilities, and meanings of TH spaces within the complex dynamics of healthcare reconciliation, while centering Indigenous self-determination in these transformative processes. Key findings indicate that transformation of space for TH must privilege Indigenous self-determination and that Indigenous and wholistic cultural practices benefit from conditions that connect to the natural environment. Nurturing relationships and valuing Indigenous knowledge is essential for the uptake of TH within colonial and institutional frameworks, and this case underscores the need for significant commitment by those in power to affect structural change.

Keywords: Anticolonial healthcare; Hospitals; Indigenous geographies of health; Space and place; Traditional healing; Traditional healing spaces.