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Environmental epigenetics is increasingly employed to understand the health outcomes of communities who have experienced historical trauma and structural violence. Epigenetics provides a way to think about traumatic events and sustained deprivation as biological "exposures" that contribute to ill-health across generations. In Australia, some Indigenous researchers and clinicians are embracing epigenetic science as a framework for theorising the slow violence of colonialism as it plays out in intergenerational legacies of trauma and illness. However, there is dispute, contention, and caution as well as enthusiasm among these research communities.In this article, we trace strategies of "refusal" (Simpson, 2014) in response to epigenetics in Indigenous contexts. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Australia with researchers and clinicians in Indigenous health, we explore how some construct epigenetics as useless knowledge and a distraction from implementing anti-colonial change, rather than a tool with which to enact change. Secondly, we explore how epigenetics narrows definitions of colonial harm through the optic of molecular trauma, reproducing conditions in which Indigenous people are made intelligible through a lens of "damaged" bodies. Faced with these two concerns, many turn away from epigenetics altogether, refusing its novelty and supposed benefit for Indigenous health equity and resisting the pull of postgenomics., (© 2023. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Several studies have reported increased microbial diversity, or distinct microbial community compositions, in the microbiomes of Indigenous peoples around the world. However, there is a widespread failure to include Indigenous cultures and perspectives in microbiome research programmes, and ethical issues pertaining to microbiome research involving Indigenous participants have not received enough attention. We discuss the benefits and risks arising from microbiome research involving Indigenous peoples and analyse microbiome ownership as an ethical concept in this context. We argue that microbiome ownership represents an opportunity for Indigenous peoples to steward and protect their resident microbial communities at every stage of research., (© 2023. Springer Nature Limited.)

Globally, there is a recognised need that all populations should be able to access the benefits of genomics and precision medicine. However, achieving this remains constrained by a paucity of data that quantifies access to clinical genomics, particularly amongst Indigenous populations. Using administrative data from clinical genetic health services across three Australian jurisdictions (states/territories), we investigate disparities in the scheduling and attendance of appointments among Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people, compared to non-Indigenous people. For 14,870 appointments scheduled between 2014-2018, adjusted Multivariate Poisson Regression models revealed that Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people were scheduled fewer appointments (IRR 0.73 [0.68-0.80], <0.001) and attended at lower rates (IRR 0.85 [0.78-0.93], <0.001). Within this population, adults, females, remote residents, and those presenting in relation to cancer or prenatal indications experienced the greatest disparity in access. These results provide important baseline data related to disparities in access to clinical genomics in Australia., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

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]

The provision of Indigenous cultural training for non-Indigenous health workers has been widely promoted as a method of improving health service provision to 'close the gap' in Indigenous health. However, in the absence of strong evidence, the power of Indigenous cultural training to meaningfully contribute to the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples remains questionable. This research explored how six hospital-based nurses consider the role of Indigenous cultural training and the impact it has had on their practice through individual semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis revealed the significance of individual professionals' attitudes in determining the impact of Indigenous cultural training, as well as the need for institutional support to assist in translating Indigenous cultural training into practice. Utilising post-colonial theory, two key findings emerge. First, the way in which Indigenous cultural training conceptualises 'identity' and 'culture' is critical to its ultimate outcomes. Second, deficits in institutional support limit the efficacy of Indigenous cultural training by placing the onus for institutional change on the shoulders of individual health workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]