Profiles | Dr. Diana Lewis

Senior Research Associate

Dr. Diana (Dee) Lewis, a member of the Sipekne’katik Mi’kmaq First Nation in Nova Scotia, is an Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Indigenous Environmental Health Governance appointed to the Department of Geography, Environment & Geomatics at the University of Guelph. Dr. Lewis’ research interests are to foster a wider understanding of Indigenous worldviews, and to promote how these worldviews must inform environmental decisions, specifically as Indigenous communities are impacted by resource or industrial development. Dr. Lewis is a strong advocate for Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous-led decision-making. She now works with communities across Canada to develop an Indigenous-led environmental health risk assessment approach that can inform environmental decision-making processes going forward.

Research Abstract

Indigenous communities experience detrimental health impacts living near industrial development. In her doctoral research, Dr. Diana Lewis worked with the Mi’kmaw community of Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN) that had been exposed to pulp and paper mill effluent for over 50 years. A federal environmental health monitoring committee, mandated to oversee the health of the community, reported that PLFN’s health was not impacted by exposures, however the PLFN Native Women’s Group (NWG) was not so certain. Starting in 2011, and under the supervision of Dr. Heather Castleden, Dr. Lewis worked with the NWG to co-design a project to assess the health status of PLFN and used government-held data to compare PLFN health outcomes to other populations. Using oral histories from Knowledge Holders, she developed a Mi’kmaw environmental health framework which highlighted the unique relationship of the community to their environment. This approach revealed the health of the community had in fact been impacted. Through her IndigenERA Lab, Dr. Lewis will assess how the methodology developed for PLFN might apply in other cultural contexts – to Cree, Chipewyan, and Métis communities living near oil and gas extraction in northern Alberta and to a Haudenosaunee community living adjacent to a landfill site in southern Ontario. Each of the four will co-develop their own environmental health frameworks to show how community-led/locally relevant/culturally safe governance frameworks and cultural protocols ensure the highest ethical standards are followed and promote community health decisions that respect Indigenous values and traditions.