CRCAH Project Nos: SE 114 & 185
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Administering Organisations:
La Trobe University (SE185)
The University of Melbourne (SE114)
Project Leader:
Dr Brian McCoy
- National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
- Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Studies (AIATSIS)
- CRCAH (Knowledge Transfer of PhD)
- LaTrobe (in-kind support)
- The University of Melbourne (in-kind support)
This project was endorsed as an in-kind project of the
CRCAH.
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Project
Summary:
Project 185: This men’s health project is conducted
in partnership with Palyalatju Maparnpa Health, a regional
community-based cultural health organisation in the South East
Kimberley. It focuses on developing relationships with
Aboriginal men in the Kutjungka region to identify key issues and
support required by men’s health programs.
The project
will then seek to develop these programs further while seeking ways
to sustain and evaluate them.
Working on an action/research model a number of areas for
project activity were identified early in the process.
These included: the clinic, sport, maparn (traditionalist
healers), ceremonial health, music and bush
trips.
Project 114: The above project built on the PhD research
conducted by Brian McCoy in the region between 2001 and
2004. The thesis was titled ‘Kanyirininpa:
Health, Masculinity and Wellbeing of Desert Aboriginal
Men’. The CRCAH supported research
transfer activities following this project including travel for the
men involved from the Western Desert to Melbourne to share their
story with other men's groups, and learn from men's groups and
services.
Project
outcomes
It has been
found that Aboriginal men within communities require support to
take responsibility and show leadership for health
programs. A key outcome to date of this project (185)
has been to identify some of the obstacles which influence the ways
in which Aboriginal and non Aboriginal men engage and relate to one
another.
Over time,
key words have been found to describe how both groups understand
the present status of Aboriginal men’s health.
This offers possibility for the local men to engage with the
non-Aboriginal men who manage and deliver health programs.
Publication and promotion of Holding Men: Kanyirninpa
and the health of Aboriginal men (AIATSIS) in May
2008. This monograph arose out of Brian McCoy’s
PhD thesis. The research looked at petrol sniffing, football and
prison: activities that not only engage desert men, some quite
young, but also demonstrate some of the complexity and
contradictions found in addressing health issues for Aboriginal
men.
Publications:
McCoy, Brian 2008, Holding Men - Kanyirninpa
and the health of Aboriginal men, Aboriginal Studies
Press, Canberra.
Fact Sheet 2008: How do we improve the health of
Aboriginal men?
McCoy, B. 2006, 'Why change Aborigines into images of
ourselves?', Eureka Street Online, 22 August.
McCoy, B. 2006, 'Aboriginal Communities: Who may speak?',
Eureka
Street Online, 30 May.
McCoy, B. 2006, 'Healers, clinics and Aboriginal people: Whose
health and who benefits?', Health Issues, no. 86, Autumn,
pp. 13–16.
McCoy, B. 2006, Kanyirninpa: Health, masculinity
and wellbeing of desert Aboriginal men, PhD Thesis, The University
of Melbourne ePrint Repository.
McCoy, B. 2005, 'Generational trauma and Indigenous men's
health: Are we missing something?', Discussion Paper, No. 29/2005,
Curtin Indigenous Research Centre, Centre for Aboriginal Studies,
Perth.
