Practical guidelines for Indigenous research: lessons from a case study exploring data literacy in our local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community

Burden of the Beast

Medical students should be equipped with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to engage with local communities on placement, and later act as agents of change in addressing health system priorities and inequities. Determining what are the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes requires the medical school to collect input from the local communities they serve. This study describes the steps taken by the James Cook University (JCU) School of Medicine & Dentistry (SMD) to develop a systematic process for collecting input from a local Indigenous community. This 2011 study utilised a participatory action research design. An Indigenous Reference Group (IRG) consisting of 13 local Indigenous people including health professionals, Elders and community members was established by the JCU SMD in the North Queensland town of Mount Isa. 'Yarning Circle' discussions between SMD representatives and the IRG developed a Terms of Reference (ToR) to guide the engagement process, and negotiated reciprocal benefits to compensate participants for time involved in consultations and to promote sustainability. A framework for engaging with the Mount Isa Indigenous community was developed. Benefits for the SMD included a list of the good and bad engagement strategies with the local Indigenous community. Benefits for the IRG members included assistance with grant applications, media skills and organizing a community-wide health event. Successful and sustainable community partnerships between a medical school and an Indigenous community can be achieved, with Indigenous researchers and community members guiding the engagement process, and for stakeholders to follow through in providing the negotiated reciprocal benefits. Having an established IRG should increase Indigenous input and participation into the medical curriculum, and into future research and community activities to improve the health of the Indigenous people.

The dichotomy of commissioning Indigenous health and wellbeing program evaluations: What the Funder wants vs what the Community needs.

A global energy technology company has empowered its local teams to prioritize environmental and social initiatives that bring the most benefit to local stakeholders. This paper describes case studies from North American collaborative initiatives with Indigenous communities to encourage participation in the workforce and develop inclusive environmental, sustainability, and educational programs. Strengthening collaborative relationships with Indigenous communities has increased employment and opened business development opportunities for those communities, provided a more culturally diverse workforce for the energy technology company, and assisted the community in achieving their priorities using digital technology. The global energy technology company's local teams set objectives and developed programs with local Indigenous communities. In the United States, a customized training and workforce development program was created to provide local candidates with firsthand experience of working on the Alaska North Slope. In Canada, business development opportunities and Indigenous needs were analyzed to create unique business synergies. An environmental recycling project in Canada has provided business development opportunities to a local area Indigenous community. Rubber components that were once sent to landfills are now donated to an Indigenous-owned business to be recycled into new rubber industrial items to be sold locally. Another initiative described in the paper focuses on finding a solution for a community's inability to consistently access clean water and used digital technology to solve water imbalance issues in the community's water treatment plant. The energy technology company provided educational scholarships for the community's water treatment plant employees, in addition to software licenses and training to use company process simulation software and 3D modeling technology. This collaborative effort has helped the community achieve its priority to obtain consistent access to clean drinking water through its water treatment facility. The initiative has been presented at local water conferences.

IntroductionThis article outlines the meaningful participation of eight Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members employed as community researchers investigating the impact of pandemic influenza in rural and remote Indigenous communities in Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation is now a requirement of health research involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. There is a growing literature on the different approaches to such involvement. Fundamental to this literature is an acknowledgement that Indigenous communities are no longer prepared to be research objects for external, mostly non-Indigenous researchers, and demand a role in decisions about what is researched and how it will be researched. In this paper, we describe the protracted process for site identification and recruitment and training of community researchers. We focus on the backgrounds of the Indigenous researchers and their motivations for involvement, and the strengths and challenges posed by Indigenous people researching in their own communities. Throughout the paper our concern is to document how genuine participation and the building of research capacity can occur.DiscussionA key feature of the research was the employment, training and strengthening the capacity of local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members in the role of community researchers. A series of training workshops were conducted in northern Australia and focussed on qualitative research methods, including data collection, data analysis and writing. The Indigenous researchers collected the community-based data, and worked in partnership with experienced academic researchers in the analysis and compilation of community reports. Parts of those community reports, as well as additional information supplied by the community researchers, forms the basis of this article. As the demand increases for involvement of Indigenous community members as researchers, focus needs to be paid to what constitutes meaningful participation. If active participation in all aspects of the research process is intended, this necessitates close attention to the knowledge and skills required for this to occur at every stage. Building research capacity means not simply equipping local people to undertake research on a particular project, but to have the knowledge and skills to undertake research in other areas.ConclusionsThere are considerable benefits for Indigenous people researching in their own communities. Most important for the community researchers on this project was the sense that they were doing important health work, not just conducting research. Given the persistent gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health, this is perhaps one of the most important contributions of this type of research. Whilst research outcomes are undoubtedly important, in many cases the process used is of greater importance.

The 11th Australian Rural and Remote Mental Health Symposium Communiqué.

This report presents the results of a consultation process within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community of Brisbane in relation to the promotion of traditional foods, and in relation to the strategies needed to formulate a nutrition intervention programme to promote their increased consumption. The consultation process was through a survey questionnaire carried out by the Aboriginal and Islander Community Health Service, which sought information on some of the factors which would influence their consumption. It investigated how 'traditional' or 'bush' foods are defined by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the current consumption patterns of traditional foods, and the factors which influence these patterns. The survey also sought information regarding taste preferences in relation to traditional foods, and those opinions, attitudes and beliefs which might influence their consumption, such as taboos on totemic species. Other practical factors such as affordability, availability and accessibility were also investigated. Most importantly, the survey questionnaire sought information with regard to the cultural values and significance attached to traditional foods, and the most culturally appropriate methods of supplying and distributing them. Information obtained from the survey showed that despite the fact that this urban Indigenous community does not have access to land for traditional hunting and harvesting, and that members require a permit for harvesting even certain marine resources, traditional foods remain highly culturally significant. Bush foods to be promoted need to be the traditional foods of the local urban Indigenous Community, not bush foods in general. Furthermore, traditional animal foods are more culturally significant than plant foods and those traditional animal foods that are already commercially available are not as culturally significant as those that are not. The consumption of traditional foods by Indigenous people cannot be divorced from production or supply, distribution and preparation processes. For Indigenous people the whole sequence from hunting through to eating carries cultural significance. The cultural significance of certain animal foods in particular cannot be separated from their traditional means of production and supply. For the full value, nutritional and cultural, of such foods to be realised in any dietary intervention programme. Indigenous people therefore need to be involved at every stage from production to their end use. Recommendations which stemmed from this consultation process pointed to the necessity for traditional foods to be made available at a 'bush tucker canteen', in meals prepared by Indigenous people. Furthermore, permits for traditional hunting and harvesting of marine resources should be made more easily available to urban Indigenous people, as well as access to lands for harvesting wildlife, both of which would permit involvement in the production of traditional foods, and go a long way towards meeting Indigenous people's needs to integrate production and consumption of traditional foods. Such a programme would not only improve the health and nutrition of Indigenous people, but also contribute towards fulfilling those cultural and spiritual needs that are inextricably part of their association with the land.

Recognising the role of local and Indigenous communities in managing natural resources for the greater public benefit: Case studies from Asia and Oceania region

Perils of an open Arctic

Ecological management in a cultural landscape

Introduction The paper by Gillam and Pyett is of direct relevance to researchers, ethicists, policy makers and community members working in the area of Aboriginal.' health in Canada. It describes and critically evaluates the ethical frameworks guiding research within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia.s In our response to Gillam and Pyett's commentary we emphasize a comparative perspective describing divergent and parallel developments in ethics review of research in Aboriginal communities in Canada. A comparative perspective on the development of indigenous research ethics reflects parallels in the influence on both indigenous and research communities in Canada and Australia of (1) inequities in population health and service access within colonial and post-colonial environments, (2) growing demands for indigenous governance of health care and control/ownership of health research, (3) increased awareness of common interests and strategies between indigenous health professionals and researchers, particularly in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Gillam and Pyett's commentary- is particularly relevant to Canadians because it documents the historical development of research policies within the context of indigenous values and also explores pragmatic approaches to representing and protecting the interests of participants, communities and organizations through' an indigenous ethical review process. The Commentary proposes a framework for more effective implementation of the 'Draft' for Human Research Ethics Committees within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and external health research ethics committees through the development of three targeted documents. These documents would expedite value clarification, promote mutual respect and fair sharing of research benefits, and facilitate the development of

Studying the consequences of exploitation of indigenous territories is an urgent topic of modern science. This study presents the result of the research on the history of the development of a special type of resources — mammoth tusks in northern Yakutia. The paper is aimed at the analysis of impact of the new sector of the eco-nomy in the region on the local communities. It was also important to identify the sequence of the events that facilitated this development. The methodological basis of the study is represented by the historical method of ana-lyzing archival data, periodicals, and legal and scientific literature on this subject. Sources for the paper included materials from the National Archive of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), regional periodicals, as well as legal and reference materials covering this crucial stage in the development of the local indigenous communities. Despite the fact that extraction of fossil mammoth bone has been carried out for a long time, its active development began only at the end of the 20th century. The formation and progress of such a new type of mining activity has left a special impression on the development of the local population engaged in the traditional farming. Opportunities and the weak state control in this area have created favorable conditions for the emergence of a special environ-ment for economic relations. This has had a significant impact on social well-being of the local indigenous peo-ples. During this period, a special situation developed when, due to objective reasons, mammoth tusks turned from an object of natural origin that did not cause any interest into a valuable, highly sought resource. The gro-wing global demand for mammoth remains and the removal of barriers for external contacts in the Soviet Union stimulated the rapid development of the fundamentally different structure of socio-economic relations in the Arctic zone. As a result, this situation greatly influenced the state of the local indigenous communities. The areas of their traditional living became a territory of intensive development of “new resources”, which brought about real envi-ronmental and social threats, but also new opportunities. The new prospects, as well as the state unreadiness to regulate the emerging market of “wild” mammoth bone, created all conditions for the emergence of a special area of economic relations spanning the Arctic regions of Yakutia. This almost neglected factor undoubtedly had sig-nificant impact on the social well-being of the indigenous peoples living in the region at the end of the 20th century.

To assess the use of NHMRC Indigenous research guidelines by Australian researchers and the degree of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander governance and participation in Indigenous health research. Cross-sectional survey of people engaged in Indigenous health research in Australia, comprising respondents to an open invitation (social media posts in general and Indigenous health research networks) and authors of primary Indigenous health research publications (2015-2019) directly invited by email. Reported use of NHMRC guidelines for Indigenous research; reported Indigenous governance and participation in Indigenous health research. Of 329 people who commenced the survey, 247 people (75%) provided responses to all questions, including 61 Indigenous researchers (25%) and 195 women (79%). The NHMRC guidelines were used "all the time" by 206 respondents (83%). Most respondents (205 of 247, 83%) reported that their research teams included Indigenous people, 139 reported dedicated Indigenous advisory boards (56%), 91 reported designated seats for Indigenous representatives on ethics committees (37%), and 43 reported Indigenous health research ethics committees (17%); each proportion was larger for respondents working in Indigenous community-controlled organisations than for those working elsewhere. More than half the respondents reported meaningful Indigenous participation during five of six research phases; the exception was data analysis (reported as apparent "none" or "some of the time" by 143 participants, 58%). Indigenous health research in Australia is largely informed by non-Indigenous world views, led by non-Indigenous people, and undertaken in non-Indigenous organisations. Re-orientation and investment are needed to give control of the framing, design, and conduct of Indigenous health research to Indigenous people.

Research summary : While research has shown that good stakeholder relations increase the value of a firm, less is known about how specific types of stakeholder governance affect firm value. We examine the value of one such governance mechanism—community benefits agreements ( CBA s) signed by firms and local communities—intended to minimize social conflict that disrupts access to valuable resources. We argue that shareholders evaluate more positively CBA s with local communities with strong property rights and histories of institutional action and extra‐institutional mobilization because these communities are more likely to cause costly disruptions and delays for a firm. We evaluate these arguments by analyzing the cumulative abnormal returns associated with the unexpected announcement of 148 CBA s signed between mining companies and local indigenous communities in Canada. Managerial summary : With firms across many industries facing escalating costs associated with social conflict, new tools are emerging to help firms mitigate these risks by seeking the support of the local communities in which they operate. Community benefits agreements ( CBA s) are contracts in which a community provides consent for a new investment in return for tangible benefits, such as local hiring and revenue sharing. We argue that although CBA s are costly for the firm, they are particularly valuable when communities can cause costly disruptions and delays for a firm. Our study of investor reactions to the announcement of 148 CBA s signed between mining companies and local indigenous communities in Canada shows that investors value more CBA s signed with communities with strong property rights and histories of protest . Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Contentious Connections