Treena Decker

Topic

Healing the Way Home: An Autoethnographic Exploration of the Importance of Homecoming for a Haida Adoptee

School of Social Work

Date & location

• Thursday, June 20, 2024
• 9:00 A.M.
• Virtual Defence

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Jeannine Carriere, School of Social Work, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. Gwendolyn Gosek, School of Social Work, UVic (Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Marlyn Bennett, Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Elizabeth Vibert, Department of History, UVic

Abstract

A vision to walk on a healing homecoming, community building journey with other Haida adoptees, their families, and communities, became a solo journey through the COVID 19 pandemic. Building relationship became a self-transformational process. Coming of age without connection to Indigenous community or culture, I sought to identify and highlight themes and narratives along my homecoming journey as a Haida adoptee that would help ease the way home for others. To acknowledge and address existing power imbalances, a complimentary, theoretical framework was used that blends anti-oppressive and feminist theories, and understands people are experts in their own lived experience. Through this journey, I explored a variety of methodologies designed to embrace Indigenous ways of knowing and being while embracing oral traditions. Knowledge gathering combined storytelling and arts-based research techniques using both performative inquiry and Ethnotheatre to create a path to interact with the data through performance and witnessing. I sought to answer the research question; How do Haida birth families and communities create successful adoptee homecoming experiences? My findings were that adoptee homecoming can be complex, messy and that it was essential for my own healing that I find my way home to self before the work of building relationships with my Haida family and community could continue.