From Knowledge To Wisdom: Indigenous Women'S Narratives Of Doing Well With Career Decision Making

Indigenous women in Canada are outperforming other Canadians in the labour market (DePratto, 2015). However, we currently have limited understanding about how Indigenous women decide on their choice of career. We sought to understand Indigenous women's narratives of doing well in making career decisions. Ten women volunteered to tell their stories of how they made career decisions that resulted in positive outcomes. Using a narrative research design, in-depth interviews were recorded and narrative accounts were generated that illuminated the ways in which women in this study overcame life circumstances in their quest to establish a career. Verbatim transcriptions and individual narrative accounts were constructed. The narratives were then analyzed using a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). All participants confirmed the following five main themes: (1) focusing on a career direction, (2) pursuing further education and training, (3) overcoming and learning from adversity, (4) relational experiences that influenced career decisions and (5) connection to Aboriginal community as part of career decision-making. Implications for future research, career theory development and education as well as career counselling practice are discussed.Indigenous peoples and settlers have been living in one another's presence since the onset of colonialism and throughout centuries of environmental dispossession and cultural upheaval (Richmond, 2015; Richmond & Ross, 2009). The changes Indigenous communities have endured over the past 150 years have transformed their relationships with the land, their way of life, and modes of survival. "Loss of land is the precise cause of Indigenous impoverishment" wrote the late Secwepemc leader Art Manual (Manual & Derrickson, 2015, p.18). The overall percentage of Indigenous lands today in Canada is 0.2 per cent, with the settler share being 99.8 percent (Manual & Derrickson, 2015). In this era of reconciliation, it is essential to recognize our historical truths as a nation in our efforts to undo colonial harms such as the poverty imposed on Indigenous ways of life.The National Aboriginal Economic Development Board (Fiscal Realities Economists, 2016) asserts several bold findings and recommendations for closing the gap economically and socially for Indigenous peoples. They write: (a) the poverty rate for Indigenous peoples in Canada is 11% higher than the non-Indigenous population; (b) closing this gap means that 173,234 fewer Indigenous people will be living in poverty, and an estimated increase in Gross Domestic Product of 27.7 billion annually; (c) the number of Indigenous people of working age (25-64) increased 21% between 2006 and 2011 compared with only 5% growth among the non- Indigenous population; and (d) the implications for improving equity in education and training for Indigenous peoples could result in an additional 8.5 billion in income earned annually by the estimated Indigenous workforce.Indigenous women specifically have lower employment and labour force participation rates than Indigenous men yet have been outperforming both Indigenous and non-Indigenous men and women in labour market growth (Employment and Social Development Canada [ESDC], 2015). In 2014, Indigenous women comprised over one third of the Indigenous self-employed workforce becoming entrepreneurs at twice the rate of non-Indigenous women (ESDC, 2015). Among Indigenous peoples in Canada, women have higher levels of education, greater access to employment in growth sectors such as the service and knowledge industries, and greater entrepreneurship (DePratto, 2015). There is a wealth of knowledge held by Indigenous women and many untold stories to illustrate how they are doing well with their career-decision making in spite of centuries of environmental dispossession and cultural loss.