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Through an analysis of Cree concepts of well-being, I challenge conventional social scientific definitions of health. In this dissertation I argue that there exists a fundamental biomedical dualism in health studies and, using cross-cultural examples, explore an expanded notion of "health". I then introduce the Cree concept of miyupimaatisiiu ("being alive well") and explain that for the Whapmagoostui Cree there is no term that translates back into English as health. I present the core symbols of "being alive well" and in their analysis find a persistence of traditional meanings. For the Cree "being alive well" is consonant with "being Cree", simultaneously transcending the individual and reflecting current political realities. Miyupimaatisiiu for the adult Cree of Whapmagoostui is a strategy of cultural assertion and resistance and hence situated within the realm of political discourses.

The thesis examines aspects of the construction of methylmercury as an authoritative object of knowledge for Chisasibi, a Cree community on the James Bay coast in northern Quebec. I describe the evolution of a particular set of spheres of exchange which mediate economic relations between the Cree communities, the governments of Quebec and Canada, and state and corporate structures tied to the state. Knowledge claims about mercury can be seen as situated among claims of injury in a moral economy which is based on conflict over the James Bay hydro-electric project. The politicization and subsequent medicalization of these knowledge claims are described. Finally, I trace the emergence of particular concepts of 'normality', 'risk' and 'risk group' in medical and technocratic discourses about the effects of methylmercury on Canadian aboriginal populations.

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