Aboriginal Women In Australia Research Articles

Views and experiences of long-acting reversible contraception among ethnic minorities in high-income countries: a systematic review of qualitative studies

BackgroundEthnic minorities in high-income countries have higher rates of unintended pregnancies but are less likely to use highly efficacious long-acting reversible contraception (LARC). The reasons for this are unclear.AimTo understand...

Factors associated with breastfeeding initiation and maintenance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in Australia: A systematic review and narrative analysis.

BackgroundAustralian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (hereafter referred to as Aboriginal) women breastfeed at lower rates than non-Aboriginal women. Little is known about factors associated with breastfeeding specific to Aboriginal women and infants. AimDetermine the protective and risk factors associated with breastfeeding for Aboriginal women in Australia. MethodsCINAHL, Medline, EMBASE, SCOPUS, PsycINFO, and the Cochrane library were searched for peer-reviewed literature published between 1995 and 2021. Quantitative studies written in English reporting protective and risk factors associated with breastfeeding for Aboriginal women or women having an Aboriginal infant were included. Ten percent of papers were co-screened, and two reviewers completed data extraction. Narrative data synthesis was used. FindingsThe initial search identified 12,091 records, with 31 full text studies retrieved, and 17 reports from 14 studies met inclusion criteria. Protective factors included living in a remote area, attending an Aboriginal-specific service, attending a regional service, higher levels of education attainment, increased maternal age, living in larger households, being partnered, and having a higher reported number of stressful events and social health issues. The identified risk factors were smoking in pregnancy, admission to SCN or NICU, and being multiparous. ConclusionThis review identified factors associated with breastfeeding for Aboriginal women. Government focus, support, and consistent funding are required to plan and implement evidence-based interventions and services for Aboriginal women and infants in urban, rural, remote, and very remote locations. Rigorous research is required to understand the Aboriginal-specific factors associated with breastfeeding to improve rates and health outcomes for Aboriginal women and infants.

IDF21-0485 Hyperglycaemia in pregnancy is associated with cardiovascular and renal risk among Aboriginal women in Australia

Background: Around the world, First Nations peoples in countries with similar histories of colonisation experience substantial health and socioeconomic disparities. Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia have a high burden of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Rates of hyperglycaemia in pregnancy, including both gestational diabetes (GDM) and pre-existing diabetes, are increasing. Internationally, GDM has been associated with future CVD, but the relationship with CKD is less clear. Pregnancy may be a valuable opportunity to evaluate and manage future cardiometabolic risk given routine diabetes screening and near universal healthcare engagement. Aim: To investigate CVD and CKD risk among Aboriginal women with GDM and pre-existing diabetes compared to those without known diabetes during pregnancy. Method: A retrospective, longitudinal cohort study was performed among Aboriginal women who gave birth from 2000 to 2016, using linked data from the NT Perinatal Data Collection and NT Hospital Inpatient Activity dataset (2000–2018). Pre-specified outcomes included hospital admissions for a composite CVD endpoint (ischaemic heart disease, stroke or peripheral vascular disease), heart failure, CKD (any stage) and end stage kidney disease (ESKD). Time-to-event analyses were undertaken using Cox proportional hazards regression (Table). Results: The cohort included 10,931 Aboriginal women. At the index pregnancy, mean age was 23.1 (SD 6.2) years, 755 (6.9%) had GDM and 241 (2.2%) had pre-existing diabetes. Median follow-up was 12.1 (IQR 7.2–15.8) years. Compared to those without diabetes, women with GDM or pre-existing diabetes had increased risk for CVD, heart failure, CKD and ESKD.Tabled 1OutcomeEvent rates, n(%)HR (95% CI)* vs. no known diabetes during pregnancyNo known diabetesGDMPre-existing diabetesGDMPre-existing diabetesCVD242 (2.4)49 (6.5)34 (14)2.7 (1.9-3.8)3.4 (2.1-5.3)Heart failure174 (1.8)25 (3.3)19 (7.9)2.7 (1.6-4.4)5.3 (2.9-9.6)CKD250 (2.5)74 (9.8)89 (37)5.1 (3.8-6.8)14 (9.6-19)ESKD50 (0.5)21 (2.8)29 (12)10 (5.5-20)34 (17-68) Open table in a new tab *Adjusted for age, hypertensive disorder, parity, remoteness and smoking during index pregnancy. Discussion: In this relatively young cohort of Aboriginal women in Australia, GDM and pre-existing diabetes in pregnancy were strongly associated with development of cardiovascular and kidney disease. Culturally appropriate post-partum strategies to reduce cardiometabolic risk should be investigated along with public health strategies that address the social determinants of health.

Perspectives about smoking cessation during pregnancy and beyond of Aboriginal women in Australia: A qualitative analysis using the COM-B model.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women (hereafter Aboriginal) and their babies experience poor health outcomes for which smoking is a major risk factor. This paper explores Aboriginal women's perspectives on and experiences of smoking cessation, within and outside pregnancy, and their use of smoking cessation services using the COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation as determinants of Behaviour) model to understand Aboriginal women's capabilities, opportunities, and motivation for smoking cessation. Data came from 11 focus groups conducted in regional New South Wales, Australia, with 80 women aged between 16 and 68years. Thematic analysis was performed following the COM-B model. Seven themes related to capability, opportunity, motivation, and smoking cessation behaviors were identified. The themes highlighted that agency, knowledge, and self-efficacy (as capability), a supportive social environment, and access to culturally appropriate services and resources (as opportunities), together with automatic and reflective motivations for quitting, may enable short- or long-term smoking cessation. Smoking cessation interventions may be more effective if the dynamics of the COM-B factors are considered. Policy and practice changes for further enhancing regional Aboriginal women's psychological capability and supportive social environments, and making smoking cessation services culturally appropriate are warranted.

Improving antenatal engagement for Aboriginal women in Australia: A scoping review

BackgroundAboriginal women have an increased risk of poor antenatal engagement in pregnancy in comparison with Caucasian women, due to inequalities in health care provision. The Pregnancy Outcome in South Australia reports Aboriginal women having 10 times the risk of non-attendance of antenatal care throughout their pregnancy, 3 times the risk of attending the initial booking appointment later than recommended in their pregnancy, and Aboriginal women have an increased risk of attending significantly less antenatal appointments than Caucasian women. ObjectiveThe primary purpose of the scoping review is to map the body of literature known about Aboriginal women engaging with antenatal care in Australia, and the factors that facilitate or cause barriers to this engagement. Secondary to this, the review will describe how culturally safe care influences antenatal engagement. MethodsScoping reviews utilise a broad range of literature, encompassing all types of studies. An online search of 6 databases was conducted to identify and critically analyse sources discussing antenatal engagement for Aboriginal women in Australia. Using the JBI framework for Scoping Reviews, the researcher was able to strengthen the rigour of the methodology. FindingsThe search produced 9 articles, relating to 6 studies addressing antenatal engagement for Aboriginal women in Australia. Several themes were prevalent in the research that impact antenatal engagement including: Smoking, Relocation, Continuity of Care, Aboriginal maternity infant care workers, home visits, birthing on country, age, family and culturally safe care. ConclusionAboriginal women have identified continuity of care, Aboriginal workforce, home visits, family involvement, birthing on country and cultural safety as factors that improve antenatal engagement. Aboriginal women have reported smoking, rural and remote location, cultural incompetence and young age as factors that deter them from engaging with antenatal care.In order to improve antenatal engagement for Aboriginal women in South Australia, culturally safe care is essential. In order to determine the factors that facilitate and/or deter Aboriginal women from antenatal engagement, further research is required.

Radical Actions: Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Women’s Temperance Activism in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Australia

In the 1980s, Indigenous Aboriginal women in Australia began to agitate against liquor outlets perceived as affecting the remote communities in which they lived, and mobilized in a series of fluid grassroots public demonstrations against alcohol availability. The women supported dry zones, local prohibition, and abstinence and were opposed to reforms designed to improve drinking places and promote “social” drinking. In these and many other ways, Aboriginal women’s activism and ideology resembled that of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in Australia decades earlier, despite there being no direct influence from the WCTU. This article explores the commonalities in the tactics and strategies deployed by these “old” and “new” temperance movements and argues that for Aboriginal women, their dissent necessitated a complex negotiation around the social and cultural norms of their society.

Stories and Words, Advocacy and Social Justice: Finding Voice for Aboriginal Women in Australia

. A framework of self-determination means not speaking on behalf of people – even as an advocate – but to create the environment and conditions for those who have been silenced to speak for themselves. This article reflects on the role of storytelling for justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families. I closely consider three stories of child removal, as told by their impacted families, and in their localised context. This article counterposes the stories that are told about them through care and protection law and related policy, and draws out the long precedent of these stories. Through the stories of impacted families, told in their own voices, it becomes clearer that the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families is a key pillar of a concerted and complex colonial project. This has implications for how people working in law come to see the power of storytelling within and outside legal institutions, and how they can do those stories justice by making space for them to be heard on their own terms.

Stress beyond coping? A Rasch analysis of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14) in an Aboriginal population.

The history of colonization contributed to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders becoming one of the most disadvantaged groups in Australia. The multiple social inequalities, and therefore the constant insecurities for many about low income, poor living conditions, unemployment, and discrimination, generate chronic stress in this population. In the Baby Teeth Talk Study, an oral-health randomized controlled trial, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14) was administered to 367 pregnant Aboriginal women at baseline. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the PSS-14 in an Aboriginal population. The study analysed: (a) model fit; (b) dimensionality; (c) local dependence; (d) differential item functioning; (e) threshold ordering and item fit; (f) targeting; (g) reliability; and (h) criterion validity. The dimensionality analysis indicated a two-factor structure, with negatively and positively worded items clustering together and 21.7% (95% Agresti-Coull C.I. [17.8%, 26.2%]) statistically significant t-tests between the persons’ estimates. After the creation of composite items, the revised Perceived Distress (χ2 (21) = 11.74, p = 0.946) and Perceived Coping (χ2 (28) = 17.63, p = 0.935) subscales fitted the Rasch model. Reliability was modest (PersonSeparationIndexdistress = 0.72; PersonSeparationIndexcoping = 0.76). The latent correlation between the Perceived Distress and Perceived Coping subscales was r = 0.14. It is hypothesized that the social inequalities experienced by the Aboriginal population are so pronounced that even Aboriginal pregnant women that perceived themselves as coping well with life challenges ended up endorsing items regarding high levels of stress. The present research showed that a revised PSS-14 is a culturally valid and modestly reliable psychological instrument to measure stress in a population of pregnant Aboriginal women in Australia.

Grandmother’s Country: history, art and survival

The focal point of the Mystic Conversations series, Grandmother’s Country is more than an
 interpretation of spiritual identity; it is also a testament to the strength and power of Aboriginal women in Australia.

Perinatal depression and screening among Aboriginal Australians in the Kimberley

Problem: Adhoc culturally questionable perinatal mental-health screening among Aboriginal women in the Kimberley. Background: Mental-health issues, substance abuse and suicide attempts are high among young Aboriginal women in Australia. There is no evidence that the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) is effective or culturally safe. Screening practices are complicated by limited understanding of the complex cultural interface between Western and Aboriginal beliefs and notions about health and mental-health. Question: What is the current context of perinatal mental-health screening practices among Aboriginal women in the Kimberley and what might be considered a culturally safe approach? Methods: A review of the literature and exploration of current screening practices preceded community participatory action research (CPAR) of perinatal mental-health screening. Results: More than 100 Kimberley women and 72 health practitioners contributed to this joint strategic body of work. Recommendations for practice include one single culturally appropriate Kimberley version of the EPDS.

The logics of planned birthplace for remote Australian Aboriginal women in the northern territory: A discourse and content analysis of clinical practice manuals

Objectivethe aim of this research is to review the content, and describe the structural and contextual discourse around planned birthplace in six clinical practice manuals used to care for pregnant Aboriginal women in Australia׳s remote Northern Territory. The purpose is to better understand where, how and why planned birthplaces for Aboriginal women have changed over time. Methodscontent and discourse analysis was applied to the written texts pertaining to maternal health care and the results placed within a theoretical framework of Daviss׳s Logic. Findingsthe manuals demonstrate the use of predominantly scientific and clinical logic to sanction birthplace. Planned birthplace choices have declined over time, with hospital now represented as the only place to give birth. This is in opposition to Aboriginal women׳s longstanding requests and is not supported by robust scientific evidence. Conclusionsdespite scientific and clinical logics dominating the sanctioning of birthplace for Aboriginal women, conjecture is apparent between assumed logics and evidence. There needs to be further critical reflection on why Aboriginal women do not have planned birthplace choices, and these reasons, once identified, debated and addressed both in research agendas and policy re-development.

Making, Shaping, and Resisting Nations in the Twentieth Century: Women in Australia, Occupied Japan, and Postwar United States and Canada

Making, Shaping, and Resisting Nations in the Twentieth Century: Women in Australia, Occupied Japan, and Postwar United States and Canada Jean Quataert and Leigh Ann Wheeler This issue features a remarkable trio of paired articles. All investigate the ways that women have made, shaped, and resisted the nations within which they reside, but each pair also opens a separate conversation of its own. The first two articles consider the political rights of white Australian, and the survival strategies of disfranchised aboriginal, women. The second duo examines the role of gender in U.S. occupation strategies. The third considers how maternalism expanded and delimited women’s political power in postwar United States and Canada. We are excited to present you with this distinctive publication in which thematically and geographically focused conversations play out within the context of the broader theme of women and nationhood. As usual, we conclude with a number of review essays that bring recently published books into productive and dynamic conversation. We open with Clare Wright’s fascinating reinterpretation of one nation’s founding, “‘A Splendid Object Lesson’: A Transnational Perspective on the Birth of the Australian Nation.” Historians have attributed the rise of an independent and democratic Australian state to its men’s military accomplishments during World War I, especially the legendary heroism exhibited at Gallipoli. Wright, however, shows that the fledgling nation earned global respect as early as 1902 for providing white women political rights equal to white men. Wright thus challenges “the centrality of militarism in historical and popular accounts of nationhood,” moving gender equality to the heart of Australia’s founding story by demonstrating how reformers and leaders of western democracies—most notably in the United States and the United Kingdom—looked to Australia as a model of democratic governance and gender equality. Wright acknowledges that white women’s political empowerment in Australia accompanied the disfranchisement of aborigines in what proved for white women “a timely alignment between the ideals of international feminism and the historical coincidence of federalism.” This fascinating story, then, counters “the androcentric underpinnings of Gallipoli’s enduring ‘birth of a nation’ mystique.” That mystique effectively drowned out collective memories about the nation’s founding achievements in legal equality. Indeed, Wright shows clearly that long before the First World War offered men opportunities to show off their military might, white Australians reveled in their global status as pioneers in the quest for more egalitarian political processes. [End Page 7] If Wright recounts the history of Australian nation-building from elite white women’s perspective, Kathryn Hunter aims to rewrite Australian history from the vantage point of indigenous women near the bottom. In “Aboriginal Women in Australia’s Travelling Shows, 1930s–1950s: Shadows and Suggestions,” Hunter explores the murky and poorly documented world of women who performed in “sideshows,” “tent shows,” and other ephemeral entertainment venues. The performances staged multiracial groups, including many aboriginal women who were presented as “Polynesian” or “South Seas” women—primitive but glamorously exotic Pacific Islanders rather than local, colonized aborigines. Hunter demonstrates that the nomadic lifestyle required of these performers placed them beyond the bounds of respectability drawn by white Australians who “celebrated settlement as the core of modern nation-building.” But aboriginal women who performed in travelling shows were, according to Hunter, actually pursuing a modern lifestyle in one of the few independent occupations open to them. Indeed, as the modern Australian state increasingly invaded the lives of indigenous peoples—by confiscating their wages and their children, for example—travelling performers escaped much of the state surveillance that kept others dependent and impoverished. Thus Hunter argues that indigenous performers were not simply objects of a modernity imposed on them by the Australian state; they were, rather, agents who participated in “making themselves modern” by claiming independence from that very state. The next two articles examine the central role of gender in nation-building—or, to be more precise, nation rebuilding—and they add foreign policy to the mix in their explorations of women in U.S.-occupied Japan. Meghan Warner Mettler’s piece, “Modern Butterfly: American Perceptions of Japanese Women and their Role in International Relations, 1945–1960,” uses American newspaper articles, novels, and movies...

Aboriginal Women in Australia’s Traveling Shows, 1930s–1950s: Shadows and Suggestions

Only a small amount of evidence survives about the performances of Aboriginal women in “leg shows,” or strip-tease shows, in the first half of the twentieth century. These women are doubly invisible in the historical record because of their indigeneity and as performers in traveling (and hence transitory and ephemeral) sideshows. The performances of Aboriginal women, however, add to current debates and interrogations of the connections between mobility and modernity for Indigenous women. This article argues that Aboriginal women’s performances in leg shows, while complicated by disguise and theatricality, as well as by a colonial history of sexual exploitation, must be considered as engagements with modernity.

‘Jumping around’: exploring young women's behaviour and knowledge in relation to sexual health in a remote Aboriginal Australian community

Sexual health indicators for young remote-living Aboriginal women are the worst of all of Australian women. This study aimed to describe and explore young women's behaviour and knowledge in relation to sexual health, as well as to provide health professionals with cross-cultural insights to assist with health practice. A descriptive ethnographic study was conducted, which included: extended ethnographic field work in one remote community over a six-year period; community observation and participation; field notes; semi-structured interviews; group reproductive ethno-physiology drawing and language sessions; focus-group sessions; training and employment of Aboriginal research assistants; and consultation and advice from a local reference group and a Cultural Mentor. Findings reveal that young women in this remote community have a very poor biomedical understanding of sexually transmitted infections and contraception. This is further compounded by not speaking English as a first language, low literacy levels and different beliefs in relation to body functions. In their sexual relationships, young women often report experiences involving multiple casual partners, marijuana use and violence. Together, the findings contribute to a better understanding of the factors underlying sexual health inequity among young Aboriginal women in Australia.

Student’s Corner

Internationally Australia is considered one of the safest countries in the world for women to birth in. However, Aboriginal women in Australia have a much higher incidence of perinatal mortality and morbidity. One strategy to address this higher mortality and morbidity is to increase the numbers of Indigenous people working in healthcare. This paper discusses cultural competence in healthcare programs and higher education, including a reflection on midwifery education from the perspective of an Indigenous undergraduate midwife.

Postpartum care for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus across urban, rural and remote locations: a protocol for a cohort linkage study.

BackgroundGestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is increasing, along with obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2DM), with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Aboriginala) women in Australia particularly affected. GDM causes serious complications in pregnancy, birth, and the longer term, for women and their infants. Women with GDM have an eightfold risk of developing T2DM after pregnancy, compared to women without GDM. Indigenous women have an even higher risk, at a younger age, and progress more quickly from GDM to T2DM, compared to non-Indigenous women. If left undetected and untreated, T2DM increases risks in subsequent pregnancies, and can lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, limb amputations and blindness for the woman in the longer term. A GDM diagnosis offers a ‘window of opportunity’ to provide acceptable and effective prevention, treatment, and postpartum care. Low rates of postpartum T2DM screening are reported among non-Aboriginal women in Australia and Indigenous women in other countries, however, data for Aboriginal women in Australia are scarce. A healthy diet, exercise and breastfeeding can delay the onset of T2DM, and together with T2DM screening are recommended elements of postpartum care for women with GDM. This paper describes methods for a study evaluating postpartum care among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women with GDM.Methods/DesignThis retrospective cohort includes all women who gave birth at Cairns Hospital in far north Queensland, Australia, from 2004 to 2010, coded as having GDM in the Cairns Hospital Clinical Coding system. Data is being linked with the Midwives Perinatal Data Collection, and the three local laboratories. Hospital medical records are being reviewed to validate accuracy of GDM case ascertainment, and gather information on breastfeeding and provision of dietary advice. Survival analysis is being used to estimate time to screening, and rates of progression from GDM to T2DM. Logistic regression is being used to compare postpartum care between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women, and assess factors that may be associated with provision of postpartum care.DiscussionThere are challenges to collecting postpartum data for women with GDM, however, this research is urgently needed to ensure adequate postpartum care is provided for women with GDM.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-576) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Documenting First Wave Feminisms, vol. I: Transnational Collaborations and Crosscurrents ed. by Maureen Moynagh and Nancy Forestell

Reviewed by: Documenting First Wave Feminisms, vol. I: Transnational Collaborations and Crosscurrents ed. by Maureen Moynagh and Nancy Forestell Bonnie S. Anderson Moynagh, Maureen and Nancy Forestell (eds.) – Documenting First Wave Feminisms, vol. I: Transnational Collaborations and Crosscurrents. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012. Pp. 405. This impressive anthology is a welcome and needed addition to the field of feminist studies. Focusing chiefly on the period between 1880 and 1940, it provides a number of documents from the global south and East Asia which are often underrepresented in such collections. Aimed primarily at professional historians and their students, the editors “seek to make more readily available some of the documents of first wave feminism that make especially evident its international linkages and its engagement with categories of social location other than gender that were and continue to be so central to women’s organizing and feminist theorizing” (p. xxi). These categories include race, colonial status, and class. The editors use examples of both Western women and non-Western men to good effect to illumine the lives of indigenous women when primary testimony is unavailable. The English missionary Edith Emily Jones, writing on aboriginal women in Australia (pp. 97–101), provides a useful insight into otherwise understudied lives. Female communists like Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai illustrate the views of the Second International. This collection contributes to global studies as well as feminism and internationalism. The general introduction to both volumes (the second will be on Canada: National and Transnational Contexts) argues rather defensively for using the somewhat discredited concept of the “first wave” and, more successfully, for using the word “feminism” before the protagonists employed it. The volume′s introduction stresses the “imperial legacy” and “the other kinds of geopolitical and ideological tensions that either marked or thwarted transnational collaborations” (p. 3). To that end, the editors have organized the material into eight sections, or as they call them, “thematic rubrics.” These are (1) Slavery, Abolition, and Women’s Rights, (2) Imperial Feminisms, (3) Suffrage, (4) Nationalism/Internationalism, (5) Citizenship, (6) Moral Reform, Sexuality, and Birth Control, (7) Work, and (8) Peace. The units on Nationalism/Internationalism, Citizenship, and Peace succeed best. The first of these draws extensively on documents from the Latin American, Asian, and Pacific women’s organizations which developed between the world wars. It ends with Virginia Woolf’s segment on the “Society of Outsiders” from Three Guineas. Citizenship begins with the African-American Frances Ellen W. Harper, segues gracefully to a petition from the “Native and Coloured Women of the Orange Free State,” and goes on to include writings from Hawaii, Native America, Ghana, India, and Egypt. It also surveys key international debates and efforts to allow women to keep their original citizenship after marriage, to retain their own names, and to establish gender equality in numerous venues. Peace includes a number of documents from the Middle East, as well as a lengthy statement by Jane Addams from the 1915 Hague Conference. It ends, poignantly, with a resolution from the All-India Women’s Conference in the fatal year of 1939: “We appeal to the women of the world to unite on the platform of non-violence and actively demonstrate that by this power alone can the forces of hatred and the desire for possession be brought under control and a real and lasting peace established” (p. 304). [End Page 248] Each section is preceded by an introduction of the material as a whole; each selection has a paragraph on the author(s), when information is available. I found other sections less helpful, primarily because of some problematic document choices. In too many instances, these did not focus on feminism or transnationalism and showed an unfortunate lack of familiarity with U.S. sources and debates. Section I, on Slavery, Abolition, and Women’s Rights, for instance, has a seven-page segment from the English reformer Harriet Martineau on “Negro Slavery” which contains nothing about women at all. The same problem applies to the selections from Mary Ann Shadd Carey and Sarah Parker Remond. Unfortunately, the editors take Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage’s History of Woman Suffrage as a neutral source...

Tracing the Autobiographical, and: Auto/biography in Canada: Critical Directions (review)

Reviewed by: Tracing the Autobiographical, and: Auto/biography in Canada: Critical Directions Eva C. Karpinski (bio) Marlene Kadar, Linda Warley, Jeanne Perreault, and Susanna Egan, editors. Tracing the Autobiographical Wilfrid Laurier University Press. 276. $32.95 Julie Rak, editor. Auto/biography in Canada: Critical Directions Wilfrid Laurier University Press. 264. $32.95 These two collections of essays have appeared as part of the Life Writing Series published under the editorial guidance of Marlene Kadar. Since 1995 the series has established itself as a major forum for showcasing primary sources and theoretical work in the field of autobiography studies in Canada. Taken together, the two recent volumes of life-writing criticism herald exciting new developments in the field and set up high standards of scholarship. International in scope, Tracing the Autobiographical unsettles the generic boundaries of auto/biography (the slash consistent with a programmatic effort to blur the lines) and offers a variety of innovative reading strategies and interdisciplinary approaches. As Kadar and Jeanne Perreault explain in their introduction, the authors of the essays seek the traces of self-representation in unexpected autobiographical sites, 'unlikely' documents and places, from which they try to extract textualized identities and histories of individuals or groups. All pieces are solidly grounded in feminist theories of subjectivity and the body and 'poststructuralist and postcolonial theories of identity and agency, language and self-representation.' Emphasizing relationality, the twelve essays in Tracing the Autobiographical can be organized around the overriding thematic motif of material and metaphorical location, which functions, among other things, as a geographical and generic locus of production of autobiographical discourses; as a medium; as a cultural context; or as a complex intersection of gender, race, class, ethnicity, age, and other markers of difference in constructions of subjectivity. In the first three papers focused on new digital and electronic media, Helen M. Buss explores the development of agency in a teenage girl's memoir of sexual abuse by an Internet predator; Linda Warley reads personal websites as a form of life writing; and Gabriele Helms examines the relationship between television reality shows and our cultural values. The next three authors go to theatrical, domestic, and geographical spaces respectively, with Sherrill Grace looking at what happens to the auto/biographical pact when it takes place on stage; Kathy Mezei studying the effects of 'home' in the representations of life and identity in such media as biography, photographic art, and memoir; and Susanna Egan tracing Daphne Marlatt's autobiographical poetics of exile in the long poem about Steveston, both a place and a community. The third group of essays examines life-writing texts such as legal documents, life stories, memos, investigative reports, and generational memoirs that collectively interrogate the nation state as a site of legal oppression of Aboriginal peoples (Cheryl Suzack), a propaganda machine (Jeanne Perreault), and an agent of institutionalized sexism (Bina Toledo Freiwald). The last three pieces attend to trauma and memory. Thus Christine Crowe examines inscriptions of maimed and tortured bodies in 'The Stolen Generations,' narratives by Aboriginal women in Australia. Adrienne [End Page 324] Kertzer uses the concept of postmemory to problematize second-generation responses to the Holocaust, articulated through such sites as a gallery exhibit, adult memoirs, and children's literature. Finally, Marlene Kadar retrieves for historical memory the experience of the Devouring, a Romany term for the Holocaust, from traces and fragments such as a Nazi deportation list, archival reports, photographs, and song laments that must stand in for life stories of non-literate communities. Reading these contributions is not only an intellectual feast, but also an ethical encounter with lives lived by people who have left only fragments or traces of themselves. The concern with ethics is present throughout in this volume, as an ethical call to respond to lost or marginalized subjects of history (an ethics of memory), and as a self-reflexive questioning of both what we read and how we read (an ethics of reading). For the authors, writing about the auto/biographical takes on a dimension of an act of witnessing. Resonating with the themes of 'ethics, exile, tyranny, and hope,' several of the essays present a testimony of pain and erasure that leaves the reader...

Feminists and the Welfare State: Aboriginal Health Care Workers and U.S. Community Workers of Color

This article centers on the standpoint of Aboriginal women in Australia and African American and Puerto Rican women employed by the welfare state to help explicate features of feminist social democratic praxis. By exploring the intersection of race, class culture, and gender in women's state-sponsored community work in different political contexts, we also demonstrate the interrelationship between social and political citizenship. We view the state as a resource for movement mobilization through its incorporation of movement participants in community-based and community-controlled programs and organizations. We simultaneously highlight the contradictions of the state's support of women of color and working-class women's community work and the limits of women's movements that fail to incorporate a multiracial, multicultural feminist political praxis. We conclude that African American, Puerto Rican, and Aboriginal community workers, along with others who are committed to participatory democracy, community caretaking, and a collective and intersectional approach to citizenship, have much to contribute to the development of a transnational feminist multicultural, multiracial social democratic praxis.

Some Aspects of the Position of Aboriginal Women in Australian Society

This paper includes a short history of Aboriginal women in Australia from about the turn of the century. This has been made possible by the writings of such women. Most non-Aboriginal women have been and are ignorant of this history. They need to understand this past in order to come to terms with it. Aboriginal women are also not aware of how misinformed non-Aboriginal women are of the role of Aboriginal women in their own society. An extensive dialogue is needed to develop the mutual understanding necessary for the construction of a peaceful and just post-colonial Australia.