AMS Healthcare announces historic first

AMS is pleased to announce the historic appointment of Dr. Darrel Manitowabi as the NOSM-AMS Hannah Chair in the History of Indigenous Health and Indigenous Traditional Medicine for a five year renewable term effective July 1, 2020.

Dr. Manitowabi is Three Fires (Odawa, Ojibwa, Potawatomi) Anishinaabe from the Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory and currently resides in the Whitefish River First Nation. He recently served as the Director of Northern and Community Studies at Laurentian University, and at NOSM was the Director of Indigenous Affairs in 2018 and the Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies in 2019.

An Indigenous anthropologist with research interests in Anishnaabe ethnohistory and oral history, Indigenous gambling, Indigenous social determinants of health, Indigenous healing, Indigenous-state relations and Indigenous self-determination, Dr. Manitowabi’s research and publications examine how the historical legacy of colonialism impacts the health and wellbeing of First Nations communities. His research in the history of Indigenous health situates the place of Anishinaabe language (Anishinaabemowin) and knowledge (kendaasawin) in conceptions of holistic wellbeing (mino-bimaadiziwin) and ill health (maanaaji-bimaadizwin).

As the NOSM-AMS Hannah Chair in the History of Indigenous Health and Traditional Medicine, Manitowabi will work to promote the discussion of the inherent, constitutional, Treaty and international rights of all Indigenous Peoples and communities and the protection of traditional knowledge and medicines from appropriation. Dr. Manitowabi’s research focus, as the Chair, will be in the history of Indigenous Health and he will contribute to NOSM’s role in leading scholarly activity in the history of Indigenous Health.