DP9-Aboriginal-Spirituality

Database searches:
• Informit
Search query ‘Indigenous’ or ‘Aborigin*’ and ‘spirituality’
Other research at:
• Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies to gain access to archives, books,
videos, journal articles and resource kits
• Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian Peoples Keeping Place to gain access to books and videos
• Southern Cross University Library to gain access to journal articles, books and videos
• The University of Sydney, Fisher Library, to gain access to online journal articles, books and videos
• The principal researcher’s personal library.
Initial data analysis
The sources of information on Aboriginal Spirituality were sorted into sections according to themes, and these
now follow many of the chapter headings in this work; for example, Aboriginal philosophy, gender issues,
international voices, Christianity, and social and emotional wellbeing practitioners.
The findings that were not anticipated were, first, the quality of work of contemporary Australian social
commentators who have been deeply influenced by Aboriginal people of high degree and who now subscribe to
the value of Aboriginal Spirituality in contemporary lives. Second, the evidence found of deep considerations of
Spirituality in the contemporary cultural life of Aboriginal people. Both of these sections needed to be included
to provide a wholistic view of the impact of Spirituality on the contemporary social and emotional wellbeing of
Aboriginal people and its potential value to all peoples.
Extra research
It became apparent that to illustrate the role of Spirituality in Aboriginal lives it would be necessary to seek
examples from the vast range of Aboriginal life writing that may not directly reference Spirituality in the title but
which, nonetheless, was concerned with this concept. Moreton-Robinson’s (1998, 2000) analysis of Aboriginal
women’s life writings and the subjugation of Aboriginal knowledges, including Spirituality, proved important
in this. It was realised that it is not within the scope of this project to analyse the range of Aboriginal biography
and autobiography for evidence of Spirituality, but it is important to flag this as an important component of
lived lives and an area of rich potential for further research.
It became clear that since Spirituality has a central role in the wellbeing of Aboriginal people, a section on
Aboriginal wellbeing would enhance the readers’ understanding of this little-understood concept.
Further, since the research on Spirituality established the primacy of cultural difference in the concept of
personhood, it became important to reference the research of anthropologists that explained this. So, too, was
anthropology sourced for approaches to dealing with or working with difference. The ways in which culture is
disregarded, or glossed as a perspective, has a critical impact in the lives of an Aboriginal minority in a settler
colonial society and, consequently, on their social and emotional wellbeing.
Finally, it also became important to research and reference historical understandings of the nature of colonialism
and the impacts of colonial ethics, practices and attitudes on the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal
people, as this is recognised in the CRCAH Program Statement for Social and Emotional Wellbeing (CRCAH n.d.)
as having a crucial impact and is part of the wholistic conception of wellbeing.
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