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The study examines how white teachers talked to children about national identity and cultural diversity by drawing on qualitative research with eight- to 12-year-old students and their teachers from four Australian primary schools with different racial, ethnic and cultural demographics. Despite a range of explicit and implicit approaches that fostered different levels of critique among students, teachers often communicated Australian national identity as commensurate to white racial and Anglo-Australian cultural identity. We identified three main approaches teachers used to talk about national identity and cultural diversity: cultural essentialism, race elision and a quasi-critical approach. We conclude that the wider education system needs to develop a more formal curriculum structure that guides teachers in developing a better awareness of the power of white normativity, and to critically and explicitly counter discourse and practice that centres whiteness as foundational to dominant conceptualisations of national identity.

Ethnic-racial socialisation is broadly described as processes by which both minority and majority children and young people learn about and negotiate racial, ethnic and cultural diversity. This article extends the existing ethnic-racial socialisation literature in three significant ways: (1) it explores ways children make sense of their experiences of racial and ethnic diversity and racism; (2) it considers ways children identify racism and make distinctions between racism and racialisation; and (3) it examines teacher and parent ethnic-racial socialisation messages about race, ethnicity and racism with children. This research is based on classroom observations, semi-structured interviews and focus groups with teachers, parents and students aged 8-12 years attending four Australian metropolitan primary schools. The findings reveal that both teachers and parents tended to discuss racism reactively rather than proactively. The extent to which racism was discussed in classroom settings depended on: teachers' personal and professional capability; awareness of racism and its perceived relevance based on student and community experiences; and whether they felt supported in the broader school and community context. For parents, key drivers for talking about racism were their children's experiences and racial issues reported in the media. For both parents and teachers, a key issue in these discussions was determining whether something constituted either racism or racialisation. Strategies on how ethnic-racial socialisation within the school system can be improved are discussed.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous Australians are underrepresented and considerably disadvantaged within the Australian system of higher education. The various measures taken by Australian universities over the past decades have produced varying levels of success in increasing Indigenous participation and completion rates. In order to continue improving Indigenous Australian participation in higher education, it is important to understand the current patterns of participation and factors within universities that are associated with participation and success. In this article we analyse higher education student and staff statistics available from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) and information sourced from the web sites of 40 Australian universities to examine correlations between various Indigenous student support mechanisms and Indigenous students' higher education participation rates. Our results indicate that there is a dual system of Indigenous higher education, with one group of universities excelling at attracting Indigenous students, and a different group of universities demonstrating high Indigenous student completion rates. We argue that challenges remain in determining how to increase commencements at universities with high Indigenous completion rates without compromising entrance requirements or further diluting the level of student support, and how to increase completion rates at universities with higher numbers of Indigenous students.

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-5871.2009.00581.x Byline: Emma Kowal (1) Author Affiliation: (1)University of MelbourneAustralia

Aboriginal Australians represent one of the longest continuous cultural complexes known. Archaeological evidence indicates that Australia and New Guinea were initially settled approximately 50 thousand years ago (ka); however, little is known about the processes underlying the enormous linguistic and phenotypic diversity within Australia. Here we report 111 mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) from historical Aboriginal Australian hair samples, whose origins enable us to reconstruct Australian phylogeographic history before European settlement. Marked geographic patterns and deep splits across the major mitochondrial haplogroups imply that the settlement of Australia comprised a single, rapid migration along the east and west coasts that reached southern Australia by 4945ka. After continent-wide colonization, strong regional patterns developed and these have survived despite substantial climatic and cultural change during the late Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. Remarkably, we find evidence for the continuous presence of populations in discrete geographic areas dating back to around 50ka, in agreement with the notable Aboriginal Australian cultural attachment to their country., Author(s): Ray Tobler [1]; Adam Rohrlach [2, 3]; Julien Soubrier [1, 4]; Pere Bover [1]; Bastien Llamas [1]; Jonathan Tuke [2, 3]; Nigel Bean [2, 3]; Ali Abdullah-Highfold [5]; Shane [...]

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. Keywords: Indigenous; Public health: Multiculturalism; Postcolonial; Politics; Australia

David Mosse. Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice. London and Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, 2005. Pp.315, bibliog., index. US$50.00 (Pb.), ISBN 0-7453-1798-7; US$85.00 (Hc.), ISBN 0-7453-1799-5. [...]

Indigenous participation in every aspect of health research is increasingly recognised as an important element of any research project that aims to improve Indigenous health. Despite the acceptance of its importance, when the concept of 'Indigenous participation' is mentioned. authors are often imprecise as to the nature and purpose of participation, and its relationship to improved health outcomes. This report attempts to bring some clarity to the variety of meanings we might give Indigenous participation in research. For the purposes of stimulating further debate, we identify four distinct, but overlapping, rationales: pragmatic, moral, interventionist, and epistemological. Each has different implications for how Indigenous participation should be implemented and evaluated. More debate on the meanings and purposes of Indigenous participation will contribute to a refined understanding of its potential benefits to health research.

CHOLERA OUTBREAK Charles L Briggs with Clara Mantini-Briggs, Stories in the Time of Cholera: Racial Profiling During a Medical Nightmare, University of California Press, 2003 Stories in the Time of [...]

Objective: This study examined the practices and attitudes of Australian biobanks regarding access to samples and data, as well as local and global networking with other biobanks. Methods: This was a mixed-methods study, including an online survey of Australian biobank administrators and qualitative interviews with survey participants. The survey examined the criteria applied when considering requests to share or network. The interviews explored attitudes and practices regarding sharing and networking. Results: Most (90.9%; 30/33) biobanks offered access to their samples and data to others, principally for research (90.6%; 29/32). The most common criteria used to evaluate access requests included ethical oversight (84.8%; 28/33), scientific merit (84.8%; 28/33) and intended use (81.8%; 27/33). Just over two-thirds (69.7%; 23/33) of biobanks participated in Australian networks, and 39.1% (9/23) participated in global networks. Networking took the form of both sharing standardised operating procedures and policies (60.9%) and sharing samples and data (43.5%). Thirteen of the 16 interviewees participated in networks. Motivations for sharing included scientific necessity, sharing expertise and standardising operations and governance. Significant barriers to networking remain, including insufficient resources, inconsistent regulations and procedures, and cultural and political issues to do with the conduct of research. Conclusions: Many Australian biobanks are already active participants in various types of global biobanking. If biobanks are to expand and make the most of their involvement in global networks, then important barriers need to be overcome. What is known about the topic?: Biobanks that store human tissue and associated data are increasingly forming local, national and global networks. These networks create opportunities for enhancing the utility and sustainability of biobanks, but also raise considerable technical, legal and ethical challenges. What does this paper add?: This paper reports findings from a mixed-methods study of Australian biobanks and reveals contemporary practices and perspectives concerning sample and data sharing, as well as local and global networking. It found most Australian biobanks currently take part in these activities. What are the implications for practitioners?: Many Australian biobanks are networking in various ways across regional and national borders. A better understanding of current practices and views on significant and emerging issues is relevant to the diverse range of biobank stakeholders involved in any agenda to expand biobank networking, including patients, consumers, clinicians, scientists, policy makers and regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians experience widespread socioeconomic disadvantage and health inequality. In an attempt to make Indigenous health research more culturally-appropriate, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have called for more attention to the concept of emotional and social wellbeing (ESWB). Although it has been widely recognised that ESWB is of crucial importance to the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, there is little consensus on how to measure in Indigenous populations, hampering efforts to better understand and improve the psychosocial determinants of health. This paper explores the policy and political context to this situation, and suggests ways to move forward. The second part of the paper explores how scales can be evaluated in a health research setting, including assessments of endorsement, discrimination, internal and external reliability. We then evaluate the use of a measure of stressful life events, the Negative Life Events Scale (NLES), in two samples of Aboriginal people living in remote communities in the Northern Territory of Australia. We argue that the Negative Life Events Scale is a promising assessment of psychosocial wellbeing in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. Evaluation of the scale and its performance in other samples of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations is imperative if we hope to develop better, rather than more, scales for measuring ESWB among Indigenous Australians. Only then will it be possible to establish standardized methods of measuring ESWB and develop a body of comparable literature that can guide both a better understanding of ESWB, and evaluation of interventions designed to improve the psychosocial health of Indigenous populations and decrease health inequalities.

Background: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience a greater burden of disease and die younger than non-Indigenous Australians, with Aboriginal people living in remote areas of the Northern Territory of Australia having the lowest life expectancy estimates. Despite a high burden of chronic disease among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, access to specialist health services remains low and models of care that increase engagement, may improve health outcomes. Methods: We describe client and staff perspectives of a model of clinical genetics services provided by the MJD Foundation (MJDF) in geographically and culturally complex contexts within the Northern Territory of Australia. We seek to understand the MJDF model's success in supporting Aboriginal families with the familial, neurodegenerative condition Machado-Joseph disease and how it could be applied in the provision of other specialist services. Thematic analysis was undertaken on semi-structured interviews with primary health care staff (n = 2), Non-Aboriginal MJDF Staff (n = 7) and Aboriginal MJDF Clients / Community workers (n = 13). Results: Four key themes regarding the MJDF model of service delivery were identified with the service being; 1) client led 2) accepting of various understandings of genetic disease causation 3) focused on relationships, continuity and trust between the service provider and the clients, and 4) committed to incorporating an inclusive whole-of-family practice. The MJDF model takes a community-based, person-and family-centred approach to successfully deliver effective specialist genetic health services in remote community settings. We propose that these approaches have broad application in the future design and delivery of specialist health services particularly in culturally complex settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are we talking about when we talk about decolonization? In this article, we differentiate between epistemic and reparative decolonizing approaches and then consider the differences between postcolonial and decolonial modes in two fields: histories of science and, separately, museology. Touring these fields leads us to affirm the need for scholars to consider the consequences of their allegiances to different critical movements and moments. Whatever it will mean to decolonize history, we conclude, it is both a necessary and necessarily relational enterprise with material and conceptual excesses to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second half of the twentieth century, Indigenous populations from different parts of the world were identified as key subjects in a wide range of investigations into patterns of human biological variation. Focusing on Amazonia, a prominent region for such research, this paper explores some of the complex relationships between biomedicine, anthropological knowledge, political regimes, and Indigenous rights. We focus on the roles of Francis L. Black (Yale University) and James V. Neel (University of Michigan), leading American scientists working in lowland South America from the 1970s to the 1990s, in knowledge production and scientific disputes at the intersection of human biology and susceptibility to infectious diseases, as well as the use of specific biomedical technologies (e.g., vaccines). During the Cold War, arguments concerning genetically determined susceptibility to infectious diseases and the role of biomedicine in health care for Indigenous populations became highly disputed, as scientists were concerned about how scientific knowledge could be used in the implementation of public policies. We argue that analysis of unpublished debates about the political implications of the trajectory of biomedical research about Amazonian Indigenous peoples helps to broaden and complexify the global history of human biological diversity research in the post–World War II period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past half century, the Indigenous Australian population has grown at a far faster rate than can be explained by births alone, and has come to include more western-educated people living in the south-east of the country. Demographers attribute much of this growth to people identifying as Indigenous later in life. Social research has examined the phenomenon of "New Identifiers" in the United States and Canada, where similar shifts in indigenous populations have been observed. This paper is the first to examine the issue in an Australian context. We analyse 33 interviews with people who have come to believe they have Indigenous Australian ancestry later in life, and identify factors that encourage members of this group to subsequently identify as Indigenous, or discourage them from doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author(s): Emma Kowal (corresponding author) [1]; Bastien Llamas [2]; Sarah Tishkoff [3] Broad-consent models for human studies, which leave decisions on data-sharing to the researchers, may not be appropriate for [...]

In the mid-1990s, staff at Museum Victoria planned the new Melbourne Museum. The Indigenous gallery was a major focus at a time when many museums around the world forged new ways of displaying Indigenous heritage. Named Bunjilaka (a Woiwurrung word meaning 'place of Bunjil', referring to the ancestral eaglehawk), the permanent Indigenous exhibit was a bold expression of community consultation and reflexive museum practice. At its heart was a life-size model of Baldwin Spencer, co-author of the classic anthropological monograph The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899). When Bunjilaka was replaced with a wholly Indigenous-designed exhibit of Aboriginal Victoria in 2011, the model was informally retained by museum staff. Initially sitting awkwardly on a trolley in a narrow room where objects were processed for accession, Spencer himself remained unrecorded in any database. With no official existence but considerable gravity, he ended up housed in the secret/sacred room, surrounded by restricted objects that Spencer the man had collected. This article traces Spencer's journey from a post-colonial pedagogical tool to a transgressive pseudosacred object in an emerging era of decolonial museology. I argue that Spencer's fate indicates a distinct period of post-colonial museology (c.1990-2010) that has ended, and illustrates how the shifting historical legacies of science operate in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collections are made and maintained for pleasure, for status, for nation or empire building, for cultural capital, as a substrate for knowledge production and for everything in between. In asking how collections end, we shift the focus from acquisition and growth to erosion, loss and decay, and expose the intellectual, material and curatorial labour required to maintain collections. In this introductory essay, we draw together insights from the history of science and from science and technology studies to investigate the dispersal, destruction, absorption, repurposing and repatriation of the diverse scientific collections discussed in the papers that make up this issue of BJHS Themes, and many other collections besides. We develop a distinction first suggested by the curator and bibliographer John Willis Clark between 'working' collections of objects valued for the information they hold or produce, and 'unique' collections of objects valued for their historical singularity. We show that in many cases, the 'end' of an object or collection involves a shift in the dominant account of its cultural value from 'working' to 'unique' or vice versa. Moving between the laboratory, the museum and difficult-to-classify spaces in between, we argue that 'ending' is not anathema to 'collecting' but is always present as a threat, or as an everyday reality, or even as a necessary part of a collection's continued existence. A focus on ending draws attention not only to the complex internal dynamics and social contexts of collections, but also to their roles in producing scientific knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]