Anthropologist

Articulating Aboriginality in Multicultural Redfern, The Australian Journal of Anthropology

Research Gate
Academia.edu

What projects are you working on right now?

I am an independent researcher returning to my career after a 4-year break for care-giving. As an anthropologist, I have specialised in Indigenous and migrated peoples, racialisation, gender, cultural and media studies, in Australia and Spain. During my research, I have collaborated with different communities, especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Latin American and African communities.

I am settled in Spain, but I still maintain strong connections with the Mob I met in Sydney when I did research with the Aboriginal organisations Koori Radio and Moogahlin Performing Arts. Social media allows me to keep in touch with them and stay informed about Australia. I aim to return to Australia to extend my research on the transculturation of cultural practices of Aboriginal and other racialised artists in Australia, taking a more ontological perspective.

I am currently working with people and organisations —Entrecalles and MAD África— which claim room for artists of African and Latin American backgrounds in Spanish cultural/media industries. Our latest project aims to create alliances with similar collectives in Europe and work together on ideas that will create more opportunities for racialised artists in cultural industries. We have recently participated in a public consultation for the Anti-Racist Law by the Ministry of Equality in Spain.

I also have a personal interest in researching about my relatives who were murdered and victims of repression during the Franco dictatorship in Spain.

What are you most proud of in your career to date?

The thing I am most proud of in my career to date is that the Mob in Sydney keep telling me to return to Australia. Publications, academic positions, awards or any other academic achievement would be meaningless if the people I work with during my investigations were not happy with my presence. To hear from many of them that they want me to return to Australia is an honour that makes me really glad.

I am also very fortunate to have my family support in pursuing my academic and personal objectives, even if that means traveling to the other side of the world. My family and the people I have worked with, both in Australia and Spain, are the best support to overcome the multiple obstacles that my career as a researcher has presented.

What influenced you to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities?

Historically, British and Spanish colonial discourses have blamed each other as being the “worst colonialists”, as if by pointing out the mistakes of another colonial country we —both Spanish and British— could pass as benevolent. Since my earliest investigations, I have been interested in studying how colonial ideologies survive in the present. I met some white Australians in Spain who suggested I focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and I became curious. I did not know of any Spanish anthropologist who had conducted research with Australia’s First Nation people before, and the information I found in Spanish libraries was scarce. But I found some information on the internet and this information increased my curiosity. On the internet, I found out that, aside from differences between Spanish and British colonialisms and between Australia and Spain, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples showed similar concerns to those of the Latin Americans I was doing research with in Spain, particularly in relation to the ways in which colonial ideologies continue to be a major obstacle in their lives. I then decided to work on this comparison for my Ph.D. I could have gone to some Latin American or African country as many of my colleagues in Spain were doing during that time. However, the Aboriginal Australia attracted me. Although it was very difficult to open doors and build academic bridges between Australia and Spain, to work with Aboriginal people in Sydney is one of the best things that has happened in my life; and I do not mean only academically.

When I arrived in Australia, many Aboriginal people asked me why I had decided to move to Australia to do my research. I then explained this story and some of them resolved that, truly, the spirits had called me and brought me to Australia.

What was the most interesting/important or perhaps unexpected finding in your recent study?

Due to academic and ethical reasons, researchers must plan and determine in advance the limits of our investigations. My Ph.D research project focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and broadcasters in Sydney, but soon after I arrived in Redfern I realised that my research would have to expand its objective. I could not just focus on Aboriginal people and on their relationships with white Australians, but also needed to consider the importance of other communities for them. I had to abandon the paradigm of seeing Indigenous people as outside modern relationships, as people isolated from relationships of the modern world; a modern world that is characterised by movements of peoples and exchanges of ideas and things. Indigenous Australians, as any other social group in contact with transnationalisation, know how to participate in international cultural exchanges and create political alliances with people around the world. Those in Sydney in particular, are also very engaged in the multiculturalism of this city. So when I met so many international people of racialised backgrounds (mainly other Indigenous, African and Asian people) involved at Aboriginal organisations, I had to redirect my research questions and wonder why these international people had decided to go to places like Koori Radio instead of going to other radio stations in Sydney (many of them with far more resources).

By focusing on these relationships I could observe the importance of these international people in supporting Aboriginal agency and further, the relevance of Aboriginal people in providing room for other people who suffer similar historical injustices. I find these relationships revealing in that they teach us about multiple forms of discrimination that lead people to articulate their struggles, as Stuart Hall suggests. I do not believe that Aboriginal people’s solidarity with other groups has been highlighted enough in the literature. We have the stereotypical image of Aboriginal people in need of help, for funding or government support, but what I found is that in fact Aboriginal people were the ones opening their space for other international Indigenous and Black people living in Sydney. I found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been for decades associating with these international people, to share and help each other.

So, my interest now is to expand this analysis into ontological considerations of these relationships of co-solidarity and study in more detail if they are producing forms of transculturation.

What significance does NAIDOC Week have for you and this year's theme Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! ?

When I was in Sydney I assisted at several Aboriginal events around the city to broadcast with Koori Radio and this led me to learning about other symbolic Aboriginal areas in the city beyond Redfern, such as Blacktown, La Perouse and Parramatta. NAIDOC Week was one of those events through which I could learn more about Aboriginal history and cultural forms. While we were broadcasting NAIDOC Week activities, Koori Radio van attracted many people and I observed how this week united Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The meaning of this week and its origins led me to reflect on how people who belong to civilisations that have been colonised, have to work hard for the society to value their cultural forms. While some Aboriginal cultural practices have acquired international recognition, there are still multiple cultural practices —especially from settled areas such as Sydney— that remain largely unknown to non-Indigenous Australians. NAIDOC Week is a chance for us to appreciate and value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural diversity. It is an invitation to celebrate Aboriginal resilience and transculturation as ways for cultural survival; and while celebrating it, we are conducting an exercise of historical memory, which I believe is one way towards justice.

This year’s NAIDOC Week theme has a special significance for my research because it shows the connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with transnational symbols of resistance through the use of Bob Marley’s lyrics. It shows also that there is no other option than to keep ‘fighting for change today’. This is true for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and for any other people around the world who fight against injustice. Those of us who disagree with injustices must also ‘stand up’ and ‘show up’ alongside them.

Pakana Woman and Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Self-reported wellbeing and health-related quality of life of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people pre and post the first wave of COVID-19 2020 pandemic

Twitter: @LarnzLarnz
a.gall@uq.edu.au
UQ researcher profile

I am a Pakana woman from the Northeast Coast of lutruwita (Tasmanian Aboriginal), and more recently, the Bass Strait Islands of Cape Barren and Flinders Island. I currently live on Yugambeh land, and work on the lands of the Turrbal and Jagera people.

What projects are you working on right now? / What does a day in your life look like as a researcher/practitioner?

I am currently working as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland in the First Nations Cancer & Wellbeing Research Team in the School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine. I am currently managing a project that is implementing the What Matters 2Adults (WM2A) wellbeing measure into cancer care centres in four Local Health Districts in New South Wales. I previously worked on the development of the WM2A measure, so it has been great seeing the research progress towards this next step that is even closer to bringing tangible benefits for my community at large. I also work across all the different wellbeing research projects our team is conducting.

What influenced you to work in Indigenous health, nutritional medicine, and wellbeing?

During my clinical training as a Naturopathic Medicine practitioner, I was exposed to health research for the first time in my life and was fascinated and impressed with how working in health research you had the potential to positively impact the health of many people at once. As I was a single Mum and my financial situation took a turn for the worse, I was not able to continue my degree in Naturopathic Medicine, as I needed to return to the workforce full time. I reflected on this idea of being able to impact the health of multiple people at once through research and decided I would set out to find a research career. I ended up getting a position at the Lowitja Institute, which then led me to meet researchers at Menzies School of Health Research. It was here, under Professor Gail Garvey (now at UQ) that I obtained a Bachelor of Health Science (Nutritional Medicine), a Masters by Research, and recently a Doctor of Philosophy. While studying I also worked as a Research Officer and a Community Engagement and Research Translation Officer. Through the research I have conducted and contributed to in the past, and the wellbeing research I am working on now, this fast-paced high pressure work environment brings a smile to my face whenever I think about how much difference our work is making for the whole Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. This is why I do this, this is why it is important, to see actual change that achieves sustainable benefits to the health and wellbeing of my community at large.

What was the most interesting/important or perhaps unexpected finding in your recent study?

The most unexpected finding in the research we did that you are including in this NAIDOC edition, was the significant differences in self-rated wellbeing and Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) between different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups at baseline – so before the pandemic hit! We found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults who experience financial instability, have a pre-existing mental health comorbidity, or have six or more comorbidities, had significantly lower self-rated wellbeing and HRQoL than those who didn’t experience these at baseline. We expected wellbeing and HRQoL to drop from baseline (before the pandemic) to after the first wave of the pandemic in Australia, which it did, but these large differences at baseline were unexpected and alarming. Since the publication of this article, we did a follow-up study where we explored the sociodemographic and health conditions associated with self-rated wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults. There were 663 participants in this study, including the 42 participants in the previous study. We found having financial stability, full-time employment, completion of grade 12, having a partner, and living with others were significantly associated with higher wellbeing among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults. However, a self-reported history of depression, anxiety, other mental health conditions, heart disease, or disability were associated with lower self-rated wellbeing scores. Both these studies show the urgent need to address wellbeing within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Isander population, especially for the sub-groups we identified as a priority (second study: https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13104-021-05794-3).

What significance does NAIDOC Week have for you and this year's theme Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! ?

While everything this NAIDOC week theme stands for is important to me, the part I feel most connected to is calling out and putting an end to racism by getting up, standing up and showing up. I experienced a lot of racism during my high-school years, not only from other students, but alarmingly from the school administration and my teachers. After countless teachers refusing to teach or help me, calling me a “dumb Aboriginal” who was a waste of their time, I ended up dropping out of high school thinking they must be right. Now, at the age of 40, I have been awarded my PhD and I am on track to have a successful academic career, one which I can be proud of as it is driven by my passion for equity across all parts of life for my community at large. I achieved this by getting up, standing up and showing up to my work and studies over the past 11 years in health research.

PhD Researcher

Accounting and First Nations: A Systematic Literature Review and Directors for Future Research

LinkedIn
ORCID

What projects are you working on right now? / What does a day in your life look like as a researcher/practitioner?

I work full-time as a researcher, primarily working towards my PhD (I’m in my 3rd year), but also working on several other research projects with colleagues at CDU. I’m also employed as a casual tutor for units in the business and finance undergraduate and Masters program. I have two young children aged 3 and 5, so a typical day is varied and busy, juggling work and family from about 5am!

What are you most proud of in your career to date?

I have a finance background, having started my career in investment banking as a graduate in London 15 years ago. I realised quite quickly that the corporate lifestyle did not suit me, and so moved into finance roles within the not-for-profit / social enterprise sector. I feel incredibly fortunate that my career has taken me from London to Kenya, Mozambique and now to Central Australia. This may not be the typical path for an accountant, but I am proud that I have followed my love of travel and adventure, and found a career which allows me to work anywhere in the world.  

What influenced you to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities/What influenced you to focus your research on First Nations people?

We moved to Alice Springs from Melbourne five years ago and both my husband and I started working for Aboriginal-owned businesses with a focus on supporting remote communities. We had previously spent 5 years living and working in East Africa and have a real passion for travel and learning from colleagues with different cultural backgrounds. We love being in remote places and appreciating the magnificent beauty of nature. When I started my PhD in 2020, focusing my research on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations was a natural fit with my interests and experience.

What was the most interesting/important or perhaps unexpected finding in your recent study?

The study I most recently published is from the first stage of my PhD research. Our findings show how the nature of accounting research and practice is changing for First Nations groups and organisations. In the past, there was a focus on the incompatibility between First Nations cultures and accounting, and on the manipulation of accounting instruments to suit colonial agendas. Whilst this research is important and valid, we found a more contemporary narrative emerging from recent research which shifts the perspective to looking at the strength of First Nations community organisations and entrepreneurs, and how these organisations are combining traditional value systems with contemporary business practices. More research is being done by First Nations academics in the accounting field, in particular by scholars with Indigenous Māori and Pacific heritage, which is important for driving the future research agenda.

What significance does NAIDOC Week have for you and this year's theme Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! ?

I think this year’s NAIDOC theme has a really strong message about taking control. The theme of self-determination and empowerment is central to the work I am doing – it’s about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people having the freedom and power to control their own lives and the institutions around them. There are only approximately 50 qualified Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander accountants in Australia – I hope this number can grow rapidly in future years so that more community organisations and entrepreneurs have access to financial expertise and can take control of their financial futures.

Associate Professor, Director of St Vincent’s Hospital Emergency Department

‘Dalarinji’: A flexible clinic, belonging to and for the Aboriginal people, in an Australian emergency department

What projects are you working on right now? / What does a day in your life look like as a researcher/practitioner?

I am the director of an Emergency Department in a teaching hospital in central Sydney which will treat up to 60,000 patients in the coming year. Although I do still work some clinical shifts on the floor more and more of my time is taken up with ensuring we can deliver safe and effective care to as well as planning for the future and how our department will evolve to meet the needs of all our patients. I work full time and have a mixture of clinical, administrative, teaching and research duties.

Right now, I am trying to navigate the path from a very strong focus on dealing with the COVID pandemic to a transition to managing a more mixed caseload with very high numbers of patients with all sorts of problems coming to the hospital.

 What are you most proud of in your career to date?

When I took over as director, I made an active decision to develop our service into one which has a strong sense of social justice and provides the highest quality care to those who have in the past been underserved. Our work with Flexiclinic is a very strong example of this and we are doing other programs to better manage our vulnerable patients with social isolation, homelessness, drug and alcohol problems or mental health issues. I am most proud that our younger staff feel committed to this approach and actively seek to participate.

What influenced you to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities?

We became aware of the very significant gaps in health care relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients. Even with all best intent our existing system was not working as well for them as it needed to work. More than a quarter came to the Emergency Department and then did not complete treatment. A significant body of research has shown that this was resulted in poor acute illness treatment, increased burden of chronic disease and a reduced average life span so this just had to change. Very fortunately the hospital has a forward-thinking executive and a committed Aboriginal Health Unit which enabled us to collaborate in new ways to design a service much better suited to the needs of Aboriginal patients.

 What was the most interesting/important or perhaps unexpected finding in your recent study?

Unpacking the ethical principals which underpinned our model of care, re-examining those principals and then changing our system to provide true equity and justice was key to justifying change from a long-entrenched process to something fundamentally different. This was both interesting and vital to get an entire department on board. Rather than a one service fits all approach we were able to implement a system which was far better designed to specifically serve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients. Most interestingly other patients did not suffer any adverse consequences, rather it seemed that improving an area where we had not been doing well actually made the whole unit work better.

What significance does NAIDOC Week have for you and this year's theme Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! ?

The work we have been doing with Flexiclinic was a collaboration involving many groups but was led by our Aboriginal Health Unit. Their leadership and advocacy was the pivotal reason this project succeeded.

Postdoctoral Researcher

Empowering young Aboriginal women to care for Country: Case study of the Ngukurr Yangbala rangers, remote northern Australia

Twitter: ShainaRussell8

What projects are you working on right now? / What does a day in your life look like as a researcher/practitioner?

I’m working as a postdoc on an ARC Linkage Project called Warrakan’puy Djäma, which translates to research about animals in Yolŋu Matha. Our project aims to bring a biocultural approach to conservation, focusing on the linkages between biology and culture and what needs to be considered when undertaking conservation projects with Aboriginal people on Aboriginal land. At the moment I’m working with the Yirralka Rangers to co-develop a cross-cultural camera trap network to detect species that are important to Yolŋu as well as threatened species. A day in my life at the moment looks like the Yirralka Rangers and I consulting with Wäŋa Wataŋu (Traditional Owners) and Djungaya (managers/caretakers) on locations for camera traps and setting them up across the Laynhapuy Indigenous Protected Area. I’m very lucky to work with these great people and to visit Yolŋu Country!

What are you most proud of in your career to date?

My commitment to working with Indigenous people and their knowledge in conservation and environmental management. That I’m willing to challenge my own culture, training and conditioning and work towards privileging and including Indigenous Knowledge and perspectives.

What influenced you to work in cross-cultural and Indigenous ecology?

I think it all started with how I was initially educated about Australia’s history as a young person, I was lucky enough to hear a more honest account of what happened. Then during my undergraduate degree, I did and internship at the Gumma Indigenous Protected Area with Chels Marshall, a Gumbaynggirr person, and friend. Chels, her family and community taught me so much and I did my honours research after the internship with the Aboriginal community in Nambucca Heads. I realised that If I wanted to work in the environment space, I wanted to work with Aboriginal people and their knowledge too. Later I was inspired by and drawn to Emilie Ens’ cross-cultural ecological research with Indigenous Ranger groups in Northern Australia and I started working with her on the Ngukurr Yangbala project for my PhD. Emilie has contributed a lot to the cross-cultural ecology space and I admire her commitment and dedication to her work and the relationships she forms with the people she works with. Emilie and I are still working together today on the Warrakan’puy Djäma project.

What was the most interesting/important or perhaps unexpected finding in your recent study?

The most interesting thing about this paper, but not the most surprising, were the stories about gender inequity in Indigenous natural and cultural resource mangement, and the entrenched barriers that women face to being included and valued in conservation. I think the most exciting thing about the Ngukurr Yangbala Project was providing opportunitites for young people to gain employment in culturally and ecologically meaningful work. I want to acknowledge the profound contribution of the late Cherry Wulumirr Daniels OAM, my Gagu (kinships term for mothers’ mother) and the lead cultural authority on the project. The Yangbala project was her vision and she was deeply committed to Country and inspiring young Aboriginal people. We all miss her a lot. Cherry Daniels and Emilie Ens (our other co-author) worked together for many years before the Yangbala project and in many ways this project laid the foundation for the Wuyagiba Study Hub, a remote Indigenous lead bush university at one of Ngukurr’s outstations, Wuyagiba, on the Gulf of Carpentaria.

What significance does NAIDOC Week have for you and this year's theme Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! ?

NAIDOC week is born from protest and I feel like this year’s theme speaks to the sustained Aboriginal resistance to the colonial project. It’s about fighting for life, for rights, for culture and celebrating that. People want change, support and commitment, not just acknowledgement.