Better Than Therapy: Body Mapping As a Tool to Explore the Health and Well-Being of Indigenous Women Who Have Been Imprisoned in Canada

Despite being one of the healthiest countries in the world, Indigenous women in Canada experience some of the highest rates of chronic disease and ill health. These conditions are further compounded when someone engages with the criminal justice system and goes to prison. In Canada, Indigenous women represent the fastest-growing demographic in its carceral network at a time when the overall number of individuals entering prison is declining. While qualitative research in carceral spaces is increasing, significant gaps remain around community arts-based research methods that specifically centre health and illness and substantively give something back to the community. This presentation explores the intersection between the body, state policy, and prison, much like French theorist Loïc Wacquant. However, its application goes further by centring embodied knowledge expressed through art as the primary mechanism to explore the implications of settler colonial violence on the health, mental health, and well-being of Indigenous women who have served time in Canada’s network of jails and prisons. The focus will be on an arts-based method called body mapping. Body mapping uses various mediums on life-size canvases to create a visual map that explores health and well-being from the perspective of the creator through targeted activities that have the potential to reveal patterns of illness in the population. The method combines visual art and therapeutic practice to empower individuals to communicate, process, and witness their embodied somatic journeys about their health and well-being. The presentation will highlight the need for increased arts-based research methods that have the potential to tangibly contribute to an individual's healing, health, and well-being while simultaneously allowing their voices to be heard.