Individual or societal responsibility? Explanations of diabetes in an Anishinaabe (Ojibway) community

In recent years, many aboriginal communities in North America have experienced increasing rates of maturity onset diabetes. This paper is based on interviews held with individuals diagnosed with diabetes in an Anishinaabe community in Manitoba, Canada. The varying ways people account for their own case of diabetes and the increase in diabetes generally are described. Although people talk about diabetes as a result of individual dietary choices, much of the discourse links diabetes to environmental and societal changes.