Working Effectively With Indigenous Australian Peoples: Foundational Knowledge, Historical And Intergenerational Factors Impacting Health, And Successful Strategies

Foundational knowledge of Indigenous Australian both past and present

Discuss about the Working effectively with Indigenous Australian peoples.

Indigenous Australian culture is basically related with the ancient communities of Australia. The Australian Indigenous peoples are the descendants of Australians and reside there. An indigenous person of Australia is of the descent of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peples. Both of the communities suffered from discrimination and inequalities.  There is a vast difference between the past and the present situation, languages, and culture. This is impacting the health of the Australian Indigenous peoples and in order to detect those factors and respond appropriately, some strategies have been taken with an aim of bettering the status of their health (King et al., (2009)

According to Altman & Kerens (2012), recent study announced that Australian Indigenous peoples stayed in Australia for about 40000 years and created the oldest cultural history as compared to other countries. Approximately 669,900 Indigenous peoples in the past and at present represent only 3% of the total Australian population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013). The scenario of the livelihood of the Australian Indigenous peoples has positively changed including their health and cultural practises as compared to the past. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples developed their cultures over a long period of time.

The foundational aspects of Indigenous Australian Cultures include the Dreaming, Kinship, and Economic organisation.The Dreaming can be a mythology, which provides a clear understanding and structure to Indigenous cultures with a sense of reality, understanding and interpreting the place of humans of that world. The Dreaming is basically a system of belief of many groups of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples explaining how everything was created and for what purpose. During the period the spirits of ancestral beings came down from the sky and roamed on the land that was initially barren, wrestled and loved and made the land features that exist today (Isaacs, 2006).

Kinship is an aspect of the indigenous culture of the  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples which defines their social structure and family relationships. Kinship connections determines the role and relationships of the community to one another, whom to marry or get married to, funeral responsibilities etc. Therefore, Kinship emphasizes the idea of ownership, membership and the governing laws of every individual of the  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person (Broome, 1982).

The Economic Organization of the Indigenous Australian community comprised of a system that provided a livelihood for the people. The Australian landscape had already been worked upon by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to whom land had a lot of cultural and social significance. Through the prolonged practises of hunting and gathering, the Indegenous Australians had made physical changes on their landscape for the purpose of survival. In order to have a minimal effect on their land, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples thoroughly planned their techniques of hunting and gathering right from the beginning. Despite the fact they were nomadic, the Indigenous Australian peoples also practised long-term food production. For instance, besides earning their livelihood majorly by hunting the larger animals such as kangaroos and turtles, the Coast peoples used to catch fishes, oysters, etc.

Effect of historical and intergenerational factors which impact on Indigenous Australian health

Indigenous Australian health have been impacted by different factors, these factors include historical factors, intergenerational factors, social factors, etc. There is a link between discrimination and the poor health. To address this issue, it is  important that to create awareness and take necessary actions so as to improve the well-being of the society. These factors are as follows

According to Ever sole et al. (2010), these are the factors which include the difference between the present generation and the past one. There is a vast difference between previous and current generation which have been impacted the health status of the Australian Indigenous peoples. Racism is basically the discrimination on the basis of their community, race  and ethnicity. According to a study conducted by Priest, Paradies, Stewart & Luke (2011), 52.3% of the respondents experienced racism. This was inclusive of a variety of behaviours such as being identified by racist names, mocking or making funny jokes that stereotyped the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. 92% were sworn at, abused orally and shown bellicose gestures due to their race, 84% were physically assaulted and others having their possessions destroyed. 95% of those that experienced racism suffered from poor mental health, poor general health and high levels of depression (Atkinson Nelson & Atkinson, 2010). 

Colonization as a historic factor also contributed to poor Indigenous Australian health, according to MacDonald (2015). As a result of colonization system 12.5% of all

Aborigines were never schooled according to the 1981 census (Taylor, 2013) . The Aborigines peoples were 15 times more likely to be affected by disease accoriding to Thomson, (1984). Terra nullius fiction is the other effect of colonization in which the policies of the British colonizers and the consequent land laws were coined in the belief that  Australia was acquired on the basis of occupation of  land without owners (Ross, 2006). The existence of the Australian indigenous peoples was acknowledged by the colonizers who defended their policies of land acquisition by concluding that Indigenous Peoples did not have any political strucuture that the British Government could recognize and too primitive to own land. However, in 1992, the judgement of High Court of Mabo reversed the terra nullius narrative but still held the British sovereignity and only recognized a single power of sovereignity and law system in Australia (Simpson, 1993).

The effects of terra nullius is currently evident in the lives of the Indigenous peoples. The British acquisition of land led to dispossession, where they were made squatters on their own land and thus a drastic reduction in their population was the consequence. Furthermore, the British settlers brought witht them European diseases such as measles, typhoid and smallpox which greatly caused many deaths as the Aboriginal peoples had no acquired resistance to the new diseases. In 1788 the population of Aboriginal peoples was approximately 750,000-800,000, but the numbers reduced drastically due to disease and dispossession in the 1890s to about 200,000 (Jones, 1970).

Strategies which have shown to succeed in working with Indigenous Australian peoples

According to Aspin, Brown, Jowsey,Yen & Leeder (2012), there are many strategies which are well developed and applied here, with a view to improve the health, cultural and belief system of these Australian Indigenous peoples. Some of the strategies have been performed successfully but some failed partially. These strategies and their implementation results are as follows:

The Working Both Ways Program- According to Walker & Sonn (2010), this strategy aims to improve the mental health workers (AMHWs) of the Indigenous Australians. This strategy involves having community-based teams  that work together with the Indigenous Community to develop the community health centeres. For such centres to be productive, there ought ot be collaboration from the Indigenous Community. This is fundamental because most of the members of the community-based teams are non-Indigenous and thus the already existing barrier should first be dealt with through awareness for effective communicaton and collaboration.

Indigenous Hip Hop-  According to Waterman & Sonn (2010),  this strategy involves the implementation and use of traditional culture which includes  hip hop, beat boxing rap, and break dancing in order to  improve the mental and positive health and  other leadership skills in  the Indigenous communities. Based on the findings of Waterman & Sonn, the evaluation of qualitative and quantitative aspects clearly show  that young people respond well to mental health plan. Such a respond led to 73% of the young people feeling comfortable talking their close ones, if they were experiencing the tough situations or times. Therefore, such a strategy will boost self esteem amongst the Indigenous community. Furthermore, the encouraged Community will further encourage others that feel marginalised.

Parenting program-   According to Queensland Health (2015), parenting programmes is an effective way by which social wellbeing and health of society can be improved. The strategy of Parenting Program will act as an intervention in order to target the Indigenous groups who in the situation of discord. This strategy will further address the issue of the children and future society feeling Marginalised.  

Conclusion

From this study it has been concluded that Australia is having the mix culture and the belief system. Therefore, the Australian Indigenous peoples of these were facing discrimination and prejudice  at every place they visit. These Australian Indigenous peoples get negative impact by many factors like intergenerational, social, historical factors. In order to overcome from the negative impacts of these factors, some strategies like hip hop programs, parenting strategies have been implemented. As a result of these strategies, social, physical and the mental health of the Australian Indigenous peoples will improve significantly.

References

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