Sandy Toussaint

Water Ways in Aboriginal Australia: An Interconnected Analysis1

This paper is about Aboriginal relationships to water in northern Australia. We explore a range of local practices, beliefs and ideas that we characterise as ‘water ways’ to encompass the meanings embedded in both human activity and the water’s flow. Our ethnographic focus is primarily on Aboriginal relationships to the Fitzroy River, which travels through, over and under large tracts of the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Our aims are interrelated and reflect two major concerns, the first of which is to show how a cultural understanding of human/water relationships is enhanced by an interconnected analysis, involving an awareness of what Rumsey (1994, 122) refers to as a ‘thorough-going mix’ of mythical, historical and everyday events. Extending the nature of this mix specifically to include people and their environments, we stress the interpretive significance of human/habitat interactions by emphasising their connectivity rather than their independence. Such a process involves neither privilege nor submergence of one in relation to the other. As we explain, Aboriginal people, lands and waters are in a continual and interconnected process of mutual transformation. Our second aim is to show that the contemporary use of media, especially paintings and films about water, has added substantially to the repertoire available to Aboriginal groups for explaining not only the interconnections between humans and their landscapes but also how such relationships continue to be culturally mediated. The considerable variation that exists in beliefs, practices, values and laws associated with water raises many interesting questions; for example, how the different relationships that women, men and children have to a range of water sources are conceptualised and represented. In Australian settings, recent anthropological research has focused on the symbolic and cultural attachments that people

Disabling chronic low back pain as an iatrogenic disorder: a qualitative study in Aboriginal Australians

Objectives To determine the low back pain beliefs of Aboriginal Australians; a population previously identified as protected against the disabling effects of low back pain due to cultural beliefs. Design Qualitative study employing culturally appropriate methods within a clinical ethnographic framework. Setting One rural and two remote towns in Western Australia. Participants Thirty-two Aboriginal people with chronic low-back pain (CLBP; 21 men, 11 women). Participants included those who were highly, moderately and mildly disabled. Results Most participants held biomedical beliefs about the cause of CLBP, attributing pain to structural/anatomical vulnerability of their spine. This belief was attributed to the advice from healthcare practitioners and the results of spinal radiological imaging. Negative causal beliefs and a pessimistic future outlook were more common among those who were more disabled. Conversely, those who were less disabled held more positive beliefs that did not originate from interactions with healthcare practitioners. Conclusions Findings are consistent with research in other populations and support that disabling CLBP may be at least partly iatrogenic. This raises concerns for all populations exposed to Western biomedical approaches to examination and management of low back pain. The challenge for healthcare practitioners dealing with people with low back pain from any culture is to communicate in a way that builds positive beliefs about low back pain and its future consequences, enhancing resilience to disability.

Contributions of local knowledge to the physical limnology of Lake Como, Italy

This article shows how local knowledge may be valuably integrated into a scientific approach in the study of large and complex hydrological systems where data collection at high resolution is a challenge. This claim is supported through a study of the hydrodynamics of a large lake where qualitative data collected from professional fishers was combined with theory to develop a hypothesis that was then verified by numerical modeling. First the fishermen’s narratives were found to describe with accuracy internal wave motions that were evident in water column temperature records, which revealed their practical knowledge of the lake’s hydrodynamics. Second, local knowledge accounts emphasized the recurrent formation of mesoscale gyres and return flows in certain zones of the lake in stratified conditions, which did not appear in the physical data because of limitations of sampling resolution. We hypothesized that these features developed predominantly because of the interaction of wind-driven internal motions with the lake’s bathymetry, and the Earth’s rotation in the widest areas of the basin. Numerical simulation results corroborated the fishers’ descriptions of the flow paths and supported the hypothesis about their formation. We conclude that the collaboration between scientific and local knowledge groups, although an unusual approach for a physical discipline of the geosciences, is worth exploring in the pursuit of a more comprehensive understanding of complex geophysical systems such as large lakes.

‘I am absolutely shattered’: The impact of chronic low back pain on Australian Aboriginal people

Aboriginal people in Australia have been uniquely identified as less susceptible to chronic low back pain (CLBP) disability when compared to non‐Aboriginal populations, reportedly due to cultural beliefs about pain. A qualitative, culturally secure research approach was used to explore this assumption.

I have learnt ... a different way of looking at people's health: an evaluation of a prevocational medical training program in public health medicine and primary health care in remote Australia.

The purpose of this study was to gain insight into what prevocational medical practitioners (PMPs) learnt during a six-month public health medicine and primary health care training program (the Program) in remote Aboriginal Australia in 2001–2002. The Programs curriculum objectives included clinical and public health management of sexually transmitted infections, immunization, clinical audit and quality improvement, primary health care in remote Aboriginal communities, and working as part of an interdisciplinary team with health and non-health professionals, and lay people. The mode and location of delivery of these objectives was determined by the healthcare needs of the Kimberley population, and availability of safe, supported workplaces. Qualitative data from a variety of sources, including PMPs’ reflective journals, were examined in the context of the Programs curriculum objectives and by conducting a content analysis of journal notes. Findings are presented using the curriculum objectives and other comments that emerged while examining the data. Preliminary data indicated that PMPs gained knowledge and practical experience in clinical and public health management of sexually transmitted infections, immunization and primary health care in poorly resourced remote Aboriginal settings. Deeper understandings of health and illness in a cross-cultural setting also developed, along with professional and personal growth, as illustrated by the following quotations from PMPs: “I have learnt … a different way of looking at peoples health … I was encouraged to think more deeply than before about the whys and wherefores of medical practice, and thus consider the most effective ways of influencing patients’ behaviours for the better.” “I was encouraged to examine the thought processes behind the ways … healthcare was provided … [after leaving the Kimberley] I am constantly questioning the reason why we are practising medicine in a certain way in the big city hospitals—much to the consternation of my colleagues … .” The Program was successful in teaching its first four PMPs the basic tools of public health medicine and remote area primary health care.

Customary and recreational fishing pressure: large-bodied fish assemblages in a tropical, intermittent Australian river

Permanent waterholes in intermittent rivers of northern Australia support a diverse piscifauna and are popular areas for customary and recreational fishing. The present preliminary study explored the perception that fishing reduces the abundance of targeted, large-bodied species that become restricted to disconnected waterholes during the distinct dry season. River sites in the Fitzroy River catchment, Western Australia, could be clearly classified as experiencing either high or low fishing pressure by using metrics of human ‘accessibility’. The abundance of Hephaestus jenkinsi and Lates calcarifer, targeted by both recreational and customary fishers was highly correlated with accessibility and showed a negative relationship with fishing pressure. Non-target species showed no discernible trend. We estimated that 38% of river length remains subject to relatively low fishing pressure. These preliminary relationships suggest that fish harvest can potentially alter the structure of fish assemblages in disconnected habitats. The potential impact of fishing on the sustainability of fish populations is, most likely, greatest for non-diadromous species and will become more apparent with increasing distance from recolonisation sources. Combining management techniques that maintain recolonisation and recruitment potential with traditional fisheries management strategies (e.g. bag and size limits) presents a suitable approach to mitigate the effects of fish harvesting from tropical intermittent rivers.

Environmental change: prospects for conservation and agriculture in a southwest Australia biodiversity hotspot

Accelerating environmental change is perhaps the greatest challenge for natural resource management; successful strategies need to be effective for decades to come. Our objective is to identify opportunities that new environmental conditions may provide for conservation, restoration, and resource use in a globally recognized biodiversity hotspot in southwestern Australia. We describe a variety of changes to key taxonomic groups and system-scale characteristics as a consequence of environmental change (climate and land use), and outline strategies for conserving and restoring important ecological and agricultural characteristics. Opportunities for conservation and economic adaptation are substantial because of gradients in rainfall, temperature, and land use, extensive areas of remnant native vegetation, the ability to reduce and ameliorate areas affected by secondary salinization, and the existence of large national parks and an extensive network of nature reserves. Opportunities presented by the predicted environmental changes encompass agricultural as well as natural ecosystems. These may include expansion of aquaculture, transformation of agricultural systems to adapt to drier autumns and winters, and potential increases in spring and summer rain, carbon-offset plantings, and improving the network of conservation reserves. A central management dilemma is whether restoration/preservation efforts should have a commercial or biodiversity focus, and how they could be integrated. Although the grand challenge is conserving, protecting, restoring, and managing for a future environment, one that balances economic, social, and environmental values, the ultimate goal is to establish a regional culture that values the unique regional environment and balances the utilization of natural resources against protecting remaining natural ecosystems.

The restless anthropologist: New fieldsites, new visions

respect’(p. 120). The social constructivist approach provides a fruitful way to link the story of a very vibrant social movement with the legal minutiae of declarations and conventions. The global movement has succeeded in framing many of its core goals in terms of international law, reflecting as well as bringing about shifts in international legal discourses. Social movement theory conventionally considers unorthodox and disruptive practices to be inherent characteristics of social movement activity. The beginning (from the 1970) saw its share of confrontational tactics in the form of marches, large-scale demonstrations and occupations, moving on to lobbying and litigation, and cultural or symbolic form of political expressions in song, art, and poetry. Social movement theory further proposes that social movements access institutional experience in a more or less set process of ‘institutionalisation’ as part of a transition from informal to professional organisations, tending towards more conservative approaches as a way to ensure survival. Co-optation conventionally entails rejection of disruptive strategies and encourages routinisation when movement actors are brought into the realm of established politics. Token spaces may be provided to keep activists away from centres of power. In the course of two decades the indigenous movement has gone from a ground-breaking but still not formalised role in the WGIP to its recognition as equal partner in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the highest level in the UN system that admits non-state actors as participants. One may well ask, then, as Morgan does, whether this undisputed success at institutionalisation has contributed to a more moderate modus operandi. Morgan says no, and argues that the global indigenous movement has not been ‘subject to the kind of taming identified as an inevitable consequence of entry into institutional arenas’ (p. 49). Her analysis highlights a determined refusal on the part of indigenous organisations and their representatives to modify their core claims. In particular this relates to the determination and resilience of indigenous leaders to uphold the original objectives of the draft declaration of indigenous rights in its laborious way through the UN system. A global gathering in Norway 2013 in preparation for aWorld Conference on Indigenous Peoples in New York August 2014 indicates that ‘taming’ has not yet taken place. While the 2014 event will be a plenary meeting of the General Assembly, the 2013 meeting is a culmination of regional meetings initiated by indigenous peoples. One may of course ask whether this will be just another level of bureaucracy. Morgan’s analysis, however, shows how this global network has come about, and provides some hope that the indigenous movement will continue as an innovative contribution to the struggle for human rights.