E. Emily S. Cowall Bio
Resourcefulness: Ethnohistory and Inuit Narratives
Inuit Traditional Medical systems are often described as shamanic practice with the Inuit Shaman in the centralizing role as the community healer for all ills; mental, emotional and physical. A sampling of ethnographic writing from 1886, 1923 and 1941 which describes Inuit traditional medical practices as part of the shaman’s role will be compared with recent literature published after 1999, and a participatory research project with 5 Inuit Elders conducted in Pangnirtung Nunavut which contain Inuit oral history and accounts of traditional medical practices that are practical and pragmatic. This presentation challenges the idealization of the shamans as the Inuit ‘medicine men’ and re-defines Inuit traditional medical systems as a cultural institution.
My primary research interests center on the anthropology of health and illness and the way in which social, cultural and personal experiences provide insight into the determinants of health in isolated communities. My work combines the history of medicine and community-based participatory projects to facilitate the exchange of ideas which maximize the representation of participants when they are speaking on matters of their own history, as well as to find solutions that help create healthy communities.
Much of my current research focuses on the facilitation of the Pangnirtung community project aimed at naming a collection of photographs of Inuit tubercular patients sent to the Mountain Sanatorium in Hamilton, Ontario, between 1957 and 1962. My Ph.D. dissertation, supervised by Dr. D. Ann Herring, probes into the Inuit experience of tuberculosis in Pangnirtung and the care provided at St. Luke’s Anglican Mission Hospital. This study unifies the historic archival records of nurse missionaries and government medical doctors with the present-day recollection of Inuit patients’ experience, to present a detailed analysis of the Northern Health Service from 1930 to 1972.
I completed my Master’s of Science in Anthropology of Health and Illness, at the University of Edinburgh, and hold a Diploma in History of Medicine from the Society of Apothecaries in London (UK). I received the 2005 Teaching Assistant Excellence Award for my innovative approach to participative learning with the history of medicine students at the University of Toronto, in the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.