#indigenization

Abstract

The nursing profession currently exists in the untenable position of holding social justice as a core value of the profession but operating within dominant oppressive systems of colonialism and racism. Decolonizing and Indigenizing nursing are proposed as strategies toward reconciliation; however, little is known regarding specific nursing actions toward decolonizing and Indigenizing the profession. This scoping review highlights approaches, barriers, goals, and the utility of decolonizing and Indigenizing nursing knowledge, education, research, and practice. Synthesizing these will provide ideas and inspiration leading to praxis while also highlighting the reality of the challenges of this work.

By: Colin Wright

Published: Sep 24, 2025

The ideological capture of academia has spread beyond the humanities and social sciences into medicine and healthcare, and the consequences are increasingly dangerous. What began as a campaign to promote “equity” and “social justice” has become a full-blown assault on the scientific standards that made modern medicine possible. Universities and professional associations now pressure researchers and practitioners to pledge loyalty to ideological dogmas, while redefining knowledge itself to include political slogans and cultural traditions masquerading as science. The infiltration of pseudoscientific concepts into disciplines that deal with life-and-death matters should alarm us all.

One of the most troubling manifestations of this trend is the push to “decolonize” and “indigenize” science and medicine. These campaigns rest on the claim that Western science is merely a cultural preference, unfairly privileged over “Indigenous ways of knowing.” But this framing ignores a basic truth: the scientific method became dominant not because white Europeans imposed it on others, but because it works. Its results are consistent across cultures, and its universality is what makes it the most rigorous and inclusive method of producing knowledge ever devised. To reject it in favor of subjective “ways of knowing” is to undo centuries of hard-earned progress in order to virtue signal.

The latest example of this ideological creep comes from a peer-reviewed article in Advances in Nursing Science titled A Scoping Review of Action Toward Decolonizing and Indigenizing Nursing. The paper is presented as a neutral survey of literature, but in reality it is an ideological manifesto. Its authors insist that nursing is “permeated by Eurocentric norms that reinforce Whiteness” and call for replacing Western frameworks with “Indigenous and subaltern philosophies and knowledge.” Nurses, they argue, must condemn oppression, embrace activism, and reject the profession’s longstanding apolitical stance. Patient outcomes, strikingly, are never mentioned.

Instead, the paper urges nurses to adopt concepts from The Red Deal, a political manifesto, and to prioritize “caretaking” paradigms that involve “divesting” and “healing the planet.” Research, we’re told, should move away from controlled trials and replicable data toward storytelling, talking circles, and “holistic narrative approaches.” The authors even complain that institutional review boards scrutinize decolonizing research too closely—apparently forgetting that scrutiny is what keeps quackery out of medicine.

The infantilization embedded in this ideology is staggering. Indigenous scholars demand to be treated as serious academics while simultaneously insisting that their work not be judged by the rigorous standards that every other scholar is expected to meet. They want their ideas elevated not because they are true, useful, or supported by evidence, but because of who they are. The notion that ancestry should confer immunity from critique or a free pass around evidentiary standards is the exact opposite of intellectual respect.

At one point the authors declare that “narrative research by non-Indigenous researchers is not the same as using Indigenous research methods and should not be assumed to produce the same findings.” What makes this claim especially absurd is that it violates one of the most basic principles of science: universality. The validity of a result does not depend on who performs the experiment, but on whether the methodology is sound and the findings replicable. If two researchers follow the same protocol and arrive at different results simply because of their identity, that’s not proof of multiple “ways of knowing”—it’s proof that the methodology is garbage.

The section on practice is perhaps the most concerning. The authors call for embedding “Indigenous knowledge” directly into nursing practice, including “cultural safety” measures, anti-racism activism, and a rejection of the profession’s traditional apolitical stance. But do we really want nurses forming talking circles while patients need bedpans changed? Do we want them prioritizing activism over clinical competence? The paper is explicit that one of the main “barriers” to decolonizing nursing is precisely that nurses tend to be apolitical. But thank goodness for that. A nurse’s job is not to lecture patients on politics but to provide care.

Throughout, the authors substitute ideology for utility. They invoke capitalism as a barrier to decolonization. They even go so far as to suggest that land be “returned to Indigenous peoples” as part of decolonizing nursing. What on earth does property redistribution have to do with bedside care? These proposals have nothing to do with health, safety, or evidence-based medicine. They are ideological demands inflicted onto a profession that should resist them at all costs.

What makes all this worse is that the ideology is gaining momentum. The paper notes that more than half the studies in this area have been published in the last three years. This is not a fad on the way out. It is being institutionalized in nursing schools, professional associations, and peer-reviewed journals. Nurses who simply want to treat patients according to the best evidence will be marginalized or even disciplined for refusing to go along. We already see this happening in Canada, where Amy Hamm—a nurse who state the biological reality that males are not females—has being relentlessly persecuted by her professional body. The demand is not just that you respect patients, it is that you publicly affirm the ideology, no matter how absurd or unscientific.

The likely outcome of this trajectory is grim. If health disparities are reflexively treated as proof of racism, then every failure of these Indigenous approaches will only be used to justify more of them. Suppose Indigenous patients receive “decolonized” care while non-Indigenous patients receive evidence-based medicine. If outcomes diverge, the gap will be attributed not to the obvious cause—that one group received care rooted in pseudoscience—but to systemic racism. The feedback loop is perfect. Bad ideas never die because failure is always reinterpreted as proof of oppression. The only losers will be the patients whose health is sacrificed to ideology.

Science does not belong to the West. It belongs to everyone because it is the only method we have that transcends culture and identity. Its universality is its greatest strength. To dismantle it in the name of reconciliation is dangerous. Real respect means holding all knowledge to the same high bar, and real justice means ensuring that all patients receive the very best care evidence can provide.

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Indigenized Eevee

 - How this gathering is going to deal with a very large, very famous symbol of RCMP control of northern territories. (The museum itself has been working hard at Indigenizing its content and consultation, and is a well known champion of archival access.)

 - Academic bunfights that have been going on for decades

 - What the shovelbums of the part 50 years are going to consider as semi-formal wear. Field Season has barely started, so there may not be as much duct tape as in September, but we’ll see.

Yerlileştirme / Indigenization, 2017