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

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellyheal this situation, health practitioners need to find ways to work effectivelywith Aboriginal clients that involve knowledge and power sharing.Ideal speech and knowledge interestsWithin Western literature, German philosopher Jurgon Habermas (1972;Habermas) has been influential in promoting the importance of effective, nondominantcommunication and the ‘ideal speech’ situation’. He described thisas involving true consensus, mutual understanding, equal opportunities to talkand listen, openness and authenticity, the right to participate, and as aconsequence, the generation of new knowledge. This concept of ideal speech isa fundamental aspect of effective primary health care.Habermas (1984) stressed that all people are capable of making rationaldecisions based on their own knowledge and self-reflection, but thatdifferences in intention, wealth, status, knowledge and power can interferewith effective and equal communication. He developed the concept ofknowledge constitutive interests, proposing that people take a specific approachto knowledge development depending on their underlying interests. He claimedthat people had three fundamental interests or levels of knowledge making;these are technical, practical and emancipatory. Technical interests requireempirical, objective and analytic approaches to knowledge development,breaking things down into small parts so that they are understandable. They aregrounded in experience and observation, produced through hypothesis andexperimentation, and aim to control situations. In the primary health caresetting, technical interests involve biomedical scientific knowledge thatenables health professionals to provide quality clinical services and advice,such as women’s health screening and interpretation of results.Practical interests relate to interpretive approaches, underpinned bycommunication, understanding and moral considerations. Habermas believedthat a fundamental need of humans is to live in and be a part of the world andsociety, and not to be in competition with others for survival (Grundy 1987;Habermas 1972, p. 208). Practical interests promote subjective meaningmaking rather than objective observation, assisting health professionals tomove from questioning ‘what can I do’ to ‘what ought I do’ within a particular87