Aboriginal Representation Research Articles

The Western Australian preterm birth prevention initiative: a whole of state singleton pregnancy cohort study showing the need to embrace alternative models of care for Aboriginal women

BackgroundPreterm birth (PTB) is the greatest cause of mortality and morbidity in children up to five years of age globally. The Western Australian (WA) PTB Prevention Initiative, the world’s first whole-of-population whole-of-state program aimed at PTB prevention, was implemented across WA in 2014.MethodsWe conducted a prospective population-based cohort study using pregnancy data for singleton births in WA from 2009 to 2019. Logistic regression using the last full year before the Initiative (2013) as the reference, and run charts were used to examine changes in PTB rates compared to pre-Initiative levels, by gestational age group, hospital type, low and high risk of PTB in mid-pregnancy, and onset of labour (spontaneous/medically initiated). Analyses were stratified by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal maternal ethnicity.ResultsAmongst non-Aboriginal women, there was initially a reduction in the PTB rate across the state, and in recent years it returned to pre-Initiative levels. Amongst Aboriginal women there was a small, non- significant reduction in the state-wide PTB rate in the first three years of the Initiative, followed by a rise in recent years. For non-Aboriginal women, the reduction in the rate of PTB at the tertiary centre was sustained and improved further for women of all risk levels and onsets of labour. This reduction was not observed for Aboriginal women giving birth at the tertiary centre, amongst whom there was an increase in the PTB rate overall and in all subgroups, with the exception of medically initiated PTB. Amongst Aboriginal women the PTB rate has also increased across the state. At non-tertiary hospitals there was a large increase in PTB amongst both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women, largely driven by medically initiated late PTB. Maternal risk factors cannot account for this increase.ConclusionsThe reduction in PTB rates amongst non-Aboriginal women at the state’s tertiary hospital demonstrates that with the right strategies, PTB can be reduced. A sustained collaborative model is required to realise this success in non-tertiary hospitals. The series of interventions was of limited use in Aboriginal women, and future efforts will need to be directed at strategies more likely to be successful, such as midwifery continuity of care models, with Aboriginal representation in the healthcare workforce.

Gumnuts in the garden of good and evil: racialization and fetishism in May Gibbs’s Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

ABSTRACT May Gibbs’s gumnut stories are central to the development of an Australian national imaginary. By connecting the natural ‘bush’ environment to settler-colonial social issues and scenes, Gibbs’s imagery and narrative reimagined the bush as a ‘home’ for colonizers, essentially ‘indigenising’ them in the image of white gumnut babies. The most comprehensive and influential interpretations of Gibbs’s work emphasize its currency to contemporaneous life and cultural trends, and its deft negotiation of sexuality, through the figures of the voluptuous gumnut babies and scrawny bad Banksia Men, who are covered with hair and ‘lips.’ A less prevalent but no less convincing interpretation underscores the dimension of race within Gibbs’s work: the whiteness of the stories’ heroes, and the blackness, even Aboriginality, of their nemeses, the wicked Banksia men. Through the concept of the fetish, this article interprets the banksia as an object produced in an intercultural space, and reproducing (in Gibbs’s stories) a set of racial anxieties about the Other in terms of sex and sexuality. How does race come to be parsed as sex? And what does the confluence of these anxieties reveal about settler representations of Aboriginality and the colonial mindset?

Staged Representations of Négritude: Aboriginality and White Supremacy in Jane Harrison’s Stolen

Early performances of indigeneity in Australian theatre reveal an underpinning ideology of white European settler control and emphasise the shared beliefs which validate white dominance over the real and the imagined non-white counterparts. This ideology of power, staged through theatrical performances, reflected and supported the actual discriminatory practices against Aborigines in the different spheres of everyday life in Australia. In the early stages, performances were not mere adaptations of the local conditions, but rather a discourse taking part in the colonisation of Aboriginal Australians. This article studies the impact of the European settler State policies in Australia in Jane Harrison’s Stolen (1998). The paper examines the severe ramifications of colonial practices such as assimilation, discrimination and racism on modern day Aboriginal Australians, particularly the Stolen Generation. Within a theoretical framework that rests on Leopold Sedar Senghor’s and Aime Cesaire’s notion of Negritude, the study analyzes the staged representations of blackness, Aboriginality and white supremacy in the play. The analysis further endeavors to show how the playwright renegotiates past experiences of pain as a means for modern day acceptance of the inevitable hybridity that results from contact between Aborigines and white Australia and the role Aborigine theatre has played within post-colonial discourse. Directed by Wesley Enoch, and written by Jane Harrison, Stolen, remains one of the most significant first Australian drama performances written and directed by Aboriginal Australians.

The Battlefield of Australian History

One question that has permeated throughout history and continues to persist today, attracting much controversy amongst academics seems to be whether or not historians have provided an accurate account of Aboriginal history. This week 2 topic, The Battlefield of Aboriginal History, particularly offers valuable insights as individuals continue to wrangle this question, paving the way for reconciliation by proposing alternate methods of Aboriginal representation that promote authenticity.

The Representation of Aboriginality in the Novels of Peter Temple

The Representation of Aboriginality in the Novels of Peter Temple

The Representation of Aboriginality in the Novels of Peter Temple

Identity politics is fraught with difficulties. Of few places is this truer than in Australia when it comes to the representation of Aboriginality. On the one hand the absence or invisibility of Aboriginality in Australian life and culture maybe interpreted as a deliberate exclusion of a people whose presence is uncomfortable or inconvenient for many Australians of immigrant origin. Equally, the representation of Aboriginality by non-Aboriginals may be seen as an appropriation of identity, an inexcusable commercial exploitation or an act of neocolonialism. Best-selling and prize-winning South African-born author Peter Temple appears to be very much aware of these pitfalls. In his crime novels, written between 1996 and 2009, he has obviously made the decision to grasp the nettle and attempt to represent Aboriginality in a way that would be as acceptable as possible. This paper traces the evolution of Temple's representation of Aboriginality through the three major Aboriginal characters present in his novels: Cameron Delray (Bad Debts, 1996; Black Tide, 1999; Dead Point, 2000; and White Dog, 2003), Ned Lowey (An Iron Rose, 1998) and Detective Sergeant Paul Dove (The Broken Shore, 2005 and Truth, 2009).

Beyond whiteness: a comparative analysis of representations of Aboriginality in tourism destination images in New South Wales, Australia

ABSTRACT Following recent policy statements recognising the need to develop the Aboriginal tourism industry in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, this article examines the extent of Aboriginal peoples’ inclusion in, and contribution to, the destination images for four regional NSW tourism destinations. Taking the destination image for Lake Macquarie, a local government area with the second largest Aboriginal population in NSW, as a starting point, the paper examines how Aboriginal peoples and cultures are positioned in local tourism promotions. Finding that Aboriginal peoples, cultures and heritage are largely absent from the destination image for Lake Macquarie and that the tourist gaze that is encouraged there is one of whiteness, comparisons are then made with other regional tourism destinations in NSW with relatively high rates of Aboriginal tourism, including Brewarrina, the Blue Mountains and Shoalhaven. Aboriginal tourism in these areas appears to provide visitors with multiple ways of seeing and experiencing place. With contemporary as well as heritage linkages, Aboriginal culture is presented as traditional and living, dynamic and innovative. We argue that by incorporating Aboriginal perspectives, destinations can encourage a multiplicity of gazes, disrupting stereotypes and bringing tourism closer to its social development objectives.

“Come be off with you”: White spatial control in the representation of Aboriginality in early Australian drama

Scholars of early Australian drama have over-emphasized the stylistic relationship between Aboriginal characters in early Australian drama and blackface characters in early American drama. Focusing on stylistic connections between early US and Australian theatre potentially overlooks the complex ideological similarities in representations of race on the American and Australian stage. This article provides a close reading of two of Australia’s first plays — David Burn’s “The Bushrangers” and Henry Melville’s “The Bushrangers; or, Norwood Vale” — in order to nuance the critical record exploring the influence of American drama on Australian drama around 1830. Looking beyond formal connections between early US and Australian theatre can reveal an ideology of white spatial control underpinning early representations of Aboriginality and blackness in Australian and American drama.

P01.03 Encouraging aboriginal gay men to test for hiv

Introduction ACON has commenced development of a campaign to encourage Aboriginal gay men and other homosexually active men to test for HIV. The campaign need was identified in response to unique health and community issues presented by Aboriginal gay men. Methods Campaign strategic development involved a series of quantitative research projects, using in-depth interviews and small focus groups with Aboriginal gay and other homosexually active men. Results Initial quantitative research found: identity was complex and varied considerably for individuals, is dependent on context and is layered between sexual and ethnic identities; considerable concerned about the confidentiality of HIV testing services and the cost testing; HIV testing education programs need a sophisticated approach to targeting Aboriginal gay men and not necessarily relying on Aboriginal representation. The final round of quantitative research found that: Confidentiality was seen as the most important theme. Aboriginal gay men were highly concerned about being discrete and anonymous; Cost also emerged a key barrier to testing, with a need to be assured that HIV testing would be cost free; and Aboriginal gay men also rejected the notion that HIV testing education materials should necessarily be tailored. While there was an acknowledgment that there was a place for targeted prevention education materials for Aboriginal people, it was also considered that a HIV testing materials should not single out and therefore potentially alienate the Aboriginal gay men. Conclusion Developing and delivering HIV Testing education materials to Aboriginal Gay men presents complex challenge to HIV educators. A relatively small and highly mobile community, lower health literacy and issues of shame mean HIV Testing education materials need to consider a range of different strategies, including targeting materials specifically to meet the needs identified by Aboriginal gay men. Disclosure of interest statement The ACON is funded by the NSW Ministry of Health. No pharmaceutical grants were received in the development of this study.

Extinction Discourse in <em>Wanting</em> and <em>Doctor Wooreddy’s Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World</em>

This Poem, written by a Poet known only as auster, is a lucid examPle oF way in which Aboriginal population was imagined by some nineteenth-century observers be in a state of irreversible decline. We are fast decaying (Auster 4), Aboriginal narrator tells us, displaced and dispossessed by colonization. connection between Aboriginal and British colonization is made explicit when narrator observes that white men mak'st a home in every and that far and wide number of white heirs increases (4). Crucially, potential for occurs because of arrival of white settlers. it is, for narrator, a simple matter of one replacing another. it should be noted, however, that poem is not condemning this process, as a modern reader might expect. narrator is not pleading for social justice land rights but is pleading merely be allowed where his forefathers died (4). of Aboriginal people seems be a lamentable, but nevertheless unavoidable, outcome of same natural processes that keep white races dominant. What this poem demonstrates most strongly is correspondence discourse of Aboriginal has with both colonizing process in tasmania and representation of Aboriginality in tasmanian literature.Patrick Brantlinger examined origins of discourse in his book Dark Vanishings: Discourse on Extinction of Primitive Races, 1800-1930. He described discourse as a branch of dual ideologies of imperialism and racism that existed wherever and whenever europeans and white Americans encountered indigenous peoples (1). this set of ideas is anchored on one apparently self-evident truth: that savagery would not survive when confronted with european civilization. starting from this basic assumption, genocide and were conceived of as natural processes as unavoidable outcomes of settlement. Brantlinger argues that in colonized countries during nineteenth century work of cultural and national mourning occurs not because aboriginals are already but because they will sooner later become extinct (4).In tasmania in nineteenth century, concept of an Aboriginal found expression in all areas of imaginative production. As early as 1827, a journalist for The Colonial Times noted that if settlers wished spare lives of sable race then they must remove them from island, or it is quite evident, as we have frequently before observed, they will be all exterminated in a few years (For some time 3). By 1866, it was common for sympathetic observers draw a causal link between colonization and impending of Aboriginal tasmanians, as an extract from Magazine of Anthropology demonstrates. [Modern experience, it states, has taught us that native tribes begin disappear almost simultaneously with arrival of settlers, and that in Australia evidence suggests that to colonise and extirpate are synonymous terms (Wilful extinction 4). these ideas gained further credence with deaths of William Lanne and truganini, prominent last man and last woman of Aboriginal tribes, in 1869 and 1876 respectively. idea that their deaths represented a final continues prove seductive in twenty-first century.Brantlinger, in exploring these connections, identifies one interpretive device that is useful for charting out impact of discourse on literature: doomed-race proleptic elegy. As name suggests, proleptic elegy was prominent as a form device in literature even before Aboriginal tasmanians were supposedly lost. Along with Auster's the tasmanian Aborigine's Lament, evidence for this can be seen in poems such as 1834 song of Aborigines by the-presumably white-poet Frances, where Aboriginal speaker mourns that while our flow'rs are brightly smiling, / they but bloom awhile, and die (Melville 324), in Richard Howitt's 1845 Impressions of Australia Felix, when he notes of tasmania that naboth had been killed, and here was his vineyard. …

Years of life lost to incarceration: inequities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians.

BackgroundAboriginal representation in Canadian correctional institutions has increased rapidly over the past decade. We calculated “years of life lost to incarceration” for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians.MethodsIncarceration data from provincial databases were used conjointly with demographic data to estimate rates of incarceration and years of life lost to provincial incarceration in (BC) and federal incarceration, by Aboriginal status. We used the Sullivan method to estimate the years of life lost to incarceration.ResultsAboriginal males can expect to spend approximately 3.6 months in federal prison and within BC spend an average of 3.2 months in custody in the provincial penal system. Aboriginal Canadians on average spend more time in custody than their non-Aboriginal counterparts. The ratio of the Aboriginal incarceration rate to the non-Aboriginal incarceration rate ranged from a low of 4.28 in Newfoundland and Labrador to a high of 25.93 in Saskatchewan. Rates of incarceration at the provincial level were highest among Aboriginals in Manitoba with an estimated rate of 1377.6 individuals in prison per 100,000 population (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1311.8 – 1443.4).ConclusionsThe results indicate substantial differences in life years lost to incarceration for Aboriginal versus non-Aboriginal Canadians. In light of on-going prison expansion in Canada, future research and policy attention should be paid to the public health consequences of incarceration, particularly among Aboriginal Canadians.

Representation and use of aboriginality in a post-federation kindergarten setting

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine an experimental neo-Herbartian and Frobelian curriculumWork in the kindergarten: An Australian programme based on the life and customs of the Australian Blackpublished by Martha Simpson in 1909.Design/methodology/approach– The paper uses both primary and secondary sources to understand the context of production and reception of the settler narratives advocated for use in the curriculum. Simpson's curriculum and other primary literary texts provide case study examples.Findings– The research found that colonial and imperial literary texts provided a departure point for learning activities, enabling the positive construction of white Australian identity and the supplantation of Aboriginal people in a post-federation kindergarten setting.Originality/value– By considering the role of imperial and colonial narratives in post-federation experimental curriculum, this paper offers insight into the role such narratives played in the formation of Australian national identity.

Human Papillomavirus Infection and the Association With Abnormal Pap Findings in Yukon, Canada

Certain types of the human papillomavirus (HPV) are highly associated with cervical cancer or dysplasia, but its prevalence is largely unknown in northern Canada where there is significant aboriginal representation and unique barriers to accessing care. This study determined the prevalence of HPV infection and its association with cervical cancer precursor lesions in Yukon, Canada. This was a cross-sectional study of 1,542 women attending routine Pap smear screening in 14 communities in Yukon, from February 2009 to June 2010. Type-specific HPV infection was detected by an in-house Luminex assay. Cervical Pap cytology was evaluated by pathologists blinded to HPV test results. The overall HPV prevalence rate in Yukon women was higher than those reported in some Canadian provinces and other countries. Human papillomavirus infection prevalence rates were 24.5% for any type, 18.4% for high-risk types, 6.2% for HPV types 16 or 18, 6.7% for HPV α-7 species, and 10.6% for HPV α-9 species. Human papillomavirus infection was strongly associated with single marital status or having 2 or more sexual partners in the past year. Human papillomavirus infection (overall, high-risk types, HPV-16/18, α-7, or α-9 species) was strongly associated with Pap cytological abnormalities (adjusted odds ratios ranged from 8.4 to 44.2). As in other areas of northern Canada, HPV prevalence for high-risk types and α-7 species is high among women in the Yukon. Sexual behavioral factors strongly influence HPV prevalence rates. The findings may have implications for HPV vaccination and health promotion programs in northern regions.

Genocide, Reconciliation, and the Residential Schools: A Survey of Federal, Provincial, and Territorial Attitudes among Elected Officials in Canada

This article contextualizes and presents an online nationwide survey we have conducted at federal, provincial, and territorial levels across Canada. The survey is bilingual and has been supported by the SSHRC and the University of Guelph. Elected officials were approached in confidence to complete a survey concerning their attitudes towards Aboriginal history, changes in the current political system to facilitate increased Aboriginal representation, and the applicability of international law, specifically the UN Genocide Convention, to interpret Aboriginal experiences in the Indian Residential Schools. We argue that the qualitative and quantitative data we have obtained mirrors survey of the Canadian mainstream electorate in significant wars.

Intercultural Dialogue: A Study of Patrick White’s Voss and A Fringe of Leaves

Patrick White's Voss and A Fringe of Leaves deal with the complex pattern of cultural negotiations. His representations of aboriginality have been viewed by many critics as essentialist and unprogressive. But this claim is not entirely tenable. In both of these novels White creatively fractures the essentialist notion of cultural identity. Dialogic interactions between two disparate cultures create interstitial space that profoundly unsettles the authority and authenticity of imperialist culture. The paper attempts to read these novels as complex textual sites where dialogic interchanges between two incompatible cultures have been rendered possible.

The Media Gaze: Representations of Diversities in Canada by Augie Fleras (review)

Reviewed by: The Media Gaze: Representations of Diversities in Canada by Augie Fleras Sherry S. Yu Augie Fleras . The Media Gaze: Representations of Diversities in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011. 300 pp. References. Index. $32.95 sc. Positioned at the junction of two of today's inescapable realities—media saturation and diversity in our society—Augie Fleras' new book, The Media Gaze, explores the representation of diversities and difference in Canadian media. The book challenges the notion of media neutrality—the idea that media are conveyors of objective information—and aims to explore the logic and dynamics of media representation of race, ethnicity, aboriginality, gender, sexuality, class, age, and religion. To the author, such an understanding is important as media are our primary source of information in this media-saturated world we live in, and thereby shape how we understand ourselves and the world around us. Especially, in the absence of "meaningful first-hand contact with diversities and difference" (3), our perspective on the "other" is largely constructed by media messages. The book is organized into 14 chapters within four parts. Part I provides a theoretical framework for the book by deconstructing and defining the concept of the media gaze. Part II explores media as conveyors of socially constructed discourses through various types of media gaze, with case studies of the mis-representational process following in Part III. Finally, as a response to mainstream representation (Parts II and III), Part IV introduces the oppositional gaze from social/online media and populist media, that is, "media by, for, and about those demographics that public and private mainstream media tend to ignore or distort" (7). The author argues that consistent with mainstream institutions in general, the institutional principles and priorities of mainstream media embrace dominant ideologies that define what is "normal, acceptable, or desirable" (3). Mainstream media project mediated social reality through the media gaze, defined as "a media tendency to impose a specific view of the world without announcing its intention or underlying biases" (37). Various media gazes that derive from different ideological dimensions or a combination of these dimensions (corporate, racialized, Eurocentric, gendered or androcentric, classed, ageist, and secular) and media processes (news-casting, advertising, film, etcetera) are identified and analyzed. The author argues that through these media gazes, mainstream media construct "mediacentric" images in which marginalized demographics are continually "underrepresented in areas that count, overrepresented in areas that don't count, and misrepresented on both accounts" (4). Evidence of improvement in representation of racial minorities in news (Chapter 8), women in advertising (Chapter 9) and working-class men in sitcoms (Chapter 10), for example, are not absent. However, such changes are not transformative enough to challenge the status quo (media's foundational principles) [End Page 276] but rather reinforce it. Thus, the underlying messages are consistent with those of the past: marginalized demographics are "troublesome constituents" (viii). The cumulative effect of such biased, mono-cultural, and one-dimensional mediated projections on audiences is a concern: audiences begin to "see like the media" (37). In contrast, the oppositional gaze from social/online and populist media (Part IV) offers the other side of the story. Aboriginal media help the silenced voice of aboriginal people to be heard (Chapter 13). As well, ethnic media, as hybrid spaces of inward/outward and reactive/proactive dynamics, contribute to, rather than harm, Canada's commitment to multiculturalism and social integration of new members of society by facilitating bonding within and binding across communities (Chapter 14). The author concludes that the construction and distribution of mediated images are "fundamental to the exercise of power in society" (262). Therefore, misrepresentation of minorities will continue, and continually support "majority interests at minority expense," unless challenged (ibid.). The author argues for the importance of media literacy skills on the part of the audience as a tool to "see through a seeing like the media" (252). On the part of mainstream media institutions, institutional transformation, specifically, media workers and media structures, is critical. This may help "prevailing media gazes move beyond an 'us versus them' framework" (264) and move toward "living together" with diversities and difference (249). While the politics of representation of marginalized demographics have been...

Out of the Shadows: On Light, Darkness and Race in Australian Photography

Photographs of and by indigenous people in colonial countries have received considerable scholarly attention since the 1980s, but the role of colonisation in shaping the meaning of photography has been widely neglected. This article addresses this lacuna by focusing on metaphors of light, darkness and race, through which photography was made meaningful in colonial Australia. Representations of Aboriginality in photographs and in cartoons addressing photography are analysed to reveal how colonialist assumptions about race, light and darkness inform conceptions of Australian photography as process, brand and movement.

Aboriginal Representation in Canada: Reforming Parliament or Creating a Third Order of Government

In Canada, aboriginals are constantly searching for proper representation, voice and place within in society at large and more specifically, in the parliamentary system. This paper critically examines the creation and maintenance of a place for aboriginals within contemporary Canadian governance, specifically two venues for aboriginal represent in Canada: representation through parliamentary reform or self-government by Aboriginal groups.

Expert opinion on the criteria and indicator process and Aboriginal communities: Are objectives being met?

Developed in the 1990s, the process of criteria and indicators (C&I) has been used to conceptualize, evaluate and implement sustainable forest management (SFM). However, to assess their effectiveness we explore whether their use in management leads to changes, especially at the local level in Aboriginal communities. More specifically, can C&I justify Aboriginal use of C&I? Since local-level C&I are a recent initiative, the effectiveness of the C&I process in assessing progress towards SFM was assessed via interviews with experts associated with the development of local-level Aboriginal C&I frameworks in Canada on use, integration and needs of Aboriginal communities for C&I. Our results suggest that C&I in Aboriginal communities are considered to be “just another reference point” because: 1) Aboriginal objectives are maintained at arm's length from the forest management process; 2) the use of C&I as a negotiating tool has not been sufficient to culturally adapt forest management for Aboriginal values and objectives and 3) Aboriginal values have been restricted to the elaboration of C&I and the Aboriginal definition of SFM, but they are not part of the evaluation nor the implementation of SFM. In contrast to the forest industry, Aboriginal communities identified the following objectives as motivation for using C&I: Aboriginal representation, Aboriginal engagement, capacity building and empowerment. Without explicitly acknowledging these Aboriginal community objectives, C&I becomes a tool restricted primarily to forest managers and thus sustainable forest management becomes unattainable. In effect, the underlying issue is not C&I in themselves but the limited role Aboriginal communities have been allowed to have in the SFM process.

Reclaiming the Wasteland: Samson and Delilah and the Historical Perception and Construction of Indigenous Knowledges in Australian Cinema

Reclaiming the Wasteland: Samson and Delilah and the Historical Perception and Construction of Indigenous Knowledges in Australian Cinema