'A gossamer web, is life' : biomedicine, the Mi'kmaq and the reclamation of traditional healing knowledge

Abstract

Biomedicine and the traditional healing practices of the Mi‘kmaq are outgrowths of their respective cultural backgrounds. In the socialized biomedicial milieu of contemporary Nova Scotia this has created unique and nuanced challenges in the provision of health care to Mi‘kmaq patients. Additionally, the reclamation of all-but-lost traditional knowledge concerning healing among the Mi‘kmaq has proven to be, at times, problematic. This thesis examines these issues, and presents a new interpretive framework within which to approach the regeneration of traditional healing. The result is a valuable and useful contribution to scholarship in the field, and provides insight to those policy-makers involved in the provision of care to Nova Scotia‘s First Nations citizens.