Cultural humility and decolonial practice: narratives of therapists’ lives
Objective: Cultural competence has been critiqued as a flawed principle, focussed on mastery of cultural knowledge rather than critical reflection on race and privilege. Cultural humility is proposed as an alternative, emphasising accountability over mastery, involving critical self-reflection of personal biases and culture. This study aims to explore the development of cultural humility in psychological […]
Facilitating Sustainable Disaster Risk Reduction in Indigenous Communities: Reviving Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge and Practices through Two-Way Partnering
The Sendai Framework of Action 2015–2030 calls for holistic Indigenous disaster risk reduction (DRR) research. Responding to this call, we synergized a holistic philosophical framework (comprising ecological systems theory, symbolic interactionism, and intersectionality) and social constructionist grounded theory and ethnography within a critical Indigenous research paradigm as a methodology for exploring how diverse individual and […]
Synergy of systems theory and symbolic interactionism: a passageway for non-Indigenous researchers that facilitates better understanding Indigenous worldviews and knowledges
Historically, non-Indigenous researchers have contributed to colonisation by research based on Western positivistic philosophical frameworks. This approach led to disembodying knowledge from Indigenous people’s histories, worldviews, and cultural and social practices, thus perpetuating a deficit-based discourse which situates the responsibility of problems within Indigenous peoples and ignores the larger socio-economic and historical contexts in which […]
Psychology Education and Work Readiness Integration: A Call for Research in Australia
Supporting students to develop transferable skills and gain employment is a vital function of Universities in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A key area is work readiness, which has steadily grown in importance over the last 2 decades as tertiary institutions increasingly aim to produce graduates who perceive and are perceived as work […]
Decolonising clinical psychology: National and international perspectives
Background Throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries psychology has been used as a tool of colonisation. Critical theorists argue that in order to improve the wellbeing of those most affected by inequality, psychology programs need to be decolonised. In the Australian context, research has primarily focused on what decolonised curricula might look (e.g., Dudgeon 2017; […]
Addressing inequities in Indigenous mental health and wellbeing through transformative and decolonising research and practice
Aim: This paper discusses the current mental health and social and emotional wellbeing in Indigenous Australian mental health and wellbeing, the gaps in research, the need for transformative and decolonising research and practice, and the opportunities and recommendations to address existing mental health inequities. Method: This paper reviews key mental health and social and wellbeing […]
Enhancing Social and Emotional Wellbeing of Aboriginal Boarding Students: Evaluation of a Social and Emotional Learning Pilot Program
Boarding schools can provide quality secondary education for Aboriginal students from remote Aboriginal Australian communities. However, transition into boarding school is commonly challenging for Aboriginal students as they need to negotiate unfamiliar cultural, social and learning environments whilst being separated from family and community support. Accordingly, it is critical for boarding schools to provide programs […]
What Contributions, if Any, Can Non-Indigenous Researchers Offer Toward Decolonizing Health Research?
Four non-Indigenous academics share lessons learned through our reflective processes while working with Indigenous Australian partners on a health research project. We foregrounded reflexivity in our work to raise consciousness regarding how colonizing mindsets-that do not privilege Indigenous ways of knowing or recognize Indigenous land and sovereignty-exist within ourselves and the institutions within which we […]
Reconciling Relations: Shifting Counselling Psychology to Address Truth and Reconciliation
In 2018, the Canadian Counselling Psychology Conference (CCPC) convened a working group to address how the field of counselling psychology ought to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Attendees were asked to share their perspectives on reconciliation, current efforts toward reconciliation in counselling psychology, and recommendations for the future of counselling psychology […]
First Nations, Metis, & Inuit University Students’ Share Advice for College Entry and Retention
This article provides results from focus groups and individual interviews with current and former students concerning the use of cultural resilience in obtaining higher education degrees in response to: What advice would you give to other First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students concerning entry and retention in college? The informants provided rich and varied information […]
Neoliberal anti-racism: Responding to ‘everywhere but different’ racism
Racism cannot be treated as a spatially homogeneous phenomenon. This review reports on the merits of a localized approach to anti-racism, and delivers a frank assessment of the challenges faced when developing local responses to racism in a neoliberal era. Under neoliberalism, local actors are responsibilized, and for anti-racism this means action can potentially be […]
Contributions to urban Indigenous self-determination: The story of Neeginan and Kaupapa Māori
This paper considers two different Indigenous-led initiatives, the Neeginan initiative (Winnipeg, Canada) and the Kaupapa Māori movement (New Zealand), within the context of urban Indigenous self-determination, examining the role, or contributions of, each towards the realisation of Indigenous self-determination. Neeginan originates from, and focuses on, building a sense of community, through education programs, social assistance […]
Relationally Responsive Standpoint
This paper is a commentary responding to the problem of Indigenous post-graduate students and scholars struggling with an understanding of Indigenous Standpoint Theory and either disengaging with it or including it in shallow or tokenistic ways that fail to advance knowledge in this emergent field (Foley, 2018). A framework grounded in respectful protocol is suggested […]
Spirit-Based Research: A Tactic for Surviving Trauma in Decolonizing Research
Though there is a large number of scholars engaging in research on violence and trauma, there is a critical lack of methodological theorizing on how to do that work while prioritizing spiritual, mental, and emotional wellbeing. How do we survive research and academic work that has the potential to break us, in a system that […]
Decolonising Applied Social Psychology: Culture, Indigeneity and Coloniality
Teaching Indigenous psychology: A conscientisation, de-colonisation, and psychological literacy approach to curriculum
For at least 20 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, leaders, educators and mental health workers have been calling on governments, institutions, professional bodies, educators and practitioners to embrace culturally appropriate methodologies of practice in order to address the significant social and health disparities experienced by Indigenous peoples. Psychology as a discipline of knowledge […]
A Systematic Review: Non‐Suicidal Self‐injury in Australia and New Zealand’s Indigenous Populations
Objective. To undertake a systematic review of non‐suicidal self‐injury (NSSI) prevalence, patterns, functions, and behavioural correlates for the Indigenous populations of Australia (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders) and New Zealand (NZ; Maori). Method. We searched the following electronic databases: PubMed, MedLine, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, PsycInfo, and PsycArticles, CINAHL, and the Informit Health and […]
Culturally informed case conceptualisation: Developing a clinical psychology approach to treatment planning for non-Indigenous psychologists working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients
Background:In the context of the Australian Psychological Society’sformalapology and the increasing awareness of the need to develop interventions thatimprove the social and emotional wellbeing of clients who identify from Abo-riginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural backgrounds, this article considers theclinical psychology case conceptualisation. The primary aim of any case concep-tualisation is to inform intervention and, […]
Working Together with Remote Indigenous Communities to Facilitate Adapting to Using Energy Wisely: Barriers and Enablers
A $12 million Commonwealth funded consortium project trialled energy efficiency initiatives in six remote Indigenous communities over three years. This project, which won several awards, employed and educated over 80 local Yolŋu to educate their fellow community members to use power wisely. The research and evaluation component was designed together by Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers […]
Indigenous climate change studies: Indigenizing futures, decolonizing the anthropocene
Indigenous and allied scholars, knowledge keepers, scientists, learners, change-makers, and leaders are creating a field to support Indigenous peoples’ capacities to address anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change. Provisionally, I call it Indigenous climate change studies (Indigenous studies, for short, in this essay). The studies involve many types of work, including Indigenous climate resiliency plans, such as […]
Decolonising Psychology: Validating Social and Emotional Wellbeing: Social and Emotional Wellbeing
Objective Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) is a multifaceted concept that acknowledges that a person’s wellbeing is determined by a range of inter-related domains: body, mind and emotions, family and kinship, community, culture, Country, and spirituality. This paper explores the meaning of these seven domains of SEWB. Method A […]
Housing and Overcrowding in Remote Indigenous Communities: Impacts and Solutions from a Holistic Perspective
Over three years, a $12 million Commonwealth funded consortium project implemented energy efficiency initiatives in six remote Indigenous communities. An ecological community-based participatory action research design that utilized qualitative and quantitative research approaches in a multiple methods design was employed to clarify how Yolŋu use power, to identify the barriers and enablers of Yolŋu using […]
Measuring the ‘gift’: Epistemological and ontological differences between the academy and Indigenous Australia
This paper is drawn from our collective experience coordinating, and teaching in, a large common inter-professional unit on Indigenous cultures and health at an Australian university. Specifically, we use our lived experiences as Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal academics working interculturally to inform a theoretical discussion about how universities conceptualise ‘quality’ in learning and teaching for Indigenous […]
The aftermath of Aboriginal suicide: Lived experience as the missing foundation for suicide prevention and postvention
This paper aimed to highlight the systemic and theoretical barriers for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have been bereaved by suicide. Incorporating the lived experiences of two advocates, Leilani Darwin and Julie Turner, and professional experiences of Matthew Trindall and Laura Ross, the paper explores the importance of including Aboriginal lived experiences in […]
The Australian Psychological Society’s Apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People
The gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non‐Indigenous health, education, mental health, and social and emotional wellbeing remains a major concern. Bridging these gaps and working in culturally safe and responsive ways with people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent presents considerable challenges, including for the discipline and profession of psychology. At […]