First Nations youth redefine resilience: listening to artistic productions of ‘Thug Life’ and hip-hop

In recent decades, resilience research has striven to atone for the Eurocentric nature of research conducted with Canada's Aboriginal populations. It has been cautioned, however, that if resilience research fails to account for Aboriginal population's diversity, it risks culturalized images and pan-Aboriginalism. Definitions of resilience should be framed within community-specific models, recognizing dynamic subjects interacting in multiple social worlds. In partnership with six Saskatchewan First Nations communities, our work seeks to understand what resilience means to youth who live on-reserve. We draw on findings from two community-based projects developed with the Battleford Agency Tribal Chiefs First Nations. These projects used arts-based and mixed-methods to identify community strengths and barriers surrounding youth resilience. Although study findings show the influence of family, programming, and culture, our model is emended to show the importance of youth's own definitions of resilience, even when these may appear antithetical to conventional norms. Drawing on the youth's artistic pieces, evolving themes focus on hip-hop culture and Thug Life; showing youth creating a place to belong when they are experiencing a lack of belonging. Within the framework of listening to youth-driven resilience, we put forward an alternative model of reaching youth using positive elements of Thug Life and hip-hop.