Getting rid of the Indian problem: Aboriginal suicide as a manifestation of genocide

This dissertation explores the possible links between Aboriginal suicide and genocide. I am not attempting to prove anything but rather to explore the possibilities that Aboriginal is less a health-related problem and more of a political issue. It is a hypothesis-generating dissertation, not a dissertation designed to result in a concrete solution.

The Introduction states what my goals are in the dissertation by discussing my own personal narrative. I also provide an alternative definition for “environment” as being not merely the physical realm but also the mental, emotional and spiritual realms as well. The methodology chapter discusses the issue of ethics in writing about such a personal and potentially volatile subject. There is an overview of “western” suicide theories, along with some theories which arose from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1996. I further discuss the issue of Aboriginal identities and how the lack of Aboriginal identity due to colonialism exacerbates Aboriginal suicide. Then comes a discussion of environmental racism which deals with Aboriginals connections with the land or, more specifically, the loss of land. I provide an analysis of ethnostress, a concept that can be used for either individuals or groups. The first chapter on genocide focuses on the UN Convention on Genocide, 1948 and how each of the five criteria which constitute genocide, according to the UN, relates to Aboriginal suicide. The second chapter on genocide examines genocide in Canada itself and the problems which have arisen as a result of Canada's signing the UN Convention's definition of genocide yet includes only one criterion (the actual killing of a group). In a dissertation such as this, there can be no clear-cut solutions although I present the notion of self-determination as being a possible way of ending or modifying Aboriginal suicide.