Remote Australia Online

Increasingly scholars across the world are developing sophisticated approaches to understanding the impacts of homelessness and domestic and family violence (DFV) for women and women headed families. This paper reports on qualitative research undertaken in Queensland mining communities about the experiences of women and their families who have experienced homelessness due to family breakdown or DFV. This paper presents a subset of data from a larger study with a specific focus on an analysis of five women's experiences, including some data from interviews with homelessness service providers and community representatives. This research provides a regional and rural frame of reference for understanding structural factors affecting women and families experience of homelessness and domestic and family violence. The paper concludes with a discussion of two key recommendations. These are (1) Improving access to safe and affordable housing for women and families in mining communities and (2) strengthening social planning to address women's safety and housing needs in these communities.

Introduction: Disparities in cancer outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are well reported. Some Australian Indigenous communities’ beliefs about cancer may influence health behaviours, support for those with cancer and ,ultimately, treatment outcomes. This project was instigated by request of a cultural adviser from a regional Queensland community and aims to make community perceptions of cancer visible, facilitate development of resources representing these perceptions and briefly evaluate the project from the community’s perspective. Methods: The project was guided by qualitative, participatory and visual research methodology. Community participation was engaged by identifying community champions who helped recruit interested community members and continued project momentum. The project was defined and driven by community, and a consensus decision making approach was used to select resources or activities to represent community perceptions of cancer and raise cancer awareness. Qualitative data were collected from yarning groups at two community forums and subsequent group sessions to explore and define community perceptions of cancer. Informed consent was obtained prior to audio-taped yarning groups. Data were also included from publicly available interviews broadcast on radio and television. All data about community perceptions of cancer and of the project were thematically analysed. Photovoice using cameras was the visual method chosen to capture images and stories representing community cancer beliefs. Results: Three main themes were derived from thematic analysis of data collected about community perceptions of cancer, identified by participants as important to improving cancer outcomes: (1) silence in the community, (2) support is important for survivorship and (3) awareness of cancer and the importance of sharing positive stories. A consensus decision-making approach resulted in the community choosing two resources to stimulate community discussion about cancer, raise awareness and reduce stigma. These were creating a community quilt, with each quilt square representing community perceptions of cancer, and producing a community calendar, with messages promoting healthy behaviours and cancer screening. The overall project was viewed as valuable for facilitating and improving the conversation about cancer with family, friends, the broader community and health professionals. Group sessions were considered important for providing a shared, safe space for support, for asking health related questions and as an instigator to share cancer related knowledge and stories with others. Conclusion: Silence around cancer may influence awareness and discussion about cancer, screening participation and help-seeking behaviour in this community. In this project, engaging with the community created a safe space for conversation around a previously taboo topic, which could lead to improved screening and help seeking behaviour. The role of primary health care in reducing health disparities by partnering with community to conduct awareness and prevention activities and by providing culturally appropriate care for Indigenous people is emphasised.

This research report aims to identify the personal and structural resources, the barriers and the motivations that facilitate or hinder successful transitions by Indigenous young people in remote communities, particularly within East Arnhem Land, into further and higher education and employment. The research speaks to current policy initiatives that aim to improve transitions for young Indigenous people to further education, training and employment (COAG 2012). It also fills a research gap in the youth studies literature by mapping the evidence-based data on factors that impact on Indigenous youth transitions in remote communities. In this vein, we conclude by examining the usefulness of the concept youth-as-transition (a key theoretical tool in the analysis of young people’s lives in the field of youth studies) for Indigenous youth in remote communities. We propose that it is timely for research on youth, and particularly Indigenous youth, to take seriously the conceptual framework of belonging – not as an alternative to the notion of transitions but as another theoretical tool that facilitates awareness of ‘the nature and quality of connections between young people and their worlds’ (Cuervo & Wyn 2014: 905). The concept of belonging enables a clearer understanding of the efforts made by young people to remain connected to people, places and issues that matter to them, as well as their relationship to the times in which they live. It also renders visible how social change impacts on which ways of being are possible to Indigenous youth. We draw, then, on the concept of belonging to examine which issues can positively affect Indigenous youth pathways and to highlight how, by bringing together the fields of youth and Indigenous studies, the concept fills an important gap in the sociology of youth.

CONTEXT: Safe drinking water and effective sanitation in remotely located Indigenous communities are essential services and their provision is a human right. Yet sustainable provision of these services can be challenging. Risks to human health from inadequate provision include transmission of hygiene-related infections from microbial contamination, and toxic chemicals that may cause kidney damage or dysfunction. This narrative review is conducted in the current context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6, the 'refresh' of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap in Indigenous inequity, and the 2020 Inquiry of the Australian Productivity Commission into the National Water Reform. ISSUES: Challenges to providing drinking water supplies in remote communities include biological contamination and chemical contamination from naturally occurring elements in groundwater. Monitoring regimes can be challenged by remote location, minimal and/or high turnover of staff and a lack of ongoing maintenance. Unpalatable water can shift consumption to purchased drinks such as sugar-sweetened beverages, with flow-on health impacts of diet-related chronic conditions such as overweight and obesity, and type 2 diabetes. LESSONS LEARNED: By analysing two effective programs from remote areas of New South Wales and the Torres Strait Islands in Queensland, Australia, five enablers were identified: people factors (support, training, cultural competence); cross-agency collaboration (regulators, funders, state and local government); technology that is fit for place, purpose and local people; funding that is sufficient and sustainable; and taking a systems view of water and sanitation.

There is increasing recognition that the creative arts sector has a crucial role to play in supporting and sustaining communities in remote contexts. However, there are still major gaps in understanding how this sector functions in such settings, and few resources to support the design and delivery of arts research in these contexts. To help address these gaps, this article draws on findings from a three-year project, Creative Barkly, the first study of its kind to adopt an ecological approach to mapping how the creative arts sector operates in one of Australia?s remotest regions. The article touches on five core principles that underpinned our approach to mapping creative practices in this region, reflecting a design that was (1) relationships-focused, (2) strengths-based, (3) co-designed, (4) accessible, and (5) community-engaged. Drawing on our experience of conducting this research in a complex remote Australian context, the article raises questions and opportunities for further research and policy making in arts for regional development.

For millennia, stories and oral histories have been a fundamental way of sharing knowledge in many Aboriginal cultures. Honouring the role of stories can address a continuing lack of Aboriginal voices in Australian educational research literature. In this paper, we describe the philosophical underpinnings and methodology of our research, which aimed to learn from Aboriginal people about their post-school experiences, particularly in remote communities. The uniqueness of the project included training currently enrolled students as researchers to interview past students through yarning and storying. The collected stories were then interpreted and represented in audio recordings later developed into podcasts, writing, and through art. The aim of these research outcomes is to inform relevant policies and the development of teaching and learning resources for Aboriginal students. The way the methodology of our study evolved in response to the participants’ input is another key focus of this paper as well as having implications for future research.

With the current federal government interest in northern development (Australian Government, 2014), the opportunity supposedly exists both to position remote and Northern Australia for a prosperous and sustainable future and to make it a full participant in future Australian economic development. That outcome requires understanding of past developments to inform future assumptions and what they portend for Northern Australia. The nature of the past development of Northern Australia does not instil confidence that something will change that well-established pattern.In the past, sudden rushes of optimism and investment were followed by decades of disappointment. Pearling rose and fell. Pastoralism rose and fell before establishing some equilibrium. Mining was characterised by brief ‘booms’—mostly during the two World Wars—followed by slow ‘busts’, a pattern that recurred across remote Australia.The future portends the likely erratic economic development of the region and the separate but continuing marginalisation and impoverishment of its Aboriginal population—features that provide particular challenges that set Northern Australia apart from the rest of the country. In Darwin in 1900, the South Australian public servants that administered its northern territory wore clothes imported from Singapore. They ate some Asian food and Darwin had far more Chinese residents than European/Australian ones. Live cattle were exported to Asia from northern ports, particularly from the Kimberleys. The combination of the post-Federation policy of White Australia and governmental neglect (the north Queensland coastal area aside) reduced that Asian connection. In Darwin in 2000, or for that matter in Townsville or Broome, residents still wore clothes imported from Asia but they were wholesaled via Melbourne. After a post–World War I hiatus, live cattle exports to Asia resumed in the 1980s. In the period between, abattoirs across Northern Australia produced meat primarily for the domestic market. Asians were now in a minority of migrants (from overseas and from interstate Australia). But Asia was still the main market for most of Northern Australia’s exports. But Asian imports bypassed the north, heading instead to the metropolitan ports of Southern and Eastern Australia. The economics of large-scale, long-range sea transport sidelined Northern Australia except for outward-bound cargoes of minerals.Northern Australia has been enmeshed in a relationship with Asia almost since it was ‘settled’ and its resident Aborigines conquered. But the nature of that relationship has changed in ways that reflect the broader changes that have occurred in Australia over the last century. The economic relationship—agriculture, particularly sugar, the live cattle trade and some tourism aside—is now mediated through metropoles. As seen in the example of Northern Australians wearing clothes made in Asia but ‘imported’ via Melbourne. This chapter begins an ongoing analysis of the economic development of Northern Australia that I will expand on in the future.

This chapter explores ideology and remoteness through the configuration of markets and non-markets that operate in a sparsely settled region in Northern Australia. As non-Indigenous researchers analysing data from Aboriginal settlements, we acknowledge the primary and overarching configuration in these settlements is Aboriginal sovereignty and the standpoints of local residents and custodians (Ardill, 2013; Morrison, 2015; Nakata, 2007). A previous study of 15 remote Aboriginal settlements in the region (see Figure 8.1) revealed that certain mixed-market activities (aboriginal art centres, Indigenous ranger programs and Aboriginal community researchers) have remained active and produced socioeconomic benefits to residents over time. This is despite ideological shifts that are evident in public policy and national data analysis. Non-markets are a category that includes governments, charities, not-for-profits and philanthropies. Non-markets exist when inputs are un-costed (Wolf, 1993). These institutions seek the equitable distribution of social and economic benefits in sectors where markets have failed or are not active (Wolf, 1993, p. 6). Markets are places where goods and services are openly traded and are priced. This chapter uses these terms in preference to the dualistic public versus private categorisation, which have severe conceptual limitations when describing the socioeconomics of these settlements (see Chapter 9). Mixed-markets are conceived as the mesh in which market and non-market traits interact along with customary forms of socioeconomic activity. In terms of the public data available to inform policy about remote economic participation, the sources of national data lack the definition required to accurately describe or interpret the impacts of mixed-markets at settlement level (Lovell et al., 2015b, p. 10). Mixed-market activity shares features of socioeconomic benefit with social enterprises in other countries (Lovell et al., 2016). In two advanced market democracies, Canada and Australia, the constraints of national quantitative data and the lack of typological qualitative definition (McMurtry & Brouard, 2015; Sengupta et al., 2015) have prevented useful distinctions between social enterprises as market, mixed-market or non-market models. These constraints ignore evidence of historic context and other points of difference, such as culture and gender (Sengupta et al., 2015, p. 110), which distinguish settlement-level economic activity otherwise absent in the national data. The effect within the broad categories of market, non-market and Canadian Indigenous social enterprise (Sengupta et al., 2015) is that little information is available to contribute to understanding the agency required by local entrepreneurs (Pearson & Daff, 2014) or the usefulness of models of enterprise available under current legislation (Sengupta et al., 2015). Due to the constraints in remote population data and methodology, residents of sparsely populated regions experience unintended consequences of policy interventions in ways seldom experienced by larger populations of urban residents.Analysis of the national and industry data available (see Chapter 9) suggested non-market interventions may have worked against the intended outcomes of policy in some of the remote settlements in the study area in Australia. There is evidence that non-markets failed to produce the intended equitable distribution of financial or social capital among employed residents in the study region. There were lower rates of Indigenous employment and lower average incomes for Indigenous residents in 2011 than in 2006 (ABS, 2012). The following points consider the configurations of ideology and remoteness that underpin conceptualisation of remote socioeconomic activity. Different and sometimes competing configurations are present, which, if unacknowledged, reduce opportunities for everyday market and mixed-market activity.

The purpose of this chapter is to describe how urban and regional planning practice applied to the creation of development plans reinforce social and economic dislocation in remote settlements in Northern Australia. This chapter examines the range of planning policies that affect regional planning and development in remote Queensland using the Cape York region as a case study. The planning literature readily acknowledges that regional economies and land use planning are inter-related, yet little is known about how a change in land use regulation may affect the performance of local and regional economies (Kim, 2011). In urban and regional planning the interaction between regional economies and land use have traditionally been considered through a top-down approach (Kim, 2011). The literature regarding planning for economic development in remote regions in Australia (Harwood et al., 2011) and Canada (Markey et al., 2006, 2008, 2012) highlight the inadequacies of top-down and industry sector–based approaches in favour of a place-based approach, yet the practice of place-based planning remains elusive. This chapter analyses the implications of contemporary planning practice on development opportunities for the Aboriginal people of Cape York in Queensland and provides a conceptual framework for a place-based approach to land use planning for future application.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight a perspective for decolonizing research with Australian First Nations and provide a framework for successful and sustained knowledge translation by drawing on the recent work conducted by a research group, in five remote communities in North-Western Australia. The perspective is discussed in light of national and international calls for meaningful and dedicated engagement with First Nations people in research, policy and practice, to help close the health gap between First Nations and other Australians.

The impact of climate change is one of the most significant environmental challenges facing humans. Australia is likely to face temperature increases in the range 0.6–1.5°C by 2030 and 2.2–5°C by 2070 compared with the climate of 1980–99 (CSIRO & Bureau of Meteorology, 2014). Extreme events are likely to become more severe and frequent in many locations across Australia, thus demanding preparatory measures to mitigate the potential risks (Addison, 2013). These extreme events include cyclones, and associated storm surges, riverine and flash flooding, heatwaves, coastal erosion, bushfires and more frequent droughts. To inform Indigenous peoples’ pathways to adaptation, there is a need for understanding what impacts climate change and extreme events have on Indigenous communities, how climate change–related changes and impacts are perceived and what might be feasible adaptation responses. In this chapter, we aim to present a synthesis of research conducted in four case studies (see Figure 19.1) that address these issues.

This report aims to shine a light on the everyday lives of regional, rural and remote (rural) young people, their strengths and challenges, their mental health, and the impact ReachOut has in improving their mental health and wellbeing. Using evaluative research conducted between 2017 and 2021, we look at changes over time, drawing comparisons with similar research conducted in 2017 and shared in the Lifting the Weight report (1). This allows us to assess the effectiveness of ReachOut’s new tailored and targeted approach to supporting this underserved population over the past five years, enabled by dedicated, sustained funding from Future Generation Global (FGG). We also look to the future, highlighting why we need ReachOut now more than ever to continue to support rural young people and what more we can do to help them manage and improve their mental health and break down the barriers that prevent them from seeking help.

This chapter examines the role of the state as both sponsor and regulator of resource extraction in this region. I explore recent Aboriginal perspectives of the McArthur River Mine, its operator Glencore, and by default the state, who together have dominated and disrupted the local and regional Aboriginal world and literally reshaped Aboriginal people’s connections to their traditional lands and waters. Reflecting on the Indigenous historical experience and memory of state-sanctioned violence and dispossession in the region, I conclude that the state emerges as a consistently malevolent absence in Aboriginal peoples’ lives, bridging past violence with current environmental, social and cultural impacts of the state-sanctioned—yet questionably assessed and monitored—resource extraction activities at the McArthur River Mine. I review the history of the development of the McArthur River Mine against a backdrop of shifting Australian Indigenous policy and mining company practices, then apply Sawyer and Gomez’s (2008) work on transnational governmentality and resource extraction, and Owen and Kemp’s (2017) work on social licence and countervailing power in the global mining industry, to explore the interplay of the state and mining company throughout. From recent Aboriginal voices expressed in word, song and imagery I conclude that the Aboriginal peoples of the Gulf have been brutalised as colonial subjects and are now disempowered as ‘extractive subjects’ (Fredericksen and Himley 2019: 59) through the actions of a malevolently absent state.

RDAQ Foundation operated a Health Check Clinic in collaboration with University of Queensland Rural Clinical School (UQRCS), Rockhampton and James Cook University (JCU) Rural Generalist Program. It provided patrons at BEEF 2018 a free non-invasive health check to assess their individual health status. Each health check provided an assessment designed in line with RACGP guidelines.In addition to providing this valuable service, the purpose of the Health Checks Clinics was to gain insight into the health of rural and remote Australians and their concerns regarding their health and access to health care. The findings will inform the service model for future health clinics provided by RDAQ Foundation.The purpose of the Public Health Survey was to collect information on the major health issues facing rural and remote Australians. It explored access to health care and what the health care priorities are for those living in rural and remote communities. Together, the data from the Health Check Clinics and the Public Health Survey will provide a better understanding of health services needed in rural and remote Queensland.

In Australia, as in many other countries, housing affordability has become a more prominent policy challenge in recent years. While policymaker and media attention tend to focus on the house price threshold for first home ownership, the linked problem of declining rental affordability for low-income tenants should be a matter of equal or greater official concern. As embodied in Australia, this damaging trend is apparent through a variety of metrics. Importantly, while it is usually only implied or asserted rather than conclusively proven, there is sound statistical evidence of the inverse relationship between housing affordability and homelessness in the Australian setting. Surging rental prices seen during the latter phase of the COVID-19 pandemic – particularly in non-metropolitan areas – therefore seem likely to foreshadow a reconfiguration in the geography of homelessness in the immediate post-pandemic era.

The lack of radio navigational aids in early Royal Flying Doctor Service aircraft in Australia occasionally resulted in aircraft being stranded at a remote site with a critically injured patient due to weather and other conditions. For a brief period in the 1950s, at least one Royal Flying Doctor Service pilot was trained to administer anaesthesia to critically ill patients who could not be immediately evacuated. The aim of this paper is to describe the circumstances in which this arose and how it worked in practice. This is based largely on the recollections of pilot anaesthetist Captain Keith Galloway, who shared his recollections during interviews with the authors.

Objective To evaluate the utility and outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous patients requiring domiciliary oxygen therapy. Design Retrospective study. Setting Patients residing in the regional and rural Top End Health Service region of the Northern Territory of Australia. Participants Indigenous and non-Indigenous patients prescribed domiciliary oxygen therapy between 2018 and 2020. Interventions Demographics and clinical indication for domiciliary oxygen therapy and mortality were analysed. Main outcome measures Differences between Indigenous patients requiring domiciliary oxygen therapy in comparison with their non-Indigenous counterparts. Results Of the 199 study participants, the majority were male (51%), non-Indigenous (77%) and urban residents (72%). Overall chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was the most common indication for domiciliary oxygen therapy (51%) followed by palliative intent (22%). Indigenous patients were significantly younger (61 vs 73 years), with a higher proportion of males (62% vs 45%, P = .039) and remote residents (62% vs 8%, P < .001). Among Indigenous patients, a significantly greater proportion of domiciliary oxygen therapy was indicated for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchiectasis (16% vs 1%, P < .001). Among non-Indigenous patients, malignancies were a more common indication for domiciliary oxygen therapy. A similar proportion of Indigenous and non-Indigenous patients were prescribed domiciliary oxygen therapy for palliative intent (31% and 20%, P = .108); however, the underlying diagnosis differed significantly, with a greater proportion of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among Indigenous patients (43% vs 13%, P = .030) and malignancy among the non-Indigenous patients (73% vs 43%, P = .050). Mortality and length of survival were not significantly different by Indigenous status. Linear regression showed longer survival with domiciliary oxygen therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Conclusion Indigenous Australian patients living in remote communities will likely derive the same benefits and outcomes of domiciliary oxygen therapy as non-Indigenous peers.

Embracing and embedding the rich cultural knowledge, languages, concepts and skills that Aboriginal families and children bring to playgroup is key to empowering families as their children's first teachers and strengthening young children's self-esteem, pride, confidence and identities. In this article, we share our story of how we have explored and upheld the strengths of Yolŋu identity, cultural knowledge and language in the Galiwin'ku Families as First Teachers (FaFT) playgroup early educational program. We highlight the ways we have supported mothers to embed gesture, sign language, Yolŋu Matha language conventions, Yolŋu kinship, clan concepts and dance into their daily interactions with their children at FaFT. We reflect on what has empowered mothers to feel agentic in their children's learning in these playgroups and to build strong Yolŋu identities in young children and argue that playgroup is a vital educational platform through which to deliver culturally meaningful early learning experiences for Aboriginal children prior to preschool.

An increase in the frequency of severe fire events, as well as a growing interest in wildfire mitigation strategies, has created a demand for skilled managers of landscape fire and a better community understanding of fire behaviour. While on-ground experience is essential, there is potential to substantially enhance training and community engagement with explanatory simulations. Through this work, we explore landscape fire behaviour as a complex system where understanding key behaviour characteristics is often more important and achievable than prediction. It is argued that this approach has particular value in Northern Australia, where fires burn across vast and sparsely inhabited landscapes that are largely under Indigenous ownership. Land and fire management in such complex cross-cultural contexts requires combining traditional and local knowledge with science and technology to achieve the best outcomes. We describe the workings of the model, a stochastic cellular automata fire behaviour simulation, developed through a participatory modelling approach for Northern Australia; the outputs generated; and a range of operational applications. We found that simulation assisted training and engagement through the development of an understanding of fire dynamics through visualisation, underpinned by landscape data sets, and engaging a culturally diverse set of land managers in discussions of fire management. We conclude that there is scope for a broader use of explanatory fire simulations to support development of shared understandings of fire management objectives.

The main argument presented here is that in cultural contact zones, such as the Australian settler state, there can emerge violent tendencies in dominant patterns of thought, as both epistemic habits and systems of value. The logic of coloniality is one of war, destruction and inequality, and this is expressed through attempted erasure and actual ambivalence towards Indigenous peoples, their lands, waters, Laws and cultures. This is supported by habits of epistemic violence and axiological retreat. This paper examines such habits, through an ethnographically informed and localised case study of the destruction of an ancestral Dreaming site on Yanyuwa country in the Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia. In this instance the body of Yulungurri, the ancestral Tiger Shark, manifest in a large cycad palm, was cut down. Read through the lens of axiological retreat, and coloniality?s ambivalence towards Indigenous presence, the discussion considers the dispositions which lead to and support violence in such forms and how these might become naturalised or concealed in everyday life.

This article draws on the first qualitative research on lived experiences of autism in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia. Twelve women supporting 16 autistic children living in remote, regional and urban areas of Australia participated in a semi-structured interview. Through thematic analysis, we identified four focal themes in women?s conceptualisation of the practical work of mothering autistic children. These are (i) navigating a complex autism system to ?achieve? diagnosis and connect to culturally-safe services and supports; (ii) helping children to learn to live in the big world by engaging in everyday care and enhancing capacities; (iii) protecting children by keeping them safe, dealing with stigma and respecting individuality and; (iv) asserting family belonging by emphasising children?s strengths, encouraging extended family relationships and advocating for others. Listening to these marginalised voices is vital to establishing a participatory research agenda in a field that has received inadequate attention. Points of interestThis is the first research on lived experiences of autism in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia.Twelve women from remote, regional and urban areas spoke about their experiences of loving and supporting their autistic children.Women talked about the practical work of mothering their autistic children including achieving autism diagnosis, trying to access culturally safe services and supports, undertaking everyday care needs and enhancing capacities and abilities.Women emphasised children?s strengths and their belonging in community; they were very concerned with protecting them and keeping them safe in the context of intersecting racist and ableist attitudes.More participatory research on autism within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is urgently needed.

The focus of this article is the cross-cultural translation space of bicultural bilingual performance of Inma, traditional Pitjantjatjara song and dance. The article structure reflects the two languages and cultural concepts of storytelling, song and dance in which the Kungkarangkalpa Inma?Seven Sisters performance was presented at the Centenary of Canberra Indigenous Festival in 2013. This method of bilingual bicultural translation of words, song, dance and choreography was intrinsic to the many acts of translation involved in communicating the power, passion and meaning of a traditional Indigenous Inma performance to a western city audience. Inma song and dance conveys the connectivity of people to their Tjukurpa, the Law and Dreaming of their country. The performance space of translation is one in which people choose to share their culture by performing it in language, written or spoken, song, dance or mime, and translation occurs through intermediaries with some knowledge of both cultures who translate each to the other. The authors acknowledge that the acts of translation involved in translocating the desert Inma to the Canberra stage and the presentation of this in the secondary formats of a dialogue at an academic conference and now in a written article are all abstractions from the real performance of meaning in country of the Tjukurpa. Translation is but a reflection of meaning, a narrowing of the breadth of cultural referends of language, time and place. In this case, through several portals: a condensed city performance, a film of this performance, an oral bilingual conference dialogue and now a written account. This article references these portals and incorporates direct and indirect bilingual speech and reflection in an attempt to convey the importance of Inma song and dance in the cross-cultural communication of Indigenous knowledge of country.

INTRODUCTION: The objective of this study was to explore the demographic characteristics, disease specifics and outcomes of adult patients with suspected sepsis presenting to a remote Australian emergency department (ED). A retrospective, uninterrupted time series audit of ED patients presenting with suspected sepsis was conducted. A total of 189 remote presentations were reviewed based on the time of clinician identification of sepsis. METHODS: Retrospective cohort analysis was performed for all adult patients with suspected or confirmed sepsis. RESULTS: A majority of patients presenting with sepsis to a remote hospital were Indigenous (61.9%) with a large proportion (34.9%) presenting by ambulance. Median age was 50 years. Indigenous patients (44.7%, 95%CI 34.1-55.9) were more likely to meet the quick Sequential (sepsis-related) Organ Failure Assessment criteria compared to non-Indigenous patients (27.1% 95%CI 16.6-41.0) (p=0.05 95%CI -1.1-34.3) with higher rates of critical care admission (34.2% v 10.4%) (difference 23.8, p=0.003, 95%CI 7.7-37.5). Congruent with previous research, Indigenous status did not confer a difference in sepsis mortality (12.1% v 11.8%, p=0.91). CONCLUSION: Remote Indigenous patients have worse clinical sepsis scores, are more likely to present by ambulance and require skin and soft tissue source control. This cohort has higher lactate values and critical care requirements but similar mortality rates. Improving access to culturally safe medical care could address this disparity.

A common trope is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are ‘lost’, ‘trapped’ or ‘caught’ between two worlds: that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and that of mainstream Australian society: Aboriginal people are sometimes lost between the two realities, trying to preserve their traditional culinary heritage and culture and at the same time trying to adopt new food practices and eating habits. (Sebastian and Donelly 2013, 70). Conceptualising people as being lost between two cultures is, however, a ‘thoroughly constrained notion of intercultural engagement’ (Hinkson and Smith 2005, 161) and one that is limiting as an explanation for Aboriginal people’s food practices in contemporary life. The contemporary food system in most remote Aboriginal communities is an intercultural space, comprising commercial, customary, locally grown, and state or welfare elements (Brimblecombe et al. 2014; Buchanan 2014). While there are differences between the Aboriginal and introduced or whitefella ‘domains’ of the food system, they are interrelated through people, organisations and institutions. It is within this intercultural space that the ‘new food practices and eating habits’ referred to above are evolving. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Aboriginal people may have ‘different forms of experience, knowing and practice’ (Merlan 2005, 174) of each of the food systems. Understanding how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people understand and engage with the contemporary food system, and valuing their knowledges and perspectives, presents opportunities for addressing complex issues such as nutrition and diet (Wilson et al. 2020). Young people are particularly subject to being portrayed as ‘caught between’ contemporary Australian society and a reified notion of traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture (McCoy 2009, s20). Their food practices are often cause for concern to health practitioners and within families and communities. Reliance on junk food and a perceived ‘loss’ of taste for traditional foods are common concerns (Brimblecombe et al. 2014; Saethre 2013). Unfortunately, the perspectives of Aboriginal young people themselves in relation to their food and eating practices are very much lacking. As Eickelkamp (2011) notes, there is little research in general on how Aboriginal children and young people experience life, shape their social world and imagine the future: all aspects of life that may affect dietary practices. This chapter, along with others in this volume, attempts to glimpse into the perspectives and life circumstances of some Aboriginal young people. First, I provide a brief snapshot of epidemiological evidence to set the scene as to why a focus on young people’s food and eating practices is of interest in the wider effort to reduce Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage. Then, drawing on ethnographic material from Ngukurr, a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, I explore young people’s subjective and embodied experiences of food and eating.

Clinical placements can be instrumental in encouraging nursing students to consider a future career in rural Australia. Twenty nursing students from a metropolitan university were provided with the opportunity to undertake a clinical placement in mental health in a rural or remote setting. The majority of placements were between 2 and 4 weeks in length. They took place in community health centres and rehabilitation centres in New South Wales and in hospital inpatient facilities, remote areas and community health services in the Northern Territory. On return from the placement, students completed an open-question pro forma giving their views and impressions of their experiences and contrasting this with clinical experience gained in urban settings. The content of the students? responses was analysed and presented under the following themes: scale relating to urban and rural differences in population; geographical and health facility size; staffing matters; the environment; the students? perception of the clients; and professional interaction. Additional material relating to remote area placements is presented. Questions are raised about the maintenance of students? interest and the development of rural careers.