Law, Culture and Decolonisation: The Perspectives of Aboriginal Elders on Family Violence in Australia

Family violence within Aboriginal communities continues to attract considerable scholarly, governmental and public attention in Australia. While rates of victimization are significantly higher than non-Aboriginal rates, Aboriginal women remain suspicious of the ‘carceral feminism’ remedy, arguing that family violence is a legacy of colonialism, systemic racism, and the intergenerational impacts of trauma, requiring its own distinctive suite of responses, ‘uncoupled’ from the dominant feminist narrative of gender inequality, coercive control and patriarchy. We conclude that achieving meaningful reductions in family violence hinges on a decolonizing process that shifts power from settler to Aboriginal structures. Aboriginal peoples are increasingly advocating for strengths-based and community-led solutions that are culturally safe, involve Aboriginal justice models, and recognises the salience of Aboriginal Law and Culture. This paper is based on qualitative research in six locations in northern Australia where traditional patterns of Aboriginal Law and Culture are robust Employing a decolonising methodology, we explore the views of Elders in these communities regarding the existing role of Law and Culture, their criticisms of settler law, and their ambitions for a greater degree of partnership between mainstream and Aboriginal law. The paper advances a number of ideas, based on these discussions, that might facilitate a paradigm shift in theory and practice regarding intervention in family violence.

Enabling culturally safe sexual health services in western Sydney: a protocol to improve STI treatment outcomes for Aboriginal young people

Background Aboriginal people face challenges on several fronts when it comes to the health and wellbeing of their community, compared to the rest of the Australian population. This is no different in urban areas such as Australia’s largest urban Aboriginal community located in Blacktown, NSW, where sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remain an issue of concern. Across Australia, rates of infectious syphilis, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and hepatitis C infection have increased by 400, 260, and 15% respectively while gonorrhoea decreased 12% in the 5-year period from 2013 to 2017. This study explores how to address the barriers that prevent young Aboriginal people under 30 years of age from accessing STI treatment through Government Sexual Health Services. Methods This qualitative study will use purposeful sampling to recruit 20 male and 20 female health consumers, 10 Aboriginal elders and 10 sexual health clinicians. This recruitment will be undertaken with the assistance of the local Government Health Services and local Aboriginal organisations. One-on-one semi-structured interviews will be undertaken by someone of the same gender in order to address cultural preferences. Data will be entered into NVivo and thematically analysed. Discussion This study will seek to add to the literature that explores why young Aboriginal people do not access sexual health services. This study seeks to understand the experience of clinicians, Aboriginal elders and Aboriginal young people to provide practical policy and clinical redesign evidence that can be used to improve the experience and cultural safety of sexual health services in urban areas of Australia. The results of the qualitative research will be disseminated with the assistance of participating local Aboriginal organisations, and the findings will be published through peer-reviewed scientific journals and conference presentations. Trial registration The study is approved by the Western Sydney Local Health District Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC/16/WMEAD/449) and the New South Wales Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council’s Human Research Ethics Committee (1220/16).

Macquarie–Yaegl Partnership: Community Capability Strengthening Through Western and Indigenous Science

The rich customary knowledge possessed by Indigenous people from around the world has provided intellectually stimulating academic research opportunities and has been a successful avenue for healthcare and drug discovery as well as commercial native foods, flavours, fragrances, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, and agricultural products. When conducted with benefit sharing and reciprocity as core agenda, such research can provide community capability strengthening and immense rewards for both the Indigenous people and the academic research team involved, as well as benefiting potentially many others. This account shares my experiences as a natural products and medicinal chemistry academic, of working with Australian Aboriginal Elders, most notably from Yaegl Country of northern New South Wales, on investigating their bush medicines. Together we have facilitated the recognition and preservation of Yaegl Country customary knowledge and through initiation of a science leadership program, the National Indigenous Science Education Program, we have promoted educational attainment and STEM engagement in Australian Aboriginal youth. While this account is authored as my own personal statement of the Macquarie–Yaegl partnership, I am indebted to the Yaegl Aboriginal Elders and other Australian Aboriginal people I have worked with, and my university, school and community collaborators, my research team and student volunteers, who have all enabled the outcomes described in this account to be realised, and have made the experience so rewarding. I am also thankful to the Royal Australian Chemical Institute for the recognition of the value of this work through the award of a 2019 Royal Australian Chemical Institute Citation.

Reaching Across the Divide (RAD): Aboriginal Elders and Academics working together to improve student and staff cultural capability outcomes

This article, written by Aboriginal Nyoongar Elders, Louise and Percy Hansen and Joanna Corbett in collaboration with two Wadjella (white) academics, details the design and delivery of The Reaching Across the Divide: Aboriginal Elders and Academics working together project (RAD) which aimed to develop student cultural capabilities. It is encouraging that many Australian universities aim at embedding Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing yet there remains little information on how to do this. RAD, guided by a Nyoongar framework for engagement, the Minditj Kaart-Moorditj Kaart Framework, provides one example. RAD developed student and staff capabilities, through building trusting, committed relationships, and promoting systems change. The results highlight how co-creating to embed Indigenous pedagogy through yarning and oral storying (Hansen & Corbett, 2017; Hansen, 2017) produces transformative learning outcomes which also meet key national, local and professional directives.

Implementing genuine participatory action research with Aboriginal Elders: The Ngulluk Koolunga Ngulluk Koort project

This paper describes the processes involved in establishing a genuinely collaborative and participatory role for nine Aboriginal Elders in a five-year participatory action research project focused on early child development in the Perth metropolitan area of Western Australia. The project goals are to better inform and align policy and program design with Aboriginal values, world views and concepts of childhood. The Elder’s authority in the design, conduct and outputs of the research are intended to adhere to a decolonising approach, whereby Aboriginal people have power and voice in ways that are aligned to their values and beliefs. Requirements for research that is collaborative, relational, participatory and reflexive are not straightforward or easily achieved, and the process of working with the nine Elders in their roles as Co-researchers has not been without its challenges. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities of working with Aboriginal Elders as Co-researchers and seeks to enhance understanding of the necessity of incorporating an Aboriginal worldview and knowledge framework in this way.

Enabling Culturally Safe Sexual Health Services in Western Sydney: a Protocol to Improve Outcomes for Aboriginal Young People.

Aboriginal people face challenges on several fronts when it comes to the health and wellbeing of their community, compared to the rest of the Australian population. This is no different in urban areas such as Australia’s largest urban Aboriginal community located in Blacktown, NSW, where sexually transmitted infections remain an issue of concern. Across Australia, rates of Infectious Syphilis Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Hepatitis C infection have increased by 400%, 260%, and 15% respectively while Gonorrhoea decreased 12% in the 5-year period from 2013 to 2017. This study explores how to address the barriers that prevent young Aboriginal people under 30 years of age accessing public Sexual Health Services.MethodsPurposeful qualitative sampling will be undertaken to recruit 20 male and 20 female health consumers, 10 Aboriginal Elders and 10 sexual health clinicians. This recruitment will be undertaken with the assistance of local Aboriginal organisations and Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD). Participants will be interviewed on a one on one basis using semi structured interviews and participants will be interviewed by someone of the same gender in order to address cultural preferences. Data collected will be analysed using NVivo and by conducting a thematic analysis.DiscussionThis study will seek to add to the literature that explores why young Aboriginal people do not access sexual health services. This study seeks to understand the experience of clinicians, Aboriginal Elders and Aboriginal young people to provide practical policy and clinical redesign evidence that can be used to improve the experience and cultural safety of sexual health services in urban areas of Australia. The results of the qualitative research will be disseminated with the assistance of participating local Aboriginal organisations and the findings will be published through peer-reviewed scientific journals and conference presentations.Trial registrationThe study is approved by Western Sydney Local Health District Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC/16/WMEAD/449) and the New South Wales Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council’s Human Research Ethics Committee (1220/16).

YARNING AS PROTECTED SPACE: principles and protocols

Traditional methods of imparting knowledge are known as yarning to Australian Aboriginal Elders and talking circles to North American First Nations peoples. Yarning is a relational methodology for transferring Indigenous knowledge. This article describes an emerging research methodology with yarning at its core, which provides respect and honour in a culturally safe environment. Yarning is highly structured, with protocols and principles providing participants control over the process and their stories. The methodology is embedded in a yarning space, which is framed by six protocols and seven principles. The protocols are gift, control, freedom, space, inclusiveness and gender specificity, and the principles are reciprocity, responsibility, relationship, dignity, equality, integrity and self-determination—to protect participants, stories and data. This is ensured through respectful and honouring relationships, responsibility and accountability between participants. The key camps in which the yarning journey is segmented are the Ancestors, protocols, principles, connections, data, analysis, processing and reporting, and the wider community.