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Chelsea Bond is an Aboriginal and South Sea
Island Australian who identifies as a descendant of the Munanjahli
people of Beaudesert. Born and raised in Brisbane, Chelsea has
etched out a career in Indigenous health working as an Aboriginal
Health Worker, Health Worker Educator, Lecturer and Senior
Researcher in both the government and university sectors in urban
and rural communities across south-east Queensland. Chelsea is
currently a PhD student at the University of Queensland’s
Centre for Indigenous Health. She has recently submitted her
thesis, which challenges the narratives of Aboriginality produced
through public health practices by exploring and promoting identity
narratives within an urban Aboriginal community.
Abstract
While there is a clear investment within public health upon race,
ethnicity and culture in identifying and explaining health
inequalities experienced by those populations who are racially,
ethnically and culturally othered, there remains scarce attention
given to the meaning of such identities by those who proclaim them.
Epidemiological and health behaviourist applications of identity
often produce portraits of Aboriginality that convey illness,
disease and dysfunction as inherently Aboriginal conditions. The
aim of this study was to enable an urban Aboriginal community to
articulate its own narratives of Aboriginality beyond those
contained within the medical narrative.
This study
incorporated a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach,
utilising research methods of participant observation, key
informant interviews and photo voice. The action phase of the study
was informed by a Community Cultural Development (CCD) framework,
in which local Indigenous arts workers and organisations
collaborated to develop initiatives that simultaneously explored
and promoted the cultural identity of this community from a
strength-based perspective.
The seven
key themes that emerged within Aboriginal narratives of identity
emphasised Aboriginality as expressions of (1) stories, (2)
relationships to people and place, (3) difference, (4) marginality,
(5) bloodlines, (6) pride and (7) negotiation and
interrogation. The common thread throughout each of these at
times competing narratives is that the proclamation of an
Aboriginal identity is a vital resource for living rather than a
determinate of premature death, disease and dysfunction. The
opportunity to articulate one’s identity narrative was found
to be an empowering action in its own right, but it also enabled
‘new truths’ of Aboriginality to emerge that allow
strength, survival and health to be very real conditions for
Aboriginal people.
This study demonstrates the need for a more contextualised
understanding and application of the identity concept within public
health practices generally and a more rigorous debate and
reflection upon the use of ethnic, racial and cultural identity
(concepts), particularly within the Australian public health
research literature. It also strongly suggests the need to engage
with and understand Aboriginality in a way that complements and
supports Indigenous constructions of identity, health and
wellbeing, rather than competing against them.
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