Islander Perspectives Research Articles

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Subjects in a Graduate Diploma of Midwifery: A pilot study

Background: Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council prescribes midwifery accreditation standards that support students’ development in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and cultural safety to be deemed practice ready. However, the impact of training programmes are not widely explored. Aim: This study aimed to assess the impact of a mandatory 8-week online subject focussed on the development of culturally safe practices among midwifery students. Methods: The Ganngaleh nga Yagaleh cultural safety assessment tool was used to collect online quantitative data from post graduate midwifery students at the commencement and completion of an online subject. Results: Through a purposive sample (n = 10) participant perceptions of culturally safe practices remained relatively unchanged, except for three items of the Ganngaleh nga Yagaleh cultural safety assessment tool. Discussion: Findings demonstrate that when post graduate midwifery students are exposed to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives of Australia’s colonial history it impacts their sense of optimism, personal values and beliefs about the healthcare they will provide to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. However, midwifery students who self-identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people, reported a decline in optimism when imagining a healthcare system free of racism. Conclusion: The subject did not impact on cultural safety scores. This may be due to prior learning of student midwives. Educators should consider building on prior knowledge in post graduate midwifery to ensure the content is contextualised to midwifery.

‘You’ll Never Get Cultural Competence in Science’: An Australian Perspective on Integrating Cultural Competence into Science Teaching Via Cultural Accountability

In the last decade, the Australian higher education sector has championed the inclusion of cultural competence (CC) as a key graduate quality. Diverse disciplinary learning and teaching approaches requiring careful consideration about how best to achieve the end goal of supporting graduates on their individual, life-long pathways to engage with CC. Science can be viewed as an inflexible and immovable discipline. This perception seems particularly prevalent with respect to scientists acknowledging epistemes outside of a western cultural frame. It follows that eliciting curriculum reform with respect to CC broadly, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives more specifically, was perceived to be a significant challenge. Through interviews with eleven non-Indigenous academics across the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney, we uncovered several strategies for including multiple knowledges in science, with academics traversing these new horizons by building on the work of and collaborating with Indigenous Elders and academics to create enriched learning spaces. Alongside these strategies are staff reflections on their CC journey, which indicate that this endeavour entails necessary and vital discomforts that ultimately enable transformation. This process while guided by CC, led to experiences of cultural humility and a conviction in the role of cultural accountability.

Becoming a Young Farmer in the Digital Age—An Island Perspective*

AbstractThis study investigates the career construction paths of young farmers and aims to contribute to the literature on the “young farmer problem.” Of particular relevance is this study's focus on the potential of islands as a new career landscape in the digital age. Young farmers' subjective experiences toward careers were analyzed based on narrative interviews, quantitative surveys and expert interviews from two EU islands: Crete and the Azores. Firstly, the study provides insights on the behavioral and cognitive dimensions of the career construction model by identifying followed career paths. Secondly, we turn our focus to the role of digital communications in career construction and, thirdly, the study examines the geographical dimension of the model. We find that involvement with farming entails complex career patterns that evolve into passion. Whether their involvement follows planned or unplanned paths, protean career attitudes, desire to experiment, and a strong sense of career self‐concept play significant roles in shaping the career narratives. “Experience” and “management” dimensions of online communication drive the construction of careers as a part of a professional identity mechanism. Our results reveal that the “island effect” (maintaining a part‐time farming culture) plays a role in cohesive singular and multiple career self‐concepts.

Kanne Lobal: A conceptual framework relating education and leadership partnerships in the Marshall Islands

Kanne Lobal: A conceptual framework relating education and leadership partnerships in the Marshall Islands

Practicing decolonial political geography: Island perspectives on neocolonialism and the China threat discourse

Island peoples around the world remain entangled in colonial processes. Western and metropolitan powers are increasingly deploying discourse of a ‘China threat’ to justify neocolonial entrenchment in the form of greater Western militarisation and economic dominance. In this paper, we investigate how Western and metropolitan powers use the China threat and warnings of economic, environmental, demographic, and military disaster to maintain and deepen colonial influence in former colonies, with special focus on four island states and territories: Guåhan/Guam in Oceania, Kalaallit Nunaat/Greenland in the Arctic, Okinawa in East Asia, and Jamaica in the Caribbean. We undertake this investigation as a means of practicing decolonial political geography, collaborating as a group of scholars from around the world and drawing upon diverse epistemologies and experiences to inform collaborative research and writing. Due to the complexities we have confronted in our efforts to think outside coloniality, this paper foregrounds our decolonial methodology and process, even as we respect our empirical findings.

A systematic literature review of Native American and Pacific Islanders' perspectives on health data privacy in the United States.

BackgroundPrivacy-related concerns can prevent equitable participation in health research by US Indigenous communities. However, studies focused on these communities' views regarding health data privacy, including systematic reviews, are lacking.MethodsWe conducted a systematic literature review analyzing empirical, US-based studies involving American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander (NHPI) perspectives on health data privacy, which we define as the practice of maintaining the security and confidentiality of an individual’s personal health records and/or biological samples (including data derived from biological specimens, such as personal genetic information), as well as the secure and approved use of those data.ResultsTwenty-one studies involving 3234 AI/AN and NHPI participants were eligible for review. The results of this review suggest that concerns about the privacy of health data are both prevalent and complex in AI/AN and NHPI communities. Many respondents raised concerns about the potential for misuse of their health data, including discrimination or stigma, confidentiality breaches, and undesirable or unknown uses of biological specimens.ConclusionsParticipants cited a variety of individual and community-level concerns about the privacy of their health data, and indicated that these deter their willingness to participate in health research. Future investigations should explore in more depth which health data privacy concerns are most salient to specific AI/AN and NHPI communities, and identify the practices that will make the collection and use of health data more trustworthy and transparent for participants.

Perspectives of my lived experiences for addressing suicides among aboriginal communities in the North Queensland tropics

This article contextualises my perspectives of Indigenous knowledge within a cultural cosmology, used to address the suicide epidemic in an Indigenous Community in the Far North Queensland Tropics of Australia. I use my personal narrative from the philosophical standpoint theory of an Indigenous female with first-hand experience of living under the residues of the Queensland Government Act (1897). Through the lens of a social constructivist worldview and theoretical underpinnings of Indigenist research, I give honour to Indigenous knowledge, cultural values and privilege the voices of local people. As a PhD researcher at James Cook University, I apply to my research, “Healing after experiencing the suicide of a young person—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives informed by Indigenous Knowledges” with three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities. This research also aligns itself to the JCU Strategic Intent, Peoples and Society in the Tropics.

Physical activity interventions to prevent and manage type 2 diabetes among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: a systematic review protocol.

This systematic review aims to synthesize evidence to determine the effect of physical activity on the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Physical activity interventions have been shown to have a positive influence in the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes. A body of evidence for the impact among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is emerging, but a definitive understanding is yet to be realized. The review will include studies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations of any age group and from any setting or region in Australia. Studies will be included if they report on physical activity interventions, programs, or activities to prevent or manage type 2 diabetes. Studies may compare physical activity interventions to usual care, alternate treatments, or no intervention, or may be pre-post studies. This review will consider studies that measure change in physical activity or exercise levels and/or change in HbA1c level. Nine databases will be searched, and studies published in English will be included. No date limits will be set. Methodological quality will be determined using critical appraisal checklists appropriate to the study design and the CREATE Critical Appraisal Tool to appraise research from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. Data extracted will include population group, study design, methods, intervention components, and physical activity-related outcomes. Quantitative data will be pooled where possible to enable a meta-analysis to be conducted. Heterogeneous studies will be synthesized narratively.

Structural Evolution of Extended Continental Crust Deciphered From the Cretaceous Batholith in SE China, a Kinmen Island Perspective

The continental crust of southeast Asia underwent from thickening, thinning to almost rifting during the Mesozoic era as the active continental margin transformed into a passive one. Such crustal thinning history is well-preserved in the Kinmen Island, as the lower crustal granitoids retrograded and rapidly exhumed to surface that were crosscuted by mafic dyke swarm. Kinmen Island is situated on the SE coast of Asia, featured by the widespread Cretaceous magmatism as the Paleo-Pacific plate subducted and rollbacked underneath the South China block. Although these complex magmatism are well reported and studied, their associated structural evolution and plate kinematics have not been clearly deciphered. Detailed field mapping, structural measurement, and petrographic analysis of the Kinmen Island were conducted. Up to five deformation events accompanied with five relevant magmatic episodes as well as their corresponding kinematic setting are reconstructed. The ~129 Ma Chenggong Tonalite (G1) preserved all deformation events identified in this study, which marks the lower bound timing of all reported events. D1 formed a gneiss dome with the Taiwushan Granite (~139 Ma) at the core bounded by moderately-dipping gneissic foliation (S1) as crust extended. D2 formed subhorizontal S-tectonite (S2) with further exhumation of D1 gneiss dome due to middle-to-lower crustal flow associated with further crustal thinning. D3 formed a sinistral ENE-WSW striking steeply S dipping shear belts with well-developed S/C/C’ fabrics. The moderately E-plunging lineation on C surface indicates its transtensional nature. Widespread garnet-bearing leucogranite (G2) associated with decompressional melting showed long lasting intrusion prior to D2 until post D3. D4 was the intrusion of biotite-bearing Tienpu Granite (~100 Ma; G3) that truncated G1, G2, and all fabrics, which was followed by the intrusion of E-W striking, steeply dipping biotite-bearing pegmatite (G4) as the crust further extended. The youngest deformation event (D5) was NE-SW striking subvertical mafic dyke swarm (G5; 90-76 Ma) due to mantle upwelling through significantly thinned crust. By integrating the structural evolution and the previously reported strain pattern, we delineate the slab rollback direction of the Paleo-pacific plate, which changed from northeastward (129~114 Ma) to southeastward (107~76 Ma). This plate kinematic movement switched during 114-107 Ma.

Someone else’s chain, someone else’s road: U.S. military strategy, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and island agency in the Pacific

The islands of the western Pacific have increasingly been portrayed by policymakers, military strategists, journalists, and scholars as places caught between a rising China and traditional powers such as the United States and their allies. In this article, however, we aim to challenge the geopolitical view of islands as ‘falling’ into the sphere of influence of one power or another. Specifically, we use an approach informed by assemblage theory to highlight the ways that islands in the Pacific simultaneously engage with multiple powers and their associated political, economic, and social influences. To ground our argument, we discuss two ‘great power’ schemes that aim to bring islands in the region into specific relational configurations: U.S. ‘littoral defense lines’ and China’s Belt Road Initiative. We also include a brief case study of Chinese tourism investment in Yap Island (Wa‘ab) in the Federated States of Micronesia (which is a state in ‘free association’ with the U.S.). Through these examples, we show how influence in the island Pacific is not a zero-sum game between foreign powers vying for hegemony. Instead, from an island perspective, residents and policymakers are attempting to weave together and navigate multiple foreign influences in ways that frustrate colonial and neocolonial logics of international relations.

Blue Growth and its discontents in the Faroe Islands: an island perspective on Blue (De)Growth, sustainability, and environmental justice

Blue Growth is promoted as an important strategy for future food security, and sustainable harvesting of marine resources. This paper aims to identify dominating ideologies and strategies of Blue Growth in the Faroe Islands, mainly regarding salmon farming and industrial capture fisheries, and to investigate how these ideologies materialize in the social metabolism of Faroese society. The analysis approaches the Faroese Blue Economy from a holistic perspective using analytical concepts and frameworks of social (island) metabolism, environmental justice and degrowth to assess how current Blue Growth strategies pertain to long-term sustainability and human well-being. It offers a critical analysis of aquaculture in the Faroe Islands and shows that although the rhetoric around Blue Growth is framed within mainstreamed sustainability discourse, the ideologies and visions underpinning current Blue Growth strategies result in a continuation of conventional growth through the exploitation of new commodity frontiers. Finally, the negative consequences of Blue Growth are assessed and discussed through a mapping of recent and ongoing social and ecological distribution conflicts in the Faroes.

First Nations First: Reshaping the Australian Performing Arts Market Through Respectful Engagement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Artists and Companies

Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) is the Australia Council for the Arts’ key strategic engagement to develop national and international touring opportunities for Australian contemporary performing arts. Prior to delivery of the Market1 by Brisbane Powerhouse there was criticism from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performing arts sector about the lack of inclusion of Indigenous cultural products and low visibility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and cultural protocols in the delivery of the Market. Over a sequence of three iterations from 2014 to 2018 Brisbane Powerhouse made a deep commitment to the recognition of the unique contribution that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and companies bring to a performing arts market in Australia. The respectful inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists was a palpable step-change. This article investigates how APAM became as a site for cultural resurgence for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and demonstrates the activation of decolonized practices to reshape the Market.

A critical view of female aggression and the implications of gender, culture and a changing society: A Cook Islands perspective

Abstract The form and function of female aggression have been for many years an important social issue that demands investigation. Many studies of female aggression have focused on the perpetration and victimization of girls and young women from western countries. As a result, existing theoretical models and empirical foundations of girls' aggression are based on these defining constructs. The purpose of this article is twofold. The present study of adolescent females in the Cook Islands seeks to understand the role that perpetrators play in the type and the target of aggressive behaviour. It also examines the qualitative findings of girls' aggressive behaviour by boys, girls and their teachers and its gendered relationship inside the Cook Islands environment. The outcomes inspect the cultural context of girls in the Cook Islands that make their understanding and experiences of physical aggression and relational aggression unique and highlight the difficulties of young women positioned themselves between Cook Islands traditional values and asserting their contemporary Cook Islands' identity. The discussion highlights that aggression by girls in the Cook Islands is derived from a particular past and present that can in turn shape understandings of addressing aggression in the future.

Telecommunication and tourism development: an island perspective

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the availability and contribution of destinations’ telecommunication structure and development on tourism development for the case of the small island economy of Mauritius. Design/methodology/approach The research uses annual data from 1992 to 2017 in a dynamic econometric setting, namely, an autoregressive distributed lag model to take into account the time series properties of the data. Findings Analysis of the results showed that telecommunication has contributed positively, albeit to a lesser extent as compared to other classical determinants, to tourist development in both the short and long run. In addition, the relatively high income elasticity also suggests that Mauritius is considered as a luxurious destination. Tourists were found to be sensitive to the relative prices and cost of the destination, tourism infrastructure and the island’s development level. Finally, the study confirms the presence repeat tourism on the island. Practical implications The result clearly provides support to the Government’s strategy to pursue an accelerated investment in telecommunication infrastructure and also to give further incentives to private operators to promote innovation and enhanced connectivity. It is recognised that the positive effect of telecommunication on the tourism industry relies on a national enabling telecommunication environment which is multi facet in nature, relying on to a large extent on infrastructure, access, capacity building and the legal framework among others. Originality/value The study is believed to supplement the literature by analysing the telecommunication–tourism link in a direct way as existing studies have largely discussed the link indirectly. Moreover, it uses a classical international demand for tourism model, augmented with a measure of telecommunication, and uses recent dynamic time series econometric framework to account for the existence of dynamism in tourism modelling. Finally, the research brings additional evidences from an island economy perspective (heavily tourist dependent and geographically remote), often neglected by the related literature which has focused mainly on developed countries.

Contributions to sustainable tourism in small islands: an analysis of the Cittàslow movement

The Cittàslow philosophy aims to preserve the unique characteristics of places, people, products, food and the environment. Inclusive participation is the focus of the movement for small communities that aim to improve residents’ quality of life and share in one of a kind experiences with visitors. Discussion of the Cittàslow movement has been increasing in recent years, and the conceptualization offered in this paper adds to that discourse by showing how the movement, with its unique approach to sustainability and local governance, has the potential to be beneficial to Small Island Developing States (SIDS) by directly and indirectly contributing to sustainable tourism development. Slow Food, Slow Tourism, and sustainability in relation to tourism are discussed to clarify how they all fit into the slow tourism ethos and influence the Cittàslow movement. Interestingly, by examining some of the essentials of the Cittàslow movement, we can ascertain how the quality of life and experience value of tourism complements the Cittàslow approach to sustainable tourism development for SIDS. Sustainability from an island perspective is conceptualized in the context of the Cittàslow model, and the varying elements that are contributors to sustainable tourism development in SIDS are discussed. These include its marketing potential, environmental and agricultural benefits, as well as the definitive socio-economic advances that may come about from implementing such an initiative. Ultimately, our analysis illustrates the SIDS specific impacts that the strategies of the Cittàslow model facilitate, while it also highlights some of the potential barriers to SIDS seamlessly adopting such a concept.

Identifying hearing care access barriers among older Pacific Island people in New Zealand: a qualitative study

ObjectivesHearing loss is one of the most prevalent conditions affecting older people. In addition, there is little known about the factors influencing the uptake of hearing services among underserved communities....

Mountains‐to‐the‐sea conservation: An island perspective

Abstract Island nations such as New Zealand provide valuable insights into conservation challenges posed by strongly connected and recently developed or exploited freshwater and marine ecosystems. The narrow land mass, high rainfall, and steep terrain of New Zealand, like many other island nations, mean that land‐based stressors are rapidly transferred to freshwater habitats and propagated downstream to coastal environments via short, fast‐flowing river systems. Freshwater and marine environments are linked through faunal life histories; for example, diadromous fishes, many of which are considered threatened or at risk of extinction, and require cross‐ecosystem conservation to ensure survival of critical life stages and persistence of source populations. Recent invasions of marine and freshwater environments by non‐indigenous species reveal rapid impacts on a naïve biota and highlight conservation conundrums caused by management aimed at enhancing native biodiversity by improving habitat connectivity. Understanding and managing interconnected freshwater and marine ecosystems is a key concept for local indigenous communities, and highlights socio‐cultural connectivity and sustainable local harvesting of traditional resources as key elements of contemporary marine and freshwater conservation planning in New Zealand.

Climate Change Migration and Displacement: Learning from Past Relocations in the Pacific

It has been projected that the single greatest impact of environmental changes will be on human migration and displacement. Migration has been extensively discussed and documented as an adaptation strategy in response to environmental changes, and more recently, to climate change. However, forced relocation will lead to the displacement of people, and although much has been written about it, very little has been documented from the Pacific Islands perspective, especially by communities that were forced to relocate as a result of colonialism and those that have been forced to migrate today as a result of climate change impacts. Using the Gilbertese resettlement from the Phoenix Islands to the Solomon Islands, in particular, Wagina Island in the 1960s as a case study of forced relocation and displacement of Pacific Islands people during the colonial period, this paper aims to underline some of the important lessons that can be learned from this historical case to inform the present and future challenges of climate change migration and displacement. Without dismissing migration as a coping strategy, the paper argues that the forced relocation of people from their home islands as a result of climate change will lead to displacement. It accentuates that in the case of Pacific Islands, forced relocation will lead to displacement if they are forced to leave their land because of their deep relationship and attachment to it. The paper also emphasizes the need to acknowledge and honor Pacific Islands’ voices and perceptions in discourses on climate change migration and displacement at national, regional and international forums.

Conceptualizing the Association Between Community Participation and CQI in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander PHC Services.

Drawing from Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, we conceptualize the association between community participation and continuous quality improvement (CQI) processes in Indigenous primary health care (PHC) services. Indigenous experiences of community participation were drawn from our study identifying contextual factors affecting CQI processes in high-improving PHC services. Using case study design, we collected quantitative and qualitative data at the micro-, meso-, and macro-health system level in 2014 and 2015 in six services in northern Australia. Analyzing qualitative data, we found community participation was an important contextual factor in five of the six services. Embedded in cultural foundations, cultural rules, and expectations, community participation involved interacting elements of trusting relationships in metaphorically safe spaces, and reciprocated learning about each other's perspectives. Foregrounding Indigenous perspectives on community participation might assist more effective participatory processes in Indigenous PHC including in CQI processes.

British and Irish Butterflies. An Island Perspective, by Roger L. H. Dennis & Peter B. Hardy

British and Irish Butterflies. An Island Perspective, by Roger L. H. Dennis & Peter B. Hardy