This study, led by two Aboriginal disability researchers using Indigenous standpoint theory, sought to identify, analyse and compare themes that emerged in the clinical notes of patients who presented with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) to North Queensland hospital emergency departments. We analysed the clinical notes and identified six key themes that are relevant to understanding the differences in hospital emergency department characteristics of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people presenting with TBI in North Queensland. The themes are alcohol and assault; accidents and mishaps; traffic incidents; police involvement, non-compliance and/or aggression; sports; and seizures. Alcohol and assaults are a serious problem leading up to hospital presentations for Indigenous people. The themes together depict the chains of circumstances leading up to presentations along three dimensions: misadventure linked with mishaps in life; alcohol and violence; and individual health status. The study findings have implications for preventative health care policy and practice to reduce the main characteristics - alcohol and violence - contributing to Indigenous people presenting with TBI. The findings of this study provide evidence to inform the substance abuse policies and programs funded under the Closing the Gap strategy, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the National Drug Strategy 2017-2026.
This paper describes a research project with Native American girls at Sherman Indian High School (Riverside, California). This work was guided by Sherman's Cultural Leader, Lori Sisquoc, and Dr Jessa Rogers, a visiting Aboriginal researcher. This paper outlines the Talking Circle Methodology employed by Native female students at Sherman and the major themes that emerged from this Indigenous research. Native students in this project shared stories about their experiences as young Native women living away from home for schooling. Their voices express the challenges they encounter and experience as contemporary Sherman students and Native young women today.
Recent research conducted by Thomas et al. (2019) reveals that mainstream media over a 45-year period have propagated deep narratives about Aboriginal people, which has the effect of stymying Aboriginal peoples' legitimate demands for recognition. 'White mastery', Thomas et al. (2019:236) argue, is one such deep narrative; it is the notion that denies the legitimacy of an Aboriginal polity by claiming that Aboriginal people are no different to the wider white body politic. With reference to coverage of a 2016 racial discrimination case and subsequent litigation, we argue the Australian newspaper reproduces a 'white mastery' deep narrative and discourses of 'Indigenous privilege' and 'white discrimination' that destabilise public support for allied human rights instruments and institutions, and undermine appreciation of Aboriginal agency and recognition.
Culture is gaining increased research and policy attention as a determinant of wellbeing, following advocacy by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities. To date, the developme...
The phrase ‘knowledge is power’ is understood to mean that if individuals and groups in a society attain knowledge through transmission of knowledge (education), they attain wisdom. This wisdom is then used to assert power (Bacon and Montagu 1857). However, as Foucault (1990) argues, knowledge power recreates itself in a circular process. Therefore, who determines what knowledge is — and who has the right to speak to that knowledge — is important. In this commentary we critique the power and knowledge structures of the economic, political, social and cultural resources that are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data. We then challenge the current holders of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data and the colonial worldview from which such data are converted into knowledges. To map a new path, we offer solutions that are embedded in the concept of Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDSov) and Indigenous Data Governance (IDGov).
Aboriginal artists in Australia, and consequently art centres, sustain successful enterprises enabled by factors such as Aboriginal ownership, Aboriginal employment and acceptance of cultural mores by art centre managers. This paper contributes a foundational body of knowledge about marketing activities in two successful Aboriginal art centres in Australia that are run, owned and managed by Aboriginal people or have an Aboriginal business focus. It examines the complexities of marketing Aboriginal art in Australia. Interviews with respondents from the two Aboriginal-owned and operated art centres identify the advantages and challenges faced when marketing their product. Using an Indigenist research approach, the paper examines the additional challenges of operating in a postcolonial culture and in remote areas far removed from markets. It describes how these challenges affect the art centres' abilities to undertake marketing activities that build availability for their products - both in the consumer's mind (mental availability) and in terms of distribution in time and space (physical availability). The findings are descriptive and identify the marketing challenges faced by the two art centres and the innovative strategies they have used to address these challenges and gaps in their knowledge and ability. The paper contributes to the body of research that aims to ensure that diversity in business research is inclusive of Aboriginal businesses, while identifying their unique aspects.
This five-year study investigated the cultural birthing practices, needs and requirements of Aboriginal women giving birth in urban settings, and their experiences of maternity care and views of birthing on Country. It also investigated how midwives perceive and support cultural security. The paper highlights the selection of research methods that complemented the project's Indigenous methodological framework. Cultural lenses and diverse expertise translated the outcomes to recommendations about a culturally meaningful health system and professional practice and education aimed at supporting Aboriginal women's birthing expectations in the future. Our tailored research practices privileged culturally secure approaches to push back against Western knowledge paradigms that have dominated qualitative research undertaken with Aboriginal people. This paper describes the research methods chosen to manage complex data collection and analysis, and how we blended Indigenous-specific methods with compatible standard methods to support Indigenist and decolonising research practices. We include Aboriginal researcher reflections to highlight the importance of culturally determined research processes that result in high-quality, culturally meaningful research.
This paper analyses the role that the Tjabal Indigenous Higher Education Centre at the Australian National University (ANU) plays in the university experience of Indigenous students and the sense of Indigenous community that it creates. It highlights the importance of Indigenous students' perspectives on Indigenous education and achieving population parity of Indigenous students and the faculty at ANU. The paper considers what Tjabal does to make ANU less of a white man's institution and to enhance its students' value as Indigenous people. The paper finds that Tjabal plays a vital role in the students' educational experience at ANU, helps them deal with the difficulties of transition to university, and helps increase Indigenous students' retention and graduation rates. Relationality, which is important to Indigenous communities in Australia, is translated into the students' university experiences, thereby alleviating cultural effacement. However, the paper also finds that more could be done to encourage students to pursue higher degrees.
This paper surveys 57 published autobiographies, biographies, interviews and as told to' accounts by Aboriginal Queenslanders from Cherbourg, Palm Island, Woorabinda and Yarrabah - former government Aboriginal settlements and missions - for insights into the sporting past. Premised on the importance of sport to Aboriginal people, and in recognition of deep sporting engagement historically, it seeks to explore and analyse the complex relationship of people with sport, which includes, but exceeds, racism and victimhood. It conceives sport as a game with four quarters: the first largely hidden; the second marked by exposure of racist, oppressive and discriminatory practices that occurred in the first quarter; the third embracing life writings by Aboriginal people; and the fourth involving increasing collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous historians in understanding the sporting past. This paper focuses on the third quarter in an attempt to enrich those understandings via an expanded range of voices, stories and perspectives contained in published memories.
We acknowledge and thank the Ngaanyatjarra community and Ngaanyatjarra Council (Aboriginal Corporation) for supporting this research. We thank Norma Giles, Tjawina Porter, Nancy Jackson and Sheila Giles. Research by Elizabeth Marrkilyi Ellis has been supported by ELDP (Endangered Languages Documentation Programme) (SG0187) and an ARC Discovery Indigenous Award (IN150100018). Jennifer Green was supported by ARC (Australian Research Council) Fellowships (DP110102767 and DE160100873) and Inge Kral by an ARC DECRA Award (DE120100720). In December 2016 Lauren Reed, a native signer of Auslan, joined the research team as an ANU Summer Scholar sponsored by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL) (CE140100041). She annotated the corpus and conducted archival research. We acknowledge CoEDL, and the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics at the Australian National University, for their support
This paper discusses Aboriginal identity as expressed through the Deadly Questions campaign launched by Aboriginal Victoria and marketing company Clemenger BBDO in 2018. It provides an insight into the meanings that members of mainstream cultural groups bring to their dialogues with Aboriginal people. I analysed the 100 representative questions on the Deadly Questions website through three main categories: a primary category identifies those questions that frame Aboriginal identity to support non-Aboriginal constructions of national identity; a second category explores related themes of learning and reflection; a third category identifies those questions that use an inclusive, humanitarian discourse. Results indicate that people's viewpoints are strongly bound with their moral outlook. Comfortableness with cultural ambiguity aligns with a questioning of stereotypes and support for Aboriginal positions, while surety around a singular national narrative promotes a deficit positioning of Aboriginal people and culture. Between these two categories lies a readiness and willingness to learn about Aboriginal culture, but a reluctance to learn too much. The paper concludes by reflecting on pathways to promote a more dialogical vision of Aboriginal and mainstream cultural relations and makes the case that it beholds those with a humanitarian ethos to stimulate debate towards a more inclusive society for all Victorians.
The early 1960s saw a major shift in Aboriginal policy. In the Northern Territory the Welfare Ordinance 1953 was replaced by the Social Welfare Ordinance 1964, an d the earlier policies o f assimilation an d protectionism w ere abandoned, together with the concept of Aborigines as 'wards' and the associated Register of Wards. Under the new ordinance, the Welfare Branch of the Northern Territory em barked on an ambitious project to develop an accurate computer-based record of personal and family information for all Aborigines in the Territory 'living as part of the Aboriginal com m unity'. The Aboriginal Population Record (APR) project ran for almost a decade, an d has been described as one o f the most extensive and reliable records o f an Aboriginal population ever com piled. And yet, surprisingly, the APR was almost unknown except within the Welfare Branch. W hen the project was finally abandon ed in 1976, the data was archived an d virtually forgotten until it was rediscovered 30 years later. This paper introduces the APR database. It describes its background, development, use an d subsequent history. It also illustrates the APR's potential for use in anthropological research with a study to analyse changes in traditional Warlpiri patterns over time. While this study is limited in scope, the APR database offers many m ore opportunities for anthropological an d historical research, as w ell as applications such as family searches an d support for land title claims.
From the early twentieth century until the 1970s Australian states enacted laws that allowed the forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their parents. The laws further allowed for the children to be placed in state or church-run institutions and to be raised to enter non-Indigenous society. The harm done though separation from family, language and culture has had devastating effects on their lives, as well as on succeeding generations. Healing the trauma of Stolen Generations people is a primary aim of various Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led organisations across Australia. In partnership with Bringing Them Home WA the authors are assisting in the restoration and regeneration of two former mission institutions at Carrolup/Marribank and Wandering in Western Australia to be used as healing centres for Aboriginal people formerly confined at these places. This paper takes a holistic view of healing and proposes a cultural healing framework that moves beyond physical human functioning. It emphasises the connection to land, memory and community identity as critical to social and emotional wellbeing and healing, and reflects on the project process and the impact of this work on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It elaborates on the community-centric approach that positions the Survivors as drivers and decision makers for this project. Can this approach build capacity for the Survivors in the short and long term?
