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Item Open Access Analysing the Inconsistent Recognition of Indigenous Rights in Early Childhood Policy Documents from the Australian Government's "Closing the Gap" Strategy Between 2008-2018(University of Western Ontario, 2023) George, E.; Mackean, T.; Fisher, M.; Baum, F.We analysed Australian government strategic policy documents related to the "Closing the Gap" (CTG) strategy in early childhood circa 2008-2018 to explore the extent to which Indigenous rights are named and recognised in written policy. Our analysis of the policies was informed by Bacchi’s What’s the Problem approach and showed inconsistency in the recognition of Indigenous rights. These rights are sometimes undermined and ignored, sometimes implied and sometimes named and recognised. Silences within the CTG strategy are discussed and reveal the ongoing nature of colonisation and deficit framing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. Findings from this research are relevant for the current era of the "Closing the Gap" strategy.Item Open Access The Benefits of Cooperative Inquiry in Health Services Research: Lessons from an Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Study(SAGE Publications, 2024) Freeman, T.; Mackean, T.; Sherwood, J.; Ziersch, A.; O'Donnell, K.; Dwyer, J.; Askew, D.; Shakespeare, M.; D'Angelo, S.; Fisher, M.; Browne, A.; Egert, S.; Baghbanian, V.; Baum, F.Health services research is underpinned by partnerships between researchers and health services. Partnership-based research is increasingly needed to deal with the uncertainty of global pandemics, climate change induced severe weather events, and other disruptions. To date there is very little data on what has happened to health services research during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper describes the establishment of an Australian multistate Decolonising Practice research project and charts its adaptation in the face of disruptions. The project used cooperative inquiry method, where partner health services contribute as coresearchers. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, data collection needed to be immediately paused, and when restrictions started to lift, all research plans had to be renegotiated with services. Adapting the research surfaced health service, university, and staffing considerations. Our experience suggests that cooperative inquiry was invaluable in successfully navigating this uncertainty and negotiating the continuance of the research. Flexible, participatory methods such as cooperative inquiry will continue to be vital for successful health services research predicated on partnerships between researchers and health services into the future. They are also crucial for understanding local context and health services priorities and ways of working, and for decolonising Indigenous health research.Item Open Access Recovering from Doing Research as a Survivor Researcher(Nova Southeastern University, 2020) Michell, D.E.In this paper I explore the research process I undertook to recover from research. For three years from 2013 I was involved in a research project exploring the history of foster care in Australia. At the end I was exhausted and suffering trauma symptoms I initially attributed to the difficulties of juggling a major research project while teaching and undertaking key administrative tasks. Reluctance to write up the research findings, however, made me reconsider this attribution and at the end of 2016 I set out to make sense of what had happened to make me feel so bad while undertaking a research project I was thrilled to be involved with. Recovery came through identifying as a survivor-researcher, exploring the literature on trauma and recovery from trauma, and thinking through a “wish list” of protocols and self-care activities I should have put in place earlier. I conclude the paper with recommendations for ways by which survivorresearchers can look after themselves, and ways for others to support survivor-researchers.Item Open Access Rural vulnerability, migration, and relocation in mountain areas of western China: An overview of key issues and policy interventions(Elsevier, 2021) Chen, Y.; Tan, Y.; Gruschke, A.Western China features a vast area of mountains and high plateaus where millions of people, including diverse ethnic minority groups, have inhabited for generations. Geographically located in the mountainous, remote, and isolated regions, rural communities are prone to natural hazards and thus become vulnerable to impoverishment. To reduce rural vulnerability, many people residing in mountainous villages opted to out-migrate from their original villages and hometowns while some took in-situ adaptation measures. A host of government-sponsored resettlement programs have been carried out to help rural villagers seek alternative livelihoods elsewhere over the past four decades. To achieve a sustainable future for rural communities in mountainous areas of western China, more effective policies and measures need to be developed and enforced.Item Open Access Social determinants of Indigenous health and Indigenous Rights in policy: A scoping review and analysis of problem representation(University of Western Ontario, 2019) George, E.; Mackean, T.; Baum, F.; Fisher, M.Despite evidence showing the importance of social determinants of Indigenous health and Indigenous rights for health and equity, they are not always recognised within policy. This scoping review identified research on public policy and Indigenous health through a systematic search. Key themes identified included the impact of ongoing colonisation; the central role of government in realising rights; and the difficulties associated with the provision of mainstream services for Indigenous Peoples, including tokenism towards Indigenous issues andthe legacy of past policies of assimilation. Our approach to problem representation was guided by Bacchi(2009). Findings from the review show social determinants of Indigenous health and Indigenous rights maybe acknowledged in policy rhetoric, but they are not always a priority for action within policy implementation.Item Open Access Social housing temperature conditions and tenant priorities(Wiley, 2023) Sansom, G.; Barlow, C.F.; Daniel, L.; Baker, E.The social housing sector provides housing to some of society's most vulnerable people, disproportionately housing people with disabilities and chronic health conditions, the aged and people unable to work. These groups are often more susceptible to health impacts from poor temperature conditions within their home. In this paper, we examine temperature conditions in Australian social housing, explore tenant experiences and reflect on possible remediation responses. Using a novel contact-free delivery protocol for data collection, temperature was measured in 36 social housing dwellings over a 3-month springtime period. Semistructured interviews were conducted with occupants to better understand their experience of (adverse) indoor temperature conditions. On average, participants spent 35 per cent of time across the study period in temperatures outside the WHO guidelines (18–24°C). Most participants perceived their homes to be cold or very cold during periods of cold weather, and many considered energy unaffordable. Building conditions, such as poor sealing around windows and doors, lack of insulation and inadequacy of space heating appliances, were of greatest concern to participants. Participants' preferences for remediation work suggest that considerable benefit could be gained from making homes more energy efficient through draft sealing and insulation.Item Metadata only Special issue on ‘reconceiving civil society and transitional justice: lessons from asia and the pacific’(Taylor & Francis Group, 2019) Wallis, J.; Kent, L.This article, and the special issue it introduces, joins an emerging conversation about the role of civil society in transitional justice (TJ). Although civil society organisations play an integral role in the pursuit of TJ in conflict-affected societies, the literature lacks a comprehensive conceptualisation of the diversity and complexity of these roles. Building on an interdisciplinary workshop at the Australian National University in September 2016, the contributions to this special issue explore the forms of civil society that are enabled and disabled by TJ processes and the forms of TJ activity that are enabled and disabled by different kinds of civil society actors.Item Metadata only The ‘Blue Pacific’ strategic narrative: rhetorical action, acceptance, entrapment, and appropriation?(Taylor and Francis Group, 2024) Wallis, J.; Koro, M.; O’Dwyer, C.The developing literature on strategic narratives has analysed their attempted use by great powers, particularly China, to influence less materially powerful states. While there has been some consideration of how less materially powerful states can exercise their agency to, in response, construct narratives about their relationship to Chinese power, there has been far less analysis of less materially powerful states that have created and deployed their own strategic narratives. In this article we analyse the Blue Pacific narrative adopted and deployed, via rhetorical action, by Pacific Island countries to seek to influence their more materially powerful partners. We analyse the discourse and policies of partner states and argue that they have accepted, and at times, been entrapped, by that rhetorical action. However, we also find that partner states have appropriated the Blue Pacific narrative in their own attempts to influence Pacific Island countries. Nevertheless, we conclude by arguing that the Blue Pacific narrative demonstrates how less materially powerful states can leverage geopolitical competition and use rhetorical action so that their strategic narratives can influence more materially powerful partners to advance their interests and priorities.Item Metadata only The role of ‘uncivil’ society in transitional justice: Evidence from Bougainville and Timor-Leste(Taylor and Francis, 2019) Wallis, J.Transitional justice (TJ) scholarship and practice often pins much hope on civil society. It generally assumes that civil society organisations demonstrate ‘civility’, have broad-based memberships, support liberal democratic values and promote TJ approaches based on liberal-legal justice strategies. Yet there is nothing inherently virtuous about civil society and in conflictaffected societies it often lacks these desired properties; it can be underdeveloped, unruly and disruptive. So, what role do, and should, ‘uncivil’ society groups play in TJ processes? To answer this question this article uses comparative case studies of the role of uncivil society groups in Bougainville and Timor-Leste. These cases exhibit similar broad cultural, socio-political and socioeconomic characteristics. In both cases uncivil society groups are organised around societal divisions, attempt to operate as alternatives to the state, oppose liberal democracy and liberallegal TJ processes and engage in unruly behaviour, including violence and criminality. These uncivil society groups are not regarded as internationally legitimate, but they nevertheless have strong local legitimacy, particularly when the state is absent or weak. Consequently, this article concludes that in conflict-affected societies it is necessary to engage with groups regarded as both civil and uncivil to promote locally legitimate and effective TJ, and peace more broadly.Item Metadata only "Ready-made" assumptions: Situating convenience as care in the Australian obesity debate(Taylor and Francis, 2019) Warin, M.J.; Jay, B.; Zivkovic, T.When it comes to food, eating and technologies, convenience is constructed as contradictory: on the one hand as a practice that saves time and effort, and on the other hand, an easy and often “unhealthy” choice, contributing to obesity rates. Moralizing, classed and gendered discourses around health and obesity mean that convenient options are rarely portrayed as “good choices”. Through ethnographic research on food and families in the suburbs of an Australian city, this paper disrupts negative and polarized constructions of convenience in obesity debates. Building on the work of Mol et al. and Jackson et al. we argue that convenience is shaped by multiple contexts, and in particular, gendered and classed practices of care. In doing so, we suggest that public health interventions that construct convenience foods and technologies as wholly negative miss important cultural contexts in which convenience and care intersect to enhance social relationships.Item Open Access The 'silver-tongued orator' advocates for Australian Indians: Srinivasa Sastri's tour of Australia in 1922(ANU Press, 2023) Allen, M.; Bagnall, K.; Prince, P.Item Open Access Exploring the role of university education in reducing the appeal of right‐wing populism(Wiley-Blackwell, 2023) Manning, N.; Stefanovic, D.Why are university‐educated ethnic majority men less likely to support right‐wing populism (RWP) than those without university education? To investigate this under‐researched question, we conducted an exploratory study using semistructured interviews and thematic analysis with white Australian men from different socioeconomic backgrounds. While some with university education supported RWP, their views aligned with a moderate version of the ideology. Student/graduate supporters of RWP were opposed to hiring practices designed to support gender and ethnic equity. Students/graduates who experienced contact with Others were generally more positive about diversity, but this was not always the case for non‐university participants. While students/graduates with RWP leanings tended to see university as a politically biased institution, concerns about political correctness were widespread across the sample. Significantly, numerous students/graduates experienced university education as promoting a pluralist outlook, and this outlook appears fundamentally incompatible with the monist tendencies of RWP ideology. However, findings also suggest that university education is not the only route to a pluralist outlook, nor does it always lead to a rejection of RWP. Hence, developing a pluralist outlook may be more important than university education in reducing the appeal of RWP. The implications of these exploratory findings for future research are discussed.Item Metadata only Exploring Gender Equity Issues Facing Theravadin Buddhist Nuns in Australia: A Report to the Sangha(2023) Sneddon, R.; Australian Sangha Association Annual Conference (ASA) (11 May 2023 - 12 May 2023 : Canberra)This paper is a summary of the presentation provided to the Australian Sangha Association Annual Conference held in Canberra 11-12 May 2023. The full bhikkhuni ordination has been provided to Buddhist women in the Theravada tradition in Australia since 2009. My study seeks to document the perception, views and experiences of Australian Theravada Buddhist nuns, monks, and laity on a range of gender issues debated internationally. Through semi-structured interviews, this study compares and contrasts participants’ experiences with the findings of the existing research, providing a deeper understanding of Australian monastic life for women.Item Open Access Factors that influence evidence-informed meso-level regional primary health care planning: a qualitative examination and conceptual framework(BioMed Central, 2023) Windle, A.; Javanparast, S.; Freeman, T.; Baum, F.Background: Evidence-informed primary health care (PHC) planning in decentralised, meso-level regional organisations has received little research attention. In this paper we examine the factors that infuence planning within this environment, and present a conceptual framework. Methods: We employed mixed methods: case studies of fve Australian Primary Health Networks (PHNs), involving 29 primary interviews and secondary analysis of 38 prior interviews; and analysis of planning documents from all 31 PHNs. The analysis was informed by a WHO framework of evidence-informed policy-making, and institutional theory. Results: Infuential actors included federal and state/territory governments, Local Health Networks, Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, local councils, public hospitals, community health services, and providers of allied health, mental health and aged care services. The federal government was most infuential, constraining PHNs’ planning scope, time and funding. Other external factors included: the health service landscape; local sociodemographic and geographic characteristics; (neoliberal) ideology; interests and politics; national policy settings and reforms; and system reorganisation. Internal factors included: organisational structure; culture, values and ideology; various capacity factors; planning processes; transition history; and experience. The additional regional layer of context adds to the complexity of planning. Conclusions: Like national health policy-making, meso-level PHC planning occurs in a complex environment, but with additional regional factors and infuences. We have developed a conceptual framework of the meso-level PHC planning environment, which can be employed by similar regional organisations to elucidate infuential factors, and develop strategies and tools to promote transparent, evidence-informed PHC planning for better health outcomes.Item Open Access Multimorbidity and health-related quality of life amongst Indigenous Australians: A longitudinal analysis(Springer, 2024) Keramat, S.A.; Perales, F.; Alam, K.; Rashid, R.; Haque, R.; Monasi, N.; Hashmi, R.; Siddika, F.; Siddiqui, Z.H.; Ali, M.A.; Gebremariam, N.D.; Kondalsamy-Chennakesavan, S.Background: The burden of multimorbidity has been observed worldwide and it has signifcant consequences on health outcomes. In Australia, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is comparatively low amongst Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders, yet no studies have examined the efect of multimorbidity on HRQoL within this at-risk population. This study seeks to fll that gap by employing a longitudinal research design. Methods: Longitudinal data were derived from three waves (9, 13, and 17) of the household, income and labour dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. A total of 1007 person-year observations from 592 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander individuals aged 15 years and above were included. HRQoL was captured using the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF36), and multimorbidity was defned using self-reports of having been diagnosed with two or more chronic health conditions. Symmetric fxed-efects linear regression models were used to assess how intraindividual changes in multimorbidity were associated with intraindividual changes in HRQoL. Results: Approximately 21% of Indigenous Australians were classifed as experiencing multimorbidity. Respondents had statistically signifcantly lower HRQoL on the SF-36 sub-scales, summary measures, and health-utility index in those observations in which they experienced multimorbidity. Among others, multimorbidity was associated with lower scores on the SF-36 physical-component scale (β= −6.527; Standard Error [SE]=1.579), mental-component scale (β= −3.765; SE=1.590) and short-form six-dimension utility index (β= −0.075; SE=0.017). Conclusion: This study demonstrates that having multiple chronic conditions is statistically signifcantly associated with lower HRQoL amongst Indigenous Australians. These fndings suggest that comprehensive and culturally sensitive health strategies addressing the complex needs of individuals with multimorbidity should be implemented to improve the HRQoL of Indigenous Australians.Item Metadata only Cumulative environmental risk in early life is associated with mental disorders in childhood(Cambridge University Press, 2023) O'Hare, K.; Watkeys, O.; Whitten, T.; Dean, K.; Laurens, K.R.; Harris, F.; Carr, V.J.; Green, M.J.Background: No single environmental factor is a necessary or sufficient cause of mental disorder; multifactorial and transdiagnostic approaches are needed to understand the impact of the environment on the development of mental disorders across the life course. Method: Using linked multi-agency administrative data for 71 932 children from the New South Wales Child Developmental Study, using logistic regression, we examined associations between 16 environmental risk factors in early life (prenatal period to <6 years of age) and later diagnoses of mental disorder recorded in health service data (from age 6 to 13 years), both individually and summed as an environmental risk score (ERS). Results: The ERS was associated with all types of mental disorder diagnoses in a dose-response fashion, such that 2.8% of children with no exposure to any of the environmental factors (ERS = 0), compared to 18.3% of children with an ERS of 8 or more indicating exposure to 8 or more environmental factors (ERS ⩾ 8), had been diagnosed with any type of mental disorder up to age 13-14 years. Thirteen of the 16 environmental factors measured (including prenatal factors, neighbourhood characteristics and more proximal experiences of trauma or neglect) were positively associated with at least one category of mental disorder. Conclusion: Exposure to cumulative environmental risk factors in early life is associated with an increased likelihood of presenting to health services in childhood for any kind of mental disorder. In many instances, these factors are preventable or capable of mitigation by appropriate public policy settings.Item Metadata only Cosmopolitan lives on the Cusp of Empire: Interfaith, cross-cultural and transnational networks, 1860-1950(Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) Haggis, J.; Midgley, C.; Allen, M.; Paisley, F.This book looks back to the period 1860 to 1950 in order to grasp how alternative visions of amity and co-existence were forged between people of faith, both within and resistant to imperial contact zones. It argues that networks of faith and friendship played a vital role in forging new vocabularies of cosmopolitanism that presaged the post-imperial world of the 1950s. In focussing on the diverse cosmopolitanisms articulated within liberal transnational networks of faith it is not intended to reduce or ignore the centrality of racisms, and especially hegemonic whiteness, in underpinning the spaces and subjectivities that these networks formed within and through. Rather, the book explores how new forms of cosmopolitanism could be articulated despite the awkward complicities and liminalities inhabited by individuals and characteristic of cosmopolitan thought zones.Item Metadata only Is Happiness a Fantasy Only for the Privileged? Exploring Women's Classed Chances of Being Happy Through Alcohol Consumption During COVID-19(Emerald Publishing, 2023) Lunnay, B.; Warin, M.; Foley, K.; Ward, P.; Ward, P.; Foley, K.This chapter uses the pandemic crisis to explore the social processes that structure happiness and shape fantasies of living a happy life. Considered herein are issues of human potential, gendered and classed possibility and people’s differing chances in cultivating a sense of satisfaction in ‘being happy’, despite living through COVID-19. Interviews with 40 Australian women living during lockdown restrictions with varying levels of social, cultural and economic capital are utilised to make sense of women’s happiness. Vastly different avenues for achieving a happiness fantasy outside of drinking alcohol were possible for more privileged women than for those in middle and working classes. The classed differences in women’s gendered roles in managing emotions (their own and other people’s) and their chances to be happy are exemplified in how the changes to the structure of the day that resulted from COVID-19 restrictions did not devastate or cause stress (as we heard from working-class women) or need to be filtered or blocked out using alcohol in order to retain balanced emotions (as we heard from middle-class women) but rather provided an opportunity to celebrate the achievement of their happiness fantasy. We deduce that for those with less agency available to control their chances of living a happy life, prevailing COVID-19 discourse that places happiness within individual responsibility and focuses on personal resilience rather than tending to the conditions for flourishing, is problematic.Item Metadata only Circuits of time: enacting postgenomics in Indigenous Australia(SAGE Publications, 2023) Warin, M.; Keaney, J.; Kowal, E.; Byrne, H.Some Indigenous Australians have embraced developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) and epigenetic discourses to highlight the legacies of slow violence in a settler colonial context. Despite important differences between Indigenous and scientific knowledges, some Indigenous scholars are positioning DOHaD and epigenetics as a resource to benefit their communities. This article argues that time plays a crucial role of brokering disparate knowledge spaces in Indigenous discourses of postgenomics, with both Indigenous cosmological frames and DOHaD/epigenetics centring a circular temporal model. Drawing on interview data with scientists who work in Indigenous health, and broader ethnographic work in Indigenous Australian contexts where epigenetics is deployed, this article explores how different circularities of space and time become entangled to co-produce narratives of historical trauma. We use the concept of biocircularity to understand the complex ways that Indigenous and postgenomic temporalities are separated and connected, circling each other to produce a postcolonial articulation of postgenomics as a model of collective embodiment and distributed responsibility.Item Open Access Illustrating the impact of commercial determinants of health on the global COVID-19 pandemic: Thematic analysis of 16 country case studies(Elsevier BV, 2023) Freeman, T.; Baum, F.; Musolino, C.; Flavel, J.; McKee, M.; Chi, C.; Giugliani, C.; Falcão, M.Z.; De Ceukelaire, W.; Howden-Chapman, P.; Nguyen, T.H.; Serag, H.; Kim, S.; Carlos, A.D.; Gesesew, H.A.; London, L.; Popay, J.; Paremoer, L.; Tangcharoensathien, V.; Sundararaman, T.; et al.Previous research on commercial determinants of health has primarily focused on their impact on noncommunicable diseases. However, they also impact on infectious diseases and on the broader preconditions for health. We describe, through case studies in 16 countries, how commercial determinants of health were visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they may have influenced national responses and health outcomes. We use a comparative qualitative case study design in selected low- middle- and high-income countries that performed differently in COVID-19 health outcomes, and for which we had country experts to lead local analysis. We created a data collection framework and developed detailed case studies, including extensive grey and peer-reviewed literature. Themes were identified and explored using iterative rapid literature reviews. We found evidence of the influence of commercial determinants of health in the spread of COVID-19. This occurred through working conditions that exacerbated spread, including precarious, low-paid employment, use of migrant workers, procurement practices that limited the availability of protective goods and services such as personal protective equipment, and commercial actors lobbying against public health measures. Commercial determinants also influenced health outcomes by influencing vaccine availability and the health system response to COVID-19. Our findings contribute to determining the appropriate role of governments in governing for health, wellbeing, and equity, and regulating and addressing negative commercial determinants of health.