Remote Australia Online

Researchers in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contexts within Australia are frequently faced with the challenges of working in an intercultural space where channels of communication are garbled with interference created by the complexities of misunderstood worldviews, languages, values and expectations. A concern of many researchers in these contexts is to ensure that the voices of research participants in remote communities are not only accurately represented, but are allowed to transcend the noise of dominant paradigms, policies and practices. This article brings together the experiences of four non-indigenous researchers in the space of remote vocational education and training. The authors present two vignettes from research in the context of health, employment and education. These vignettes highlight some of the conundrums for researchers as they attempt to harmonize the aims of research with the expectations of organizations involved. The purpose of the article is to explore the utility of Critical Race Theory (CRT), Indigenist methodologies, culturally responsive methodologies and those positioned at the ?cultural interface? (Nakata 2007). In so doing this article makes some assessments about the fit of CRT methodologies for such contexts.

The doctoral research that this paper is based on focused on the low number of young Aboriginal teachers currently undertaking and completing teacher education in remote communities in central Australia. What became clear from the research was that the biggest barrier to Aboriginal people becoming qualified teachers is the legacy of settler colonialism and the ongoing neocolonial structures of education and knowledge systems. What also emerged is that there are powerful possibilities for co-creation of knowledge if participants and researchers are willing to engage in a process of decolonising the knowledge work done in intercultural spaces. In addition to the findings of the research the thesis also became a documentation of how the teacher participants and I intentionally inhabited this decolonising way of working. Through this process we were able to discover ways of working together in what Helen Verran calls ‘good faith’. This paper explores the knowledge intersections that are possible if we intentionally work in decolonising ways. It offers a number of ways of ‘being’ and a number of ‘tools’ that help researchers and participants to work together in ways that allow knowledge systems to co-exist and co-create new knowledge without one blocking or erasing the other.

This paper is a critically reflective “think piece” that explores a collaborative process of doing research in an intercultural space as well as identifying what focusing on such a process produces. While it originates from a PhD project centred on the concern for the low number of people becoming qualified as teachers from remote Aboriginal communities in central Australia, this paper does not directly discuss that topic. Instead it discusses how a non-Indigenous researcher (Lisa) worked with a group of fully qualified Aboriginal teachers (including Linda, Fiona, Mona, Barbara and Yamurna) to explore this common concern. The focus here is on the collective processes we used in doing the work together, and how that ensured that the research happened ethically and relationally, such that everyone was left with a “good feeling” at the end of the work. This paper talks about the conversational or dialogic approach we took in our work together and how we discovered the paths that felt “right” for the research to take. It contains some examples of our conversations that we recorded throughout the research process and names some of the things that made the work we were doing together feel “right”. Together we discovered new knowledge about how we communicated with each other, what true informed consent looked and felt like for everyone involved, the central importance of our existing relationships, and the role of reciprocity in intercultural research.

Purpose Telehealth (TH) in Radiation Oncology at Townsville Cancer Centre (TCC) was implemented in July 2011 to provide cancer care closer to home to the regional and rural population. The aim of this study was to describe the service use and patient satisfaction. Materials and methods A retrospective audit of records was conducted for patients treated at TCC between July 2011 and December 2015. Data included patient demographics, diagnosis and treatment. Results of a patient satisfaction survey were summarised through descriptive statistics. Results A total of 1,530 TH consultations were provided to 833 patients. 311 patient charts were audited (615 TH, 650 in-person, 151 phone consultations). Median distance from TCC to satellites was 327.3km (21.6 to 1130.1). 71% were male and median age was 65 (23 to 94 years). Cancer diagnoses included prostate (32%), breast (12%) and head and neck (10%). 60% of patients underwent radiation therapy for curative intent, 22% palliative and 18% did not undergo treatment. 106 patients participated in the satisfaction survey (response rate of 46%), with the overall positive response mainly attributed to advantages in travel and time savings. 54.7% of patients selected TH as their preference for future consultations, 34.9% indicated a mix of TH and in-person consultations. Conclusion

Remote communities increasingly integrate renewable source generation to reduce the environmental and economic impact of diesel generation. Despite benefits scaling proportionally with the level of renewable penetration, most systems restrict renewable utilisation to below 30% of annual production. Identifying system complexity as a key barrier to renewable uptake, this paper investigates methodologies to simplify integration of high renewable penetrations. Three approaches are considered, via three Australian case studies; King Island, Tasmania (approach one), Flinders Island, Tasmania (approach two), and Rottnest Island, Western Australia (approach three). Approach one details a methodology for wind plus storage integration. Approach two details a methodology for wind, solar PV, plus storage integration. Approach three details a methodology for wind and solar PV integration, without storage. All approaches facilitate high renewable penetrations, with each island majority renewable supplied. Approach one benchmarks system performance, with King Island one of the worlds’ earliest high penetration renewable islands. Approach two explores benefit via renewable diversification. Approach three investigates rationalisation of energy storage via low load diesel and demand management technology substitution. For approach three a 32% reduction in capital cost was observed, identifying commercial justification for the approach via deferral of energy storage integration.

This paper examines the use of digital technologies by domestic violence perpetrators, which we believe constitutes ‘digital coercive control’. We draw on two Australian research projects and emerging research to provide definitional, conceptual and theoretical frames for harmful and invasive behaviours enacted through technology. Additionally, we highlight how such abuse intersects with other forms of violence but has unique and distinct features, including spacelessness. Spatiality is central in our examination, and we consider the spaceless yet geographically situated experiences of and risk faced by victim/survivors in regional, rural and remote locations. In the interests of empowering and protecting women, we also problematize victim-blaming and burdens of ‘safety work’ frequently imposed on women encountering digital coercive control.

This paper takes up the concept of recognition as an ever-present structuring arrangement in relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Recognition, in both positive and negative guises, is understood here to foreclose the terms of those relations. For Warlpiri people of Central Australia who have achieved positive recognition and the attendant confirmation of legal rights in land and native title, the contradictions and frustrations of recognition continue to be multiple. Looking back across the eight decades since Warlpiri were first recognised in particular ways by settler-colonists, the paper explores a series of encounters where transformation is visible but ultimately undermined. The paper explores these issues by way of the observations of one remarkable cross-cultural innovator and his quest to ?be free to the world?. In tracing this work of interpretation and its strategic application to the field of intercultural relations the paper argues that what is being pursued should not be mistaken for assimilation, nor the refusal of recognition, but rather a mode of reciprocal engagement that carries with it significant transformative potential.

A Warlpiri woman is exiled from her community in Australia's Central Desert and pursues a new life in metropolitan Adelaide. The state promises that Aboriginal people will have better life prospects beyond their remote territories, but the grueling disruptions of their relationships to place shows otherwise. To be caught between alternate and transforming subjectivities associated with the desert and the city is to inhabit a particular kind of exile. Under contemporary conditions, exile acquires new ambiguities and intensities, as anxious mobility and digital communication enable people to participate in aspects of life from which they have been physically separated, albeit in attenuated ways. Exile is a contradictory experience of liberation and entrapment that generates, but ultimately withholds, new possible selves and lives.

This report documents the differences in educational outcomes between rural, regional & remote Australia and urban Australia. The report then quantifies the economic impact of these disparities in educational outcomes. By linking education to human capital formation—one of the key components of economic output along with physical capital—we estimate the shortfall in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) due to these differences. If the human capital gap between urban and non-urban Australia was closed, Australia’s GDP could be increased by 3.3%, or $56 billion. To put this in perspective, this is larger than the contribution of the entire Australian tourism industry. Put another way, one would need to quadruple the size of the Australian beef industry to achieve the same economic improvement. Yet these are only the direct effects, on wages, of closing the human capital gap. There are important spillovers in addition to this, such as improvements in physical and mental health and enrichment of communities. We do not speculate about the size of these spillovers, but they are likely to be substantial. Furthermore, there is a multiplier effect throughout the economy from increased productivity and wages which we do not include. Thus, the size of the benefits we identify are in many ways quite conservative. Framing the magnitude of the potential benefits from closing this gap is an important first step to achieving these benefits for individuals, households, and the economy more broadly. Clearly, however, a sound understanding of which educational interventions work to close the gap is vital—as is determining which are the most cost effective. The report summarises work from randomised controlled trials overseas that point to which educational interventions are most promising in this respect. We also outline an approach—building on the concept of Social Return Accounting—to calculate the return on investment (or “Social Internal Rate of Return—SIRR”) of different interventions. Ultimately, careful and large-scale randomised controlled trials in Australia are a crucial step to determining which educational interventions yield the highest rates of return and can thus make the most significant contribution to closing the gap between urban and non-urban education in Australia.

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to determine the influence on practice of a community of practice designed for public health nutritionists who work with retail stores in remote Indigenous communities in Australia. METHODS: A descriptive evaluation of the community of practice participants' perspectives using the most significant change technique and individual in-depth interviews was conducted. Data were analysed using thematic and content analysis with a focus on answering the evaluation questions. RESULTS: Twelve public health nutritionists employed to work with remote Indigenous community stores were involved. The community of practice was reported to develop competence through problem solving, knowledge sharing and building confidence for innovative work. Building competence was achieved through accessible and timely professional support. Sharing stories and being encouraged to reflect on practice was valued and supported the participant's practice. Working to improve the food supply is challenging but there is value in being supported by like-minded colleagues to stay focused on this work. CONCLUSIONS: Most participants perceived the community of practice intervention to be an effective strategy to improve their work. These findings provide evidence of a promising intervention for building the public health nutrition workforce in remote Indigenous community store retail settings.

This article explores the ways Ngaanyatjarra students in Australia respond to Montessori pedagogy in a remote Aboriginal early childhood context. The article initially presents key literature pertaining to early childhood education, Aboriginal education, and Montessori education in Australia. The qualitative methodology underpinning the research is subsequently outlined. The approach emphasized in this research is that of interpretivism. The data analysis process highlighted three headings: concentration and engagement, student autonomy, and student independence. The findings of this research indicate the potential for Montessori pedagogy as a viable alternative practice of education for remote Aboriginal early childhood contexts, as Montessori pedagogy may align more harmoniously with the cultural dispositions of Ngaanyatjarra students. Finally, recommendations are presented in light of the research.

The policy framework claiming to support Indigenous people in remote parts of Australia is in disarray with Commonwealth, state and territory governments proposing closure of remote communities on a range of economic and social policy grounds, but facing significant criticism on economic, environmental, social and cultural grounds. Western Australia's proposal to close 150 remote communities, announced in late-2014, is reviewed and found to reveal a profound failure of geographical literacy.

Background: Australian Aboriginal people have high rates of albuminuria, CKD, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. There is little information about possible genetic contributors. Aim: To test for familial aggregation of diabetes, blood pressure, albuminuria (UACR) and eGFR, and quantify the contribution of four candidate genes (ACE; TP53; ENOS3; MTHFR). Methods: In one high risk remote Northern Territory (NT) community, we determined familial relationships of 357 individuals selected to represent the community's UACR profile, and genotyped for six polymorphisms at the four loci. We also recorded UACR, BP, eGFR and diabetes status. Results: Log‐transformed UACR was the most heritable trait (heritability h2 64%), but BP also had a significant familial contribution (sBP h2 = 24%, dBP = 11%). 10% of the genetic variance of UACR was explained by the ACE insertion‐deletion polymorphism (P = 0.0003), and 5% by the TP53 codon72 polymorphism (P = 0.007). Each ACE D allele increased UACR 2.7 fold, and TP53*P72 allele, 1.6‐fold. ACE D/I carriers had higher SBP (130.4 versus 119.2 mm Hg) and DBP (83.3 versus 70.7 mm Hg), than I/I carriers, and were four times more often diabetic (22% versus 5%). Conclusions: As in other populations, risks of albuminuria and hypertension are partially determined by genetic factors. The relationship of the ACE D allele with CKD is similar to other populations, especially in diabetic nephropathy. Associations of the p53 variant have been reported in only one other setting, also a remote NT Aboriginal community, with similar findings. We note that the p53 codon72 arginine variant protein induces apoptosis more effectively than the proline variant, and may predispose to diabetes. Moreover, p53 inhibition enhances renal fibrosis in some models, and exacerbates other renal pathologies eg experimental Alport Syndrome.

Objective: To determine the utility of exercise electrocardiography testing (EET) in evaluating suspected coronary artery disease in a remote Australian setting where a significant proportion of patients are Indigenous Australians. Design: Retrospective cohort study with grouping based on EET results. Patients and setting: 268 patients with suspected coronary artery disease who underwent EET at Alice Springs Hospital — a specialist teaching hospital in Central Australia with no resident specialist cardiology service — in the period 1 June 2009 to 31 May 2010. Main outcome measures: Diagnosis of coronary artery disease, based on coronary angiography and/or admission with acute coronary syndrome, in the 24 months after EET. Results: Indigenous patients were younger, more likely to be women and were twice as likely as non-Indigenous patients to have a chronic disease. Indigenous patients and those with a chronic disease had a higher proportion of inconclusive results. Completed EET had a positive predictive value of 48.1% (95% CI, 28.7%–68.1%) and a negative predictive value of 96.5% (95% CI, 93.2%–98.5%). Similar results were seen among Indigenous and non-Indigenous patients. Conclusions: In regional and remote Australian settings, EET remains an important tool for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease. It is useful, and is reassuring to patients and clinicians if the result is negative, particularly in a remote Indigenous Australian population with a significant burden of cardiovascular risk.

Introduction Many specialist waitlists in Australian hospitals are long. One reason anecdotally reported for this is poor alignment of referrals with current recommended guidelines. This paper reports the findings of an audit undertaken in 2017 for ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon referrals submitted by primary health centres within Cape York, Australia. Materials and methods 54 long-wait ENT referrals were reviewed against referral criteria for ENT presentations using the Clinical Prioritization Criteria (CPC) and two routinely applied clinical primary health care guidelines; with findings reported alongside patient demography. Results All of the long wait ENT referrals in the sample were for remote living Indigenous Australians, most were children (93%). One fifth of referrals fulfilled all referral criteria and were appropriate (22%); one third required further informaiton to support the referral, either audiology or clinical history (30%); and half were inappropriate referrals (48%). Conclusion Although many referral submissions did not adhere to CPC or routine guidelines, this audit enabled the identification of improvements to the referral system including the development of a checklist and flow-chart, plus patient information resources aimed at improving patient adherence. A case can be made for a new service delivery model that provides ongoing primary health education and facilitates improved ENT access. These strategies may improve ENT referral quality and decongest current ENT specialist waitlists, while offering improved primary health care management of ear presentations.

The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of psychological distress in employees in the metalliferous mining industry in Australia, and to examine associated demographic, health, and workplace characteristics. A cross sectional survey was conducted among 1,799 participants from four metalliferous mines. Psychological distress was measured by the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), alongside other measures of personal demographics, health history, health behaviour, and workplace characteristics. Univariate and multivariate statistical methods were used to examine associations between psychological distress and personal and workplace characteristics. Levels of moderate to very high psychological distress were significantly higher in this sample (44.4%) compared to the general population (27.2%). Moderate to very high psychological distress was significantly associated with younger age; individual health factors (a prior history of depression, anxiety, or drug/alcohol problems); health behaviours (using illicit drugs in the last month); and a range of workplace factors (concern about losing their job; lower satisfaction with work; working shifts of over 12 hours duration; working in mining for financial reasons and social factors (poorer social networks). The identification of a number of social, personal and workplace factors associated with high psychological distress present useful targets to inform the development of tailored workplace interventions to reduce distress in metalliferous mine employees.

Access to healthcare is a fundamental human right for all Australians. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights acknowledges the right to freedom of opinion and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas. Capacities for self-expression and effective communication underpin the realisation of these fundamental human rights. For rural and remote Australian children this realisation is compromised by complex disadvantages and inequities that contribute to communication delays, inequity of access to essential speech-language pathology services and poorer later life outcomes. Localised solutions to the provision of civically engaged, accessible, acceptable and sustainable speech-language pathology services within rural and remote Australian contexts are required if we are to make substantive human rights gains. However, civically engaged and sustained healthcare can significantly challenge traditional professionalised perspectives on how best to design and implement speech-language pathology services that seek to address rural and remote communication needs and access inequities. A failure to engage these communities in the identification of childhood communication delays and solutions to address these delays, ultimately denies children, families and communities of their human rights for healthcare access, self-expression, self-dignity and meaningful inclusion within Australian society.

In the Gibson desert of Australia, elderly Aboriginal people took up painting as recently as the twenty-first century. Many grew up in the bush, as hunter-gatherers, and have lived much of their lives in remote Aboriginal communities. Their decision to become artists, and the kinds of paintings that they make, reflect their place in the history of Aboriginal Australian art, as well as the changes that global capital is bringing to remote Australia. Here I look at the work of one artist from the Gibson Desert, Coiley Campbell, whose style of painting pertains to the construction of Aboriginality amidst the hyper-visible cultures of globalisation. In two of Campbell's period styles, in his overdotting and minimal works, it is possible to read the complexities of making Aboriginality visible for an international art market. Comparisons with the work of highly successful European artists Damien Hirst and Andreas Gursky illustrate the way in which overdetermined visual motifs are a trope of contemporary art made within a global economy.

Ethnography is the principal method for studying the art of the Tiwi Islands, as it is for the study of Aboriginal Australian art more generally. Relying on the testimonies of the artists themselves, scholars use Tiwi art to build knowledge of Tiwi cosmologies and society. This essay turns to the oeuvre of Tiwi artist Jean Baptiste Apuatimi to argue that the methodology of visual analysis can also contribute to knowledge of Tiwi cosmology and society. The persistence of the jilamara design in her oeuvre can be related to the global phenomenon of geometric design. For the art historian Wilhelm Worringer, the emergence of geometric ornament in different societies betrays anxieties about the cosmological place of a people in the world. Tiwi jilamara can be read in terms of such anxiety in a contribution to the scholarship on Tiwi society that relies on the evidence of art practice rather than ethnography.

From the 1800s to the 1970s, Australian Aboriginal people were employed to work on cattle and sheep stations across the north of the country. While historians argue over whether the relationship of these labourers was a form of indenture or slavery, artists testify to the various experiences of this long period of Australian history. Ceremonial life adapted to the arrival of new animals and stations with new song-cycles that incorporated the dancing figures of cattle and station ?bosses?. Art that survives from the period including incised shields and drawings evidence both ceremonial life and frontier violence. Today the ex-stockman Alan Griffiths memorializes Station Time with heroic paintings of rounding up cattle, while the younger artist Dale Harding commemorates the punishment of women forced into domestic service on stations. These artists testify to the ways that Aboriginal workers experienced pastoralism, the industry that drove the invasion and settlement of the greater part of Australia. On the one hand, these artworks testify to the violence and suffering endured by workers, while on the other, they celebrate the autonomy that Aboriginal people achieved through their excellence in labour. Indeed, as Aboriginal people moved into positions as head stockmen, they themselves become the bosses of non-indigenous workers. In this way, the art history of Station Time revises the history of Aboriginal Australia as one of indenture, slavery, suffering and violence, giving rise to a more nuanced history of the Aboriginal experience of pastoralism.

In 1993, eighty-five paintings from the Australian mining town of Kalgoorlie, executed with cheap paints on cardboard and canvas board, were exhibited in San Diego by the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronteriza (BAW/TAF). By the 1990s, the BAW/TAF was well known for making border art, a term that described art about living on the borderlands of Mexico and the United States. This exhibition of art by the so-called 'fringe dwellers' of Australia, Aboriginal people who were living poor on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie, suggests that like border theory, border art is a concept relevant outside North America, and that borders are not only constructed between countries, but within them. In Australia there is an infra-national border between Indigenous and settler populations, between races, and this border is inscribed in these paintings. For these artists of Kalgoorlie chose above all to paint Aboriginal flags and landscapes, envisaging their sovereignty and land rights within the Australian nation-state. The paintings also testify to the cosmopolitan, inter-Aboriginal society on the fringes of Kalgoorlie, as desert people mix with local Wongathi and Noognar and Yamatji to the east. Kalgoorlie is not only a frontier town hosting settler and Indigenous populations, but an Aboriginal diaspora that has become unsettled since colonisation.

Ngkwarlerlaneme Modernism from Utopia, Central Australia

Engaging Aboriginal learners in the school curriculum can be quite a challenge given issues of cultural and linguistic differences. Even more so, these differences can be expanded when the students are in their adolescence. Creating learning environments that engage learners, while providing deep learning opportunities, is one of the biggest challenges for teachers in remote communities. This paper reports on a reform initiative that centred on the use of a digital game, Guitar Heroes, in a remote Aboriginal school. It was found that the digital media provided teachers with opportunities for new learning spaces and resulted in additional unintended learning outcomes.

The historian Patrick Wolfe reminds us that the settler colonial logic of eliminating native societies to gain unrestricted access to their territory is not a phenomenon confined to the distant past. As Wolfe (2006, p. 388) writes, “settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event.” In the Gulf of Carpentaria region in Australia’s Northern Territory this settler colonial “logic of elimination” continues through mining projects that extract capital for transnational corporations while contaminating Indigenous land, overriding Indigenous law and custom and undermining Indigenous livelihoods. However, some Garawa, Gudanji, Marra, and Yanyuwa peoples are using creative ways to fight back, exhibiting “story paintings” to show how their people experience the destructive impacts of mining. We cannot know yet the full impact of this creative activism. But their body of work suggests it has the potential to challenge colonial institutions from below, inspiring growing networks of resistance and a collective meaning-making through storytelling that is led by Indigenous peoples on behalf of the living world.

While research has provided a significant picture of the lived experiences of transgender and sex/gender diverse (TSGD) Australians, it remains incomplete because population samples rarely include TSGD people from Australia's Northern Territory. The Northern Territory is twice the size of France but is populated by only 210,000 people. The territory's environmental and demographic features make it very distinct from Australia's other six states and mainland territory. Most notably, it possesses a "frontier" mentality and is considered to be one of Australia's most homophobic states and territories. This paper publishes the results of an online survey conducted as part of an ongoing research project into the health needs of TSGD individuals, such as availability of medical and support services that specialize in, and are "friendly" to, TSGD people, especially in remote areas of the territory, colloquially referred to as out bush.