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Faculty of Graduate Studies

Ania Dwornik

  • MSW (University of British Columbia, 2014)
  • BA (Simon Fraser University, 2009)
Notice of the Final Oral Examination for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Topic

Healing through Connection: Creating Space for Relationality in Mental Health and Criminal Justice

Social Dimensions of Health

Date & location

  • Thursday, September 11, 2025
  • 9:00 A.M.
  • Clearihue Building, Room B021

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

  • Dr. Jennifer White, School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
  • Dr. Jeff Corntassel, Indigenous Studies Program, UVic (Co-Supervisor)
  • Dr. Bruce Wallace, School of Social Work, UVic (Member)

External Examiner

  • Dr. Lisa Monchalin, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Chair of Oral Examination

  • Dr. Dan Russek, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, UVic

Abstract

The Canadian criminal justice system is simultaneously experiencing an overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples and persons with mental unwellness. Both challenges have generated significant study and attention, yet there has been little exploration of the relationship between them. Rather, consistent with Western traditions of knowledge production, these issues have been studied in isolation from one another, with Eurocentric theories of health and justice used to explain and resolve them. This includes the biomedical model of mental illness, which individualizes experiences of emotional distress and fails to recognize the impact of colonial trauma. Such trends perpetuate colonization and fail to deliver solutions that are embedded within Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies, and cosmologies. Consequently, they may not meet the needs of Indigenous people.

Through three distinct but inter-related academic papers I open a series of ethical spaces (Ermine, 2007) to explore these topics. In the first paper I explore the relationship between Indigenous health theories and Mad Studies. In the second I describe a qualitative study that explores the perspectives of six Indigenous persons with criminal justice system (CJS) involvement. In the third, I explore the potential for using restorative justice to help decrease the over-representation of Indigenous peoples with mental unwellness in the CJS. I acknowledge important concerns about cooptation, appropriation and knowledge extraction and align with critical scholarship including Mad Studies and Indigenous works on historical trauma. Through qualitative research I listen to the voices of six Indigenous participants who identify relationality as a key feature of this work and suggest that service providers hold unique potential for helping to decolonize and decriminalize mental unwellness. I propose two ways this can be applied through direct practice: inter-relational practice and restorative justice (RJ). By using this practice and framework, service providers can directly participate in the decriminalization and decarceration of Indigenous peoples with mental unwellness in Canada.

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