mediaindigena

MEDIA INDIGENA 272

Added 2021-10-17 21:18:20 +0000 UTC

Bad Medicine / MI 272

ON THIS WEEK'S INDIGENOUS ROUNDTABLE:

Unhealthy healers. CBC News has recently reported that a number of women have come forward with allegations of sexual assault against an Ontario medicine man. Although allegations are not the same as charges or convictions, the stories the women have shared are reminiscent of an all-too-familiar scenario: the kind of stories we’ve all heard whispered about certain healers, spiritualists or elders—individuals you ought not be alone with. Needless to say, it’s a perverse inversion of the roles and responsibilities such healers are supposed to embody and exemplify. The real question is how do they persist? How, despite the open secret of such misconduct, is it all too often met with silence?

Joining host/producer Rick Harp to try to speak to those questions and more, plus hopefully nudge the conversation forward about what prevention might look like, are roundtable regulars Brock Pitawanakwat (Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies at York University) and Ken Williams (assistant professor with the University of Alberta’s department of drama).

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LINKS REFERENCED / CONSULTED THIS EPISODE:

• "Open secret: Sexual abuse haunts children in Indigenous communities" Canadian Press (via CBC News)

• "Opinion: No more secrets about child sex abuse on reserve" Two Row Times

• "French Church abuse: 216,000 children were victims of clergy - inquiry" BBC News