Wellness through Iñuit storytelling, Native science, and creative expression
Decolonizing Suicide Postvention in the Arctic By Debby Dahl Edwardson
“Something is stalking the village people,” wrote Howard Weaver in his Pulitzer prize-winning series of reports, “A People in Peril,” published in the Anchorage Daily News in 1988. “Across the state, the Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts of Bush Alaska are dying in astonishing numbers... there is roughly a one in 10 chance that a 15-year-old Native boy will kill himself or make a serious attempt to do so before he is 25,” Weaver wrote. This story hasn’t aged well, unfortunately. The statistics have gotten worse. The CDC now says that Alaska Natives have the highest rates of suicide of any racial group in the country and that the rates of suicide in this population have been increasing since 2003. In recent years, the story of increasing suicides in Inuit communities has crossed borders, encompassing circumpolar Inuit communities from Alaska to Greenland, with screaming headlines like: “The Inuit Youth Suicide Epidemic in Arctic Canada” or “The Suicide Capital of the World: Why do so many Greenlanders kill themselves?” None of this is news to those living in these Arctic communities, where virtually every family has been deeply affected by suicide. “I’ve lost two uncles, a half a dozen cousins, and way too many friends and classmates to suicide,” says Aaluk Edwardson of Utqiaġvik. “For me, it’s personal.” Edwardson is the artistic and ex-
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ecutive director and founder of Bright Shores, a North Slope organization dedicated to developing projects that support creative expression in the service of community and cultural wellness. One of the projects she’s currently working on is a suicide postvention program, which she sees as a way of reclaiming the conversation around suicide, a conversation too often led by those who have no real understanding of the affected communities. Suicide postvention, as opposed to suicide prevention, focuses on the way a suicide affects families and communities as well as individuals. Research shows that in tight-knit Native communities, suicide can indeed appear to be contagious. “Knowing someone who has committed suicide is a risk factor which significantly increases one’s chances of dying by suicide,” Edwardson explains. Research shows that suicide prevention and postvention programs are more successful when facilitated by those who have suffered a suicide loss or suicide attempt. Research also indicates that the most effective facilitators are those culturally connected to the communities they serve. “This points to the need to ground suicide prevention and postvention programs firmly within a decolonized cultural context, training mental health specialists and community members in
Learn more about Bright Shores at brightshores.org.
