INSTRUCTIONS:  This section is a full learning module and will take some time to complete.  Ensuring a full understanding of the terms here will increase your understanding and capacity to best complete the Healing Continuum and accompanying assessment(s).

Indigenous Resurgence

Definition (expanded):
Indigenous Resurgence is the renewal and reactivation of Indigenous governance, knowledge systems, languages, and lifeways as living frameworks for health, data, and collective wellness. It centers Indigenous presence, joy, and sovereignty as acts of everyday resistance and relational self-determination.

Resurgence, as Leanne Betasamosake Simpson teaches, is not reform within colonial systems — it is the regeneration of Indigenous life “through our bodies, our practices, our relationships, and our land.” It is a radical reorientation from surviving within systems built on extraction and erasure to thriving through relationships of reciprocity and accountability.

In the context of Indigenized health and data justice, resurgence means returning authority, leadership, and decision-making power to Indigenous Peoples over their own health data, narratives, and healing systems. It reclaims data as a living expression of sovereignty — inseparable from language, ceremony, land, and kinship.

Indigenous Resurgence restores balance between human and non-human relations and transforms data and health systems from instruments of control into tools of collective care, belonging, and liberation. It insists that the measure of justice is not inclusion in colonial frameworks, but the flourishing of Indigenous futures grounded in relationship and responsibility.

Decolonizing

Decolonizing is the process of interrupting, dismantling, and replacing colonial structures, systems, and logics with those grounded in Indigenous worldviews and governance. It requires healing from the practices, behaviors, and systemic examples of colonialism at the individual, organizational, and institutional levels, and replacing them with actions of reciprocity, relational care, and the restoration of Indigenous authority, leadership, and ways of knowing.

In the context of public health, research, and data, decolonizing exposes how current systems perpetuate harm by centering white, settler, and extractive epistemologies that define, categorize, and manage Indigenous peoples as objects of study rather than sovereign nations and knowledge holders.

Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang (2012) remind us that “decolonization is not a metaphor” — it cannot be reduced to inclusion, diversity, or reform within existing systems. It requires the material and ethical repatriation of land, power, and decision-making to Indigenous peoples. Decolonizing public health therefore demands the transformation of institutions that reproduce harm through data extraction, deficit-based research, and colonial health policies.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) defines decolonizing as the process of “centering Indigenous concerns and worldviews and coming to know and understand theory and research from our own perspectives and for our own purposes.” In health and data justice, this means prioritizing Indigenous methodologies, sovereignty in data governance, and community-led interpretation and use of knowledge.

Implications for Public Health and Collective Well-being:

• Addressing Colonial Harm: Decolonizing requires direct confrontation with the historical and ongoing violence of settler colonialism — including erasure, exploitation, and epistemicide — and implementing reparative actions that acknowledge these harms as public health crises.

• Replacing Systems: It moves beyond reform to the creation of new systems rooted in Indigenous governance, where health and data are understood through relationships — between people, land, language, and spirit — rather than through metrics of control.

• Restoring Collective Health: Decolonizing reframes health as collective, ecological, and relational. It restores the understanding that community and planetary health are inseparable, and that wellness arises from balance, kinship, and shared responsibility.

Ultimately, to decolonize is to heal the systems that produce harm by transforming them into systems of care — guided by Indigenous science, accountability, and the resurgence of Indigenous governance and knowledge as the true determinants of health.

The Constellation of Relationships

“Each concept in this tool connects to the others like stars in a constellation — forming a living story about healing, data justice, and Indigenous sovereignty.”

Learners are invited to:

• Write short phrases or draw connections between terms.

• Map how concepts interact.

• Reflect on how decolonizing and indigenizing public health are vital for all peoples and the planet.

Statement of Commitment & Actions

“I recognize that decolonizing and indigenizing public health and data systems are necessary for the health of all peoples and the planet. I commit to ongoing reflection, accountability, and action toward this transformation.”

My Next Steps:

Sources and Relational Acknowledgements

These sources represent relationships, not mere citations — living intellectual, cultural, and community contributions to the IHEI framework.

• Blue Bird Jernigan, V., & Maudrie, T.L. (2025). Why achieving health equity for Indigenous peoples requires indigenizing the social determinants of health. American Journal of Public Health, 115(5), 641–646.

• Greenwood, M. (2018). Colonialism as a broader social determinant of health. The International Indigenous Policy Journal, 9(1).

• Jacob, M.M., & Gonzales, K.L. (2020). Indigenous cultural values counter the damages of white settler colonialism. Environmental Sociology, 6(4), 321–333.

• Simpson, L.B. (2017). As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance. University of Minnesota Press.

• Smith, L.T. (1999/2021). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books.

• Tuck, E., & Yang, K.W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40.

• Urban Indian Health Institute. (2023). Data Genocide Report Card. Seattle Indian Health Board.

Evaluation and Measurement Tool

To assess learners’ growth and understanding, IHEI has created a mixed-method evaluation combining pre-module (baseline) and post-module assessments.

Baseline Assessment (Pre-Module)

Administer this before learners engage with any story-based module to measure prior knowledge, awareness, and positionality.

Sample questions:

• What does colonialism mean to you in the context of health or data?

• How do you understand the concept of Indigenous sovereignty?

• What do you believe are the main causes of Indigenous health inequities?

• How confident are you in identifying colonial structures in your professional field? (1–5 scale)

Post-Module Reflection (After Completion)

After completing the learning module, learners complete a reflective evaluation to assess conceptual growth, relational awareness, and action commitments.

• How has your understanding of colonialism and settler colonialism changed?

• What does decolonizing practice mean to you now?

• Describe one action you will take in your work or community to support Indigenous sovereignty.

• How did the story-based approach affect your learning and perspective?

Assessment Scoring and Reflection

Learners’ responses should be evaluated qualitatively using rubrics focused on depth of reflection, awareness of systemic structures, and demonstration of accountability. Quantitative metrics may include self-assessed confidence levels and commitment ratings before and after participation.