Imagining Indigenized Futures: Multi-Eyed Seeing and Decolonialism in Integrative Health Equity

Area of Science:

• Integrative Health
• Decolonial Studies
• Indigenous Health Equity

Background:

• Integrative health commonly blends Western and non-Western clinical services within a biomedical framework.
• Indigenous communities and minoritized populations face significant inequities in current integrative healthcare models.
• There is a need for culturally responsive and equitable approaches to enhance healthcare delivery for these populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore 'multi-eyed seeing,' an extension of 'two-eyed seeing,' as a decolonial framework to improve healthcare for Kānaka 'Ōiwi (Native Hawaiians).
• To investigate how multi-eyed seeing can adapt healing traditions from various cultural backgrounds to address integrative health inequities.
• To center Indigenous voices and decolonial principles in the pursuit of equitable healthcare solutions.

Main Methods:

• Employed a transformative paradigm and community-based participatory action research (CBPAR).
• Conducted 1 focus group and 38 in-depth interviews with Kānaka 'Ōiwi mental/behavioral health providers, clients with depressive symptoms, and cultural leaders.
• Utilized grounded theory, decolonial intersectionality, ho'omana i nā leo (empowering the voices), and thematic analysis for data interpretation.

Main Results:

• Multi-eyed seeing was found to support Indigenous wellbeing across multiple levels.
• The approach necessitates the creation of unique healthcare and healing spaces tailored to diverse needs.
• Illuminated cross-cultural similarities and underlying mechanisms crucial for healing and health.
• Identified potential roles in idiographic and transdiagnostic behavioral health and barriers to implementation.

Conclusions:

• Integrating diverse healing pathways (Indigenous, Western, Eastern) can create synergistic outcomes stronger than individual components.
• Multi-eyed seeing offers ontological, epistemological, axiological, and practical approaches to achieving equity in integrative healthcare.
• This decolonial framework provides critical reflections and invites further dialogue for advancing equitable integrative health practices.