Abstract
Objective: Mental health and social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) have been linked as outcomes of attachment to country, spirituality, and engagement in music and arts, particularly for Indigenous Australians. It is not clear how this occurs, even though the links seem substantial.
Method: We explore how mental health and SEWB may be linked to attachment to country, spirituality, and engagement in music and arts by reviewing literature and presenting examples from our research with Indigenous communities. Rather than abstracting, our goal is to describe specific examples encompassing the rich contextual details needed to understand the factors contributing to mental health and SEWB.
Results: While engagement in music is often seen as benefiting mental health because thoughts and feelings can be expressed in less public ways, it can also lead to employment and access to economic and social resources. Attachment to country also shows a plethora of positive outcomes which can contribute to mental health and SEWB even when not explicitly aimed at doing so, such as reducing conflictual situations.
Conclusions: We conclude that more detailed, contextual research is required to fully explore the links between creative enterprises and mental health and SEWB outcomes.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper was presented at the 2010 Creating Futures conference in Cairns, Australia. The authors wish to acknowledge the people in the APY Lands, Nepabunna, and Nukunu communities for their generous contributions and participation. We also thank key informants in government and non-government organizations in South Australia and Northern Territory who have generously talked to us about mental health and wellbeing issues in rural and remote Australia and for Aboriginal Australians.
DISCLOSURE
We also would like to acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council (DP0877901), the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders studies and earlier work that was funded by the Desert Knowledge CRC. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.