Uncategorized
March 7, 2023
We are thrilled to announce the recent publication of “Indigenous Geographies” authored by past and present HARC contributors Christine Añonuevo, Sarah de Leeuw, Marion Erickson, Monika Krzywania, Laura McNab-Coombs, Omolara Odulaja, and Onyx Sloan Morgan. Collectively writing from a shared anti-colonial social justice orientation, this diverse group of authors sought to “unpack and consider “Indigenous” from a variety of vantage points and through a series of theoretical frames that inform …
Read MoreJune 30, 2022
Click here to download the SPRING Newsletter 2022
Read MoreJune 16, 2022
On May 15, Sarah de Leeuw, Kung Jaadee, and Darian Goldin Stahl presented a 2-hour workshop at the Rural Health Conference in Penticton, BC. This interactive session entitled, “Caring to Care: Health Humanities, Cultural Humility, Storytelling, and Physician Wellness in Northern, Rural, and Remote British Columbia,” had 27 rural physicians in attendance. Workshop Description: This interactive plenary was designed to move hearts and minds: it built on the starting point …
Read MoreMay 5, 2022
On Friday, April 29th, HARC facilitated a visioning exercise for the first in-person gathering of the Advisory Group for the Elder Wellness Project, an initiative focused on strengthening mental wellness and suicide prevention for Elders in the northern Interior. The Elder Wellness Project is funded by a 5-year $1.5M grant received in 2019 by Carrier Sekani Family Services (CSFS) and UNBC. HARC Research Director, Dr Sarah de Leeuw represents UNBC …
Read MoreApril 8, 2022
HARC is excited and proud to be partnering with The National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health to support health care professionals to address anti-Indigenous racism, practice in anti-oppressive ways, and foster cultural humility. The Hearts-based Education and Anticolonial Learning (HEAL) project will promote cultural safety and recognize Indigenous knowledge and anti-colonial approaches in health service provision. Check out the News Release here: https://www.canada.ca/en/indigenous-services-canada/news/2022/07/university-of-northern-british-columbia-institutes-working-to-increase-safety-and-respect-for-indigenous-peoples-in-canadas-health-systems.html “We need to remember that achieving optimal …
Read MoreJune 4, 2021
HARC contributor, Darian Goldin Stahl, presented at the Canadian Association of Health Humanities Conference, Creating Space 11, held in April 2021. The presentation covered Darian’s Research Creation Dissertation titled Book as Body: The Meaning-Making of Artists’ Books in the Health Humanities. Please click on the video below to watch Darion’s full presentation. Amazing work, Darian!
Read MoreSeptember 29, 2020
We at the HARC believe in the utilization of arts-based approaches to learning, as well as marrying Traditional and Western knowledges where appropriate. Below you can find copies of various teaching and learning resources generated by our HARC team. For more information on any of these documents or, to request facilitation by our team of any of these lesson plans, please contact Marion Erickson at marion.erickson@unbc.ca or Laura McNab-Coombs at …
Read MoreSeptember 4, 2019
By May Farrales What can drawing and doodling together do? For a team of researchers, practitioners and community organizations who are working together in the Environmental, Community and Heath Observatory Network (ECHO), drawing together proved to be a challenging yet worthwhile effort. In spring of 2019, members of the ECHO Network took part in a series of comic jam sessions. Inspired by how health and humanities scholars, artists, and practitioners …
Read MoreOctober 11, 2018
This September marked the culmination of two tremendous thesis projects by HARC researchers Katriona Auerbach and Melissa Johnson. We are thrilled to now have Katriona onboard as a HARC Research Associate where she will continue working with the Northern Medical Program to provide future physicians with immersive experiences in Indigenous communities and on the land, and we wish Melissa every success as she begins her PhD on rhetorically pathologized bodies …
Read MoreSeptember 27, 2018
This spring, the Health Arts Research Centre staff was involved in a Northern Medical Program student-led project entitled Brains on Canvas. This project was the result of UBC’s FLEX curriculum, a mandatory research component of the Medical Undergraduate program for students in years 1, 2, and 4. The project team includedfirst-year medical students Daveen Panesar, Deanna Klonarakis, and Nick Brocher, Dr. Alina Constantin, Assistant Director of Anatomy with the NMP, and Charis Alderfer-Mumma, a board-certified Art Therapist and …
Read MoreApril 23, 2018
We are very pleased to share the work of Victoria Bass, a student of the Southern Medical Program at UBC. In a true example of the meeting point bewteen art and medicine she has designed a research poster, What’s Happening to Me? Exploring Transformation in Medical Education Through Poetry. An intersection of autoethnography, poetic inquiry and grounded theory, Bass uses graphic means to capture the journey of transformation to becoming a physician. Go Victoria! Victoria Bass is a …
Read MoreNovember 21, 2017
Hoping this finds you enjoying these soft, reflective November days. HARC director Dr. Sarah de Leeuw, and Dr. Margot Greenwood have recently published “Turning a New Page: cultural safety, critical literary interventions, truth and reconciliation and the crisis of child welfare.” Have a read or, better yet, a listen! Turning a New Page_de Leeuw-Greenwood For the audio version (ie cozy listens!), click below:
Read MoreSeptember 7, 2017
HARC is over-the-moon-excited to introduce our newest crew members Omolara Odulaja and May Farrales: Omolara is beginning her PhD with us and is an internationally trained physician with an MBBS degree from University of Ibadan Nigeria (equivalent of MD in North America) and a Master of Public Health degree from Western University, London, ON. She is interested in the health of marginalized populations and while completing her masters in Ontario she …
Read MoreAugust 6, 2017
We have some new goodies to share with you for your reading pleasure by HARC director, Dr. Sarah de Leeuw. Check out these recent publications! Gender, Place and Culture: Critical geographies and geography’s creative re/turn: poetics and practices for new disciplinary space Canadian Geographer: Going unscripted: A call to critically engage storytelling methods and methodologies in geography and the medical-health sciences Where it Hurts: Essays
Read More
HARC is honoured to be working with Indigenous healthcare providers to engage in dialogues on creating safer and more inclusive work environments for Indigenous peoples working in healthcare. Read more about this initiative and the creative brainstorming that took place at the BCNU Convention this past spring: https://issuu.com/bcnursesunion/docs/update_jul-aug2017?e=7272743/50953323
Read More
Community members of Terrace and the surrounding region were invited to join the Health Arts Research Centre team at the Terrace Art Gallery to share their thoughts and creative expressions on the topic of Indigenous health and wellness, including ideas about ways to welcome and support Indigenous peoples working in health care in northern BC. The day was filled with creative energy and conversation resulting in some amazing and powerful art pieces!
Read MoreMarch 13, 2017
A link to NYU School of Medicine’s medical humanities database, LitMed: Literature Arts Medicine. See for exceptional listings of visual art, literature, and performance arts on illness and healing or to borrow a phrase from the site, “the human condition curated”. http://medhum.med.nyu.edu “The Literature, Arts and Medicine Database (LitMed) is a collection of literature, fine art, visual art and performing art annotations created as a dynamic, comprehensive resource for scholars, …
Read MoreJanuary 24, 2017
We are very happy to share two Canadian Geographer articles featuring research from UNBC! Going Unscripted: A call to critically engage storytelling methods and methodologies in geography and medical health science by Sarah de Leeuw, Margot W. Parkes, Vanessa Sloan Morgan, Julie Christensen, Nicole Lindsay, Kendra Mitchell-Foster and Julia Russell Jozkow de Leeuw_et_al-2017-The_Canadian_Geographer_-_Le_G-ographe_canadien Lyana Patrick’s review of the acclaimed text Determinants of Indigenous Peoples’ Health in Canada: Beyond the Social …
Read MoreSeptember 16, 2016
Visit the Ecohealth Knowledge to Action Research Group website to view a Wet’suwet’en Story put together by Sarah Harris, the Ecohealth Knowledge to Action Research Group and a collaborative group of Knowledge holders & Elders from the Wet’suwet’en Nation. Digital Story Outline – Yin Kak Honzu: The Earth is Beautiful How they pulled it together:
This is a project in partnership with UNBC and Northern Health’s Ecohealth Knowledge to …
Read MoreVisit the Gitksan Government Commission to explore Gitxsan models of health and wellbeing. Also be sure to watch the beautifully filmed new video published by Sandra Harris entitled Exploring Gitxsan Wellness.
Read More