Indigenous Sistergirls’ Experiences of Family and Community

ABSTRACT

While increasing attention has been paid to the experiences of Indigenous sistergirls over the past decade there still remains a dearth of empirical research on the experiences of this diverse population of Indigenous people. This paper seeks to add to the small body of existing literature by reporting on a thematic analysis of existing media in which 18 sistergirls shared their experiences of family and community. The thematic analysis identified two themes within each of these topics. Specifically, when talking about family, both familial acceptance and rejection were salient themes. When talking about community, both the traditional role of sistergirls in their communities and negative responses from communities were salient themes. The paper concludes by suggesting that increased knowledge about the lives of sistergirls may assist social workers in supporting sistergirls both in their own outreach endeavours, and in providing more culturally competent services.

KEYWORDS:

• Community
• Family
• Indigenous
• Sistergirls
• Wellbeing

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the sovereignty of the Kaurna people, the First Nations people upon whose land we live and work. Support for work conducted on this paper was provided by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, FT130100087.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Damien W. Riggs http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0961-9099