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

Moving Forward TogetherJanet KellyChapter 10 Collaboration Area Four – ANational Action Learning Action ResearchConferenceOverviewThis chapter discusses the process of planning, implementing and evaluating acollaborative de-colonising action research and action learning conferenceembedded in Aboriginal preferred ways of knowing and doing. TogetherAboriginal and non Aboriginal co-researchers and I planned to createopportunities where Aboriginal people’s experiences and knowledge could beheard, valued and respected. In addition, this collaboration and chapterresponds to my personal concerns regarding the ethics of writing this thesis andpresenting my account of our collaborative research, without first creatingspaces where Aboriginal co-researchers could share their own knowledge andperspectives with a wider audience. A group of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginalresearchers, academics, educators, project managers and other interestedpeople came together to co-plan and co-host a national conference in Adelaide.We agreed on the title Moving Froward Together and focused on both theprocess and outcomes as equally important aspects of our collaboration.MethodsThe methods used in this Collaboration Area include collaborative planningmeetings, recording minutes, email and phone communications, individualevaluation via email, and collective analysis, interpretation, decision makingand evaluation.Co-researcher selectionMany people were invited to become involved in this collaboration project.Those positioned as co-researchers were people who had the time and energyto become involved with the conference planning process. Co-researcherscame from the main three Adelaide universities (University of Adelaide;Flinders University and University of South Australia); the Aboriginal HealthCouncil of SA; Flinders Aboriginal Health Research Unit (FAHRU); the Co-296