Moving Forward Together in Aboriginal Women's Health: - Theses ...

Moving Forward TogetherJanet KellyThe thesisThis thesis discusses particular aspects of our collaborative research, written frommy own perspective as a non-Aboriginal nurse researcher 5 . Three central themesregarding collaboration emerged and these are; knowledge sharing, workingtogether, and addressing issues. These themes are used throughout this thesis toexplore specific aspects of moving forward together. Figure 1.1 below presentsthese in visual format for those who connect to visual rather than written cues.KnowledgeSharingWorkingTogetherAddressingIssuesFigure 1.1 The three central themes of this researchThis visual format is used in the summary of each chapter to reinforce how eachchapter relates to, and expands on, these central themesThe writing style and structure of this thesis reflects the importance placed oncollaboration and challenging Western colonisation trends. Aboriginal Elderwomen from the Aboriginal Women’s Reference Group strongly argued that towrite two separate documents, one for community and one for examination, wouldbe seen as taking Aboriginal knowledge and repackaging it in ways that are nolonger accessible to community; another act of colonisation. In recognition of thesewomen’s previous experiences of having their cultural knowledge taken andpublicly ridiculed, and the trust they placed on me not to do this again, I soughtways that I could meet both their cultural need for a transparent and readable text,and my need to create an academic text suitable for PhD examination. In apragmatic sense, I believed both were possible, and in fact had to be possible forthis to develop into a highly respectful, ethical and collaborative research project. I,and most of the co-researchers, regarded the Aboriginal Women’s Reference Groupcultural guidelines as important as the university’s academic guidelines. This was5 If any of the co-researchers were to write about our collaborative research, it would be different. Itwould reflect their particular emphasis and priorities.22