To fully understand the institutions and social issues we grapple with today, we must understand our history. In previous chapters we’ve explored the role of colonialism in shaping our experiences today. The United States is a country founded on European colonization. As is true throughout the world, colonial control was established with atrocities and slavery. Colonizers murdered the people who already lived on the land through war and resettlement. Their occupations killed Indigenous Peoples through disease. Colonizers used forced education and relocation as a way of destroying families, communities, and cultures.

The United States still has colonies, or territories: three in the Caribbean Sea and eleven in the Pacific Ocean. Five territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) are permanently inhabited unincorporated territories. Territories of the United States are overseen by the federal government of the United States and are not sovereign entities.

For example, the people who live in the territory of Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens. However, they are not allowed to participate in many elections and often do not receive the same kind of federal funding that the recognized states receive. Residents of these territories and Indigenous communities residing on the mainland still feel the effects of the historical destruction of colonialism.

How does colonialism shape our ideas and actions around health, safety, and security? Powerful groups in society continue to apply many of the worldviews and tools of colonization, resulting in the discrimination and oppression that is felt by many every day. How do those ideas affect us today?

Colonized vs. Indigenous Worldviews

In Chapter 3, we explained how colonial thought, white supremacy, and capitalism reinforce each other. In Chapter 5, we explored how colonial practice and thought contributes to inequality. We can apply these connections to our study of the institution of government. That is, the worldviews of colonialism contribute to the structure of the U.S. government and inform priorities, policies and laws around health, safety and security. Let’s look closer at that worldview with a comparison.

Although Indigenous Peoples throughout the world have very different cultures, their collective worldview is significantly different from the Western worldview. We’ve summarized some of the core differences in Indigenous and Western worldviews in the table in figure 7.18. Each worldview defines relationships to both wealth and land. In the Indigenous worldview, land is sacred, something to be cared for from generation to generation. Wealth is shared. In the Western worldview, land is owned or controlled, and the purpose of living is to accumulate wealth.

Capitalism

A good example that illustrates the differences between the dominant Western lifestyle today and Indigenous ways of living is our current economic system, better known as capitalism. We defined capitalism in Chapter 6 as a type of economic and social system in which private businesses or corporations compete for profit. Goods, services, and many beings are defined as private property, and people sell their labor on the market for a wage.

Chapter 6 explained that capitalism requires endless consumption and resource usage, which is not sustainable on a finite planet. In addition to the decimation of Indigenous populations and the land that they lived on, colonization supports a worldview that contributes to ecological devastation. In the colonist view, land is to be owned and subjugated, rather than tended and cared for. Capitalism also includes a prioritization of people’s laws and wealth over the natural world. Colonial worldviews support the value of individual well-being above all else. This individualism leads to a lack of action and concern regarding the well being of our neighbors, plants, and animals who surround us.

Finally, in Chapter 3 we introduced autodecolonization, which comes from the idea that we can internalize capitalism, but can choose to fight against it within ourselves. This internalization can be seen in how we consume resources, what we see as valuable forms of work, and what we determine to be basic living standards.

The Myth of the Right to Live

Anthropologist Edward Tyler (1832–1917) was one of the earliest social scientists to define culture, stating that it was “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits” that people learn from other members of their group (Tyler 1871). In other words, culture is both learned and taught. Enculturation is the gradual process of an individual or group learning and adapting to the norms and values of a culture in which they are immersed.

A belief that we must work to earn the right to live is a Western colonial example of something that’s been deeply enculturated. Children are taught from a young age that we must work jobs until our older years to afford basic necessities, such as food, shelter, water, and acceptance within our communities. This belief is steadily reinforced throughout adolescence and into adulthood through toys, media, job fairs, career days, and so on. When individuals are unable or do not want to work, society then punishes the individual by not providing these basic necessities.

Colonial Conceptions of Health

Colonization worldwide has left us detached and afraid of what is part of our nature, so concepts of health involve regulation and control by the state. Additionally, in the United States, the healthcare system treats symptoms instead of addressing root causes. An example of this would be the intense treatment of cancer after a diagnosis, instead of working toward a public health goal that fosters low levels of cancer through healthy eating, exercise, and preventative care.

An Indigenous worldview encourages us to take a holistic vision and pay attention to prevention. The First Nations Health Authority of Canada describes these measures as follows:

• Taking responsibility for our own health and wellness
• Balancing mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical facets of our lives
• Honoring where we come from: our cultures, traditions, and ourselves
• Knowing traditions, culture, and medicine
• Acknowledging that land is what sustains us physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally
• Receiving family and community as our support base (First Nations Health Authority n.d.)

Childbirth is another example of colonial cultural conceptions in the U.S. healthcare system. Childbirth is seen as a sterile procedure that can result in stress and even trauma for the person giving birth. It often happens in an unfamiliar environment, like a hospital, with doctors and nurses unfamiliar with the person giving birth.

Watch the first 3:12-minutes of the video, “Spirit of Birth” [Streaming Video] (figure 7.19). It tells the story of creating an Indigenous-led and designed birth center in Toronto, Canada. The vision for the center is to provide people giving birth with knowledge and care from Indigenous midwives and Elders. In the process, they are building and regaining control over the birthing process in ways that are culturally valuable to their communities (Tabobondung n.d.). As you watch, what do you hear is the meaning and value of the birthing process for parents and their communities? What do they need in a birthing facility to express those values and meanings?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vABSuTTrbg&t=709s

It is important to note that just because this is how childbirth has historically been in the United States doesn’t mean that this is how it must be. Childbirth, like many life experiences, can be liberating and an incredible learning opportunity if people are given the tools, support, and care that they need.

Take a few minutes to revisit the table in figure 7.18. Where can you see our current challenges with providing health, safety, and security for all are informed by a colonized worldview?

Licenses and Attributions for Health, Safety, and the Legacy of Colonialism

Open Content, Shared Previously

“Health, Safety, and the Legacy of Colonization” by Avery Temple is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Originally written for “Inequality Intersectionality and Culture” by Kimberly Puttman and Avery Temple in Inequality and Interdependence: Social Problems and Social Justice and expanded/remixed here.

Figure 7.18. “Differences between the Indigenous World View and the Western World View” is created by Avery Temple and licensed under CC BY 4.0.

All Rights Reserved Content

Figure 7.19. “Spirit of Birth” by Muskrat Magazine is licensed under the Standard YouTube License.