Factors of holistic wellbeing for members of the Aboriginal health and community workforce.

Full Text
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Medicine
Griffith Health
The following thesis is an explanation of a lore and culture informed perspective of worker wellbeing for the Aboriginal health and community workforce derived from the lived experiences of such workers. The entirety of this perspective required the furthering of current understandings or explanations of social and emotional wellbeing that were further removed from western understandings of being, particularly organisational wellbeing and more inclusive of notions of lore and culture. For the modelling to blossom a bricolage Indigenist methodology was required. A qualitative methodology incorporating elements of Indigenous standpoint theory, grounded theory, critical theory, autobiographical ethnicity and yarning was used to form a bricolage for this study. This bricolage was developed after acknowledging that none of the above-mentioned approaches on their own quite fit the purposes of the current study however elements of each were considered integral. For the purposes of this study, this bricolage was labelled: Critical Aboriginal Bricolage (CAB). Critical Aboriginal Bricolage (CAB) offers a culturally responsive research methodology that fits with the need to protect Aboriginal knowledge production and to meet academic rigour. It is an approach that promotes the active search for pieces of methodology that most fit the situation under investigation and for those for whom the investigation is occurring. The aim of CAB is to empower the voice of the subject from the culturally informed and involved perspective of the investigator. For the knowledge produced to be most relevant to those it was produced for and from whom the knowledge came, the importance of Aboriginal ways of sharing knowledge had to be respected and used. This leads to more weight being applied to knowledge transfer through story rather than strict Western academic expectation. The author of this thesis is unforgiving in this pursuit and considers relevance to the target audience and acceptance of