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Social Science General

No Home in a Homeland

Indigenous Peoples and Homelessness in the Canadian North

by (author) Julia Christensen

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2017
Category
General, Native American Studies, Social Work
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774833974
    Publish Date
    Feb 2017
    List Price
    $34.99
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774833950
    Publish Date
    May 2017
    List Price
    $34.95

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Description

The Dene, a traditionally nomadic people, have no word for homelessness, a rare condition in the Canadian North prior to the 1990s. Julia Christensen documents the rise of Indigenous homelessness and proposes solutions by interweaving analysis of the region’s unique history with personal narratives of homeless men and women in two cities – Yellowknife and Inuvik. What emerges is a larger story of displacement and intergenerational trauma, hope and renewal. Understanding what it means to be homeless in the North and how Indigenous people think about home and homemaking is the first step, Christensen argues, on the path to decolonizing existing approaches and practices.

About the author

Julia Christensen is a geographer and creative writer born and raised in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, on the ancestral homelands of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. She is an assistant professor at Roskilde University in Denmark and a research fellow at the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research. She was previously a Trudeau Foundation Scholar.

Julia Christensen's profile page

Editorial Reviews

Within the stories [included in the book] lie accounts of home seeking that paint an important picture of agency, Indigenous home, and the ways that many Indigenous lives are unrecognized and unsupported through dominant social policy approaches. A key strength of the book is that it challenges southern, urban, and non-Indigenous peoples to face what Christensen terms “the discomfort of positionality,” and to not turn away from the spiritual homelessness of Dene people… Summing Up: Recommended.

CHOICE

 

 

No Home in a Homeland represents a significant, unique, and timely contribution to the literature on homelessness experienced by Indigenous people in the Canadian North.

ARTIC, Vol. 71, No.2

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