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Ambivalent helpers and unhealthy choices: public health practitioners' narratives of Indigenous ill-health

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  • Kowal, Emma
  • Paradies, Yin

Abstract

Public health practitioners in Australian indigenous health work in a complex political environment. Public health training is limited in providing them with conceptual tools needed to unpack the postcolonial nexus of 'fourth-world' health. A workshop was designed by the authors to facilitate critical reflection on how the concepts of race and culture are used in constructions of indigenous ill-health. It was attended by researchers, students, clinicians and bureaucrats working in public health in northern Australia. A thematic analysis of the workshop minutes provided insight into public health practitioners' narratives of Indigenous ill-health. The major themes that emerged included tension between structure and agency and between sameness and difference, and ambivalence surrounding the 'helper' identity of public health practitioners. We suggest that these narratives can be understood as attempts to maintain the moral integrity of both Indigenous people and practitioners. This task is necessitated by the specter of cultural relativism intrinsic to contemporary liberal discourses of multiculturalism that attempt to reconcile the universal rights of the citizen with the special rights of minority groups. We argue that the concepts of self-determination and neocolonialism mark the spaces where universal and particular discourses overlap and clash. Practitioners who seek to escape neocolonialism must inhabit only the discursive space of public health congruent with self-determination, leaving them in a bind common to many postcolonial situations. They must relieve the ill-health of indigenous people without acting upon them; change them without declaring that change is required.

Suggested Citation

  • Kowal, Emma & Paradies, Yin, 2005. "Ambivalent helpers and unhealthy choices: public health practitioners' narratives of Indigenous ill-health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 1347-1357, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:6:p:1347-1357
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    Cited by:

    1. Hayley Franklin & Yin Paradies & Emma Kowal, 2014. "Critical Evaluation of a Program to Foster Reflexive Antiracism," International Journal of Social Science Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 2(2), pages 20-46, September.
    2. Yashadhana, Aryati & Fields, Ted & Burnett, Anthea & Zwi, Anthony B., 2021. "Re-examining the gap: A critical realist analysis of eye health inequity among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 284(C).
    3. Haynes, Emma & Walker, Roz & Mitchell, Alice G. & Katzenellenbogen, Judy & D'Antoine, Heather & Bessarab, Dawn, 2021. "Decolonizing Indigenous health: Generating a productive dialogue to eliminate Rheumatic Heart Disease in Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    4. Landy, Rachel & Cameron, Cathy & Au, Anson & Cameron, Debra & O'Brien, Kelly & Robrigado, Katherine & Baxter, Larry & Cockburn, Lynn & O'Hearn, Shawna & Olivier, Brent & Nixon, Stpehanie, 2016. "Educational strategies to enhance reflexivity among clinicians and health professional students: a scoping study," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68328, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

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