Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T17:41:07.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sensibility: a New Focus in Sámi Health Care Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

Randi Nymo
Randi Nymo*
Affiliation:
Department of Health and Nursing Science, Narvik University College, Box 385, N-8505 Narvik, Norway
Get access

Abstract

Colonialism has had significant bodily impacts on Indigenous peoples through medicine. Excluded from the German race, Sámi have been burdened by mainstream prejudices which perpetuate myths about Sámi having poor genetic material and, as a consequence, having an inferior culture and language. This offensive burden and subsequent humiliation has particular implications for the Sámi who come into contact with the health system as patients. Ethnic identity is connected with taboos, not only for patients, but also for Sámi and non-Sámi treaters. According to common knowledge Sáminess should not be a theme. In spite of intense assimilation, many Sámi understand illness as something caused of powers in nature or influenced by other people. The result can be a feeling of bodily chaos. Not understanding the meanings of the signs shown by the patients may bring health workers to interpret expressions of culture as signs of disease. Sámi patients can be diagnosed as suffering from delusions. Sometimes they are visited by traditional healers in faith to restore bodily cosmos. What’s more, the patient trying to hide her Sámi origin can be considered as dishonest. Sensing this staff may discharge her from hospital earlier and spoil her chances to get proper treatment. Health educators have specific responsibilities to make students aware of the diversity of patient’s culture and view of life. Within thought of body phenomenology the experiencing body is both subject and object. Messages are filtered by a cultural framework and the persons in interaction impact on each other. Face-to-face with the patients you can sense their vulnerability and decide to meet them as objects for your therapy activities or as individuals.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 36 , Issue S1: (Re)Contesting Indigenous Knowledges & Indigenous Studies , 2007 , pp. 66 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Benner, P. (1984). From novice to expert. Menlo Park: Addison–Wesley.Google Scholar
Bjørklund, I. (2000). Sápmi: Becoming a nation. Tromsø: Tromsø Museum.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1996). Physical space, social space and habitus. (Vilhelm Aubert Memorial Lecture, ISO Rapport No. 10). Oslo: Department of Sociology, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Christensen, O. (1997). Diskriminering og rasisme [Discrimination and racism]. In Eriksen, T.H. (Ed.), Flerkulturell forstäelse. [Multicultural understanding] (pp. 90–107). Oslo: Tano Aschehoug.Google Scholar
Eliade, M. (2002). [1969]. Det hellige og det profane [The holy and the profane]. Oslo: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Eriksen, T.H., & Sørheim, T.A. (2000). Kulturforskjelleripraksis. Perspektiver pä det kulturelle Norge [Cultural differences in practice. Perspectives on the cultural Norway] (2nd ed.). Oslo: Ad Notam Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Hansen, L.I. (1994). Sàpmi i et landskapsperspektiv [Sàpmi in a landscape perspective]. In Drivenes, E-A. Hauan, M.A. Wold, H.A. (Eds.), Nordnorsk kulturhistorie: Det mangfoldige folket [North Norwegian cultural history: The complex people] (Vol. 2, pp. 109–118. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag.Google Scholar
Heidegger, M. (1993). Being and time. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Henry, E., & Pene, H. (1999, September). Kaupapa Maori: Locating indigenous ontology, epistemology and methodology in the academy. Paper presented at the “Re–Organising Knowledge, Transforming Institutions, Knowing, Knowledge and the University in the XXI Century" Conference, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Husserl, E. (1992). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy: First book. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Kleinmann, A. (1980). Patients and healers in the context of culture: An exploration of the borderland between anthropology, medicine, and psychiatry. London: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martinsen, K. (2006). Care and vulnerability. Oslo: Akribe.Google Scholar
Mathisen, S.R. (2000). Folkemedisinen i Nord–Norge: Kulturelt fellesskap og etniske kilder [Popular medicine in North Norway: Cultural fellowship and ethnic sources]. In Altern, I. & Minde, G.T. (Eds.), Samiskfolkemedisin i dagens Norge [Sámi popular medicine in present–day Norway], (pp. 15–33. Tromsø: Department of Sociology Centre for Sámi Studies, University of Tromsø.Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1994). Phenomenology of perception. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Myrvoll, M. (2000). FKunnskapstradisjon ogsamiske helbredere [The tradition of knowledge, and Sámi healers]. In Altern, I. & Minde, G.T. (Eds.), Samiskfolkemedisin i dagens Norge [Sámi popular medicine in present–day Norway] (pp. 35–46. Tromsø: Department of Sociology Centre for Sámi Studies, University of Tromsø.Google Scholar
Nortvedt, P., & Grimen, H. (2004). Sensibilitet og refleksjon [Sensibility and reflection]. Oslo: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Nymo, R. (2003). “Har kst ä klepä sai kofte, men t0r ikkje og vil ikkje”: En Studie avfomorskning identitet og kropp blant sanier i Ofoten og Spr–Troms. [I’d like to wear my national costume, but I daren’t and won’t: A study of Norwegianisation, identity and body among Sámi in Ofoten and southern Troms]. Tromsø: Published Master’s, University of Tromsø,Google Scholar
Omma, O. (2004, 3 February). Ola Omnia tells about Tromsdalstind [Radio broadcast]. Karasjok: Sámi Radio, Norway.Google Scholar
Ramsden, I. (1993). Kawa whakaruruhau: Cultural safety in nursing education in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Nursing Praksis in New Zealand, 8, (3–4), 10.Google Scholar
Skjervheim, H. (1996[1976]): Deltakar og tilskodar [Participant and spectator]. Oslo: Aschehoug.Google Scholar