Inuit, urban and unhoused: a scoping review of social worlds
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Abstract
Introduction: Colonization, racism, and forced relocation perpetrated in the Arctic, particularly in northern Canada, have had severe social impacts and created barriers for Inuit to housing, employment, and education, leaving many with precarious access to fundamental necessities. The consequences of these decades of conquest by settler-colonial governments are evident in many southern hub cities in Canada and other circumpolar regions where Inuit are greatly overrepresented in populations of unhoused people. However, the interpersonal and cultural systems Inuit have cultivated over millennia to provide care and community for individuals in need persist at the margins of urban centres. This review begins an exploration of the social worlds of unhoused urban Inuit and elucidates what has to date been discussed about the important ways they support themselves and one another in being well in the context of homelessness and on-going colonial violence.
Methods: This scoping review follows the Arksey & O'Malley's 5-stage model, beginning by identifying the research question and relevant publications, selecting publications according to relevance, charting study data, and finally collating, summarizing, and reporting the results.
Results: Analysis of reviewed publications revealed shared push and pull factors that precipitate northern and southern homelessness. Analysis further revealed that Inuit experiencing homelessness in the south contend with distinct structural factors impeding well-being such as housing and substance markets, discrimination, and supporting it like Inuit-friendly service provision, peer support, maintaining kinship and connection with home.
Conclusions: The literature demonstrates that relationships and well-being at the intersection of Indigeneity/Inuit identity, southern urban life, and homelessness are complex and that seeming contradictions of risk and resilience, or conflict and connection are coexisting aspects of life in this context that merit further understanding.
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