Indigenous-informed disaster recovery: Addressing collective trauma using a healing framework

Indigenous knowledges are increasingly recognised for their value in disaster resilience, with particular attention to traditional ecological knowledges. Yet the expansive and holistic worldviews of Indigenous peoples offer an even broader set of knowledges and perspectives, such as the field of Indigenous healing, that are highly relevant to systemic challenges in disaster resilience and recovery. This theoretical paper explores the potential for an Indigenous-informed healing framework to address collective trauma from disasters. It begins by addressing key matters of concern in knowledge sharing between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. It then considers Indigenous healing as an international field of knowledge and practice, distilling consistent features across a range of texts. These shared features in Indigenous peoples' healing traditions include: holistic approaches to wellbeing; social rather than solo processes; identifying and treating the roots of trauma; strengths-based and community-led processes; the need for socially and culturally safe spaces; and Indigenous notions of responsibility, justice and forgiveness. We then analyse points of difference and resonance with disaster recovery literature, in a novel effort to bring the fields of Indigenous healing and disaster recovery together through respectful and thoughtful dialogue. In doing so, this paper seeks to inform much-needed efforts to enhance culturally responsive practices in working with Indigenous peoples affected by disasters. The exploration also identifies that a healing-informed approach to disaster recovery offers opportunities to better support all communities affected by disasters, by unsettling assumptions and enabling holistic understandings of complex interactions between multiple disasters, community contexts and systemic inequities. To meet the many challenges facing the sector now and into the future, innovations fostered by such cross-disciplinary explorations are crucial.