Resistance to Assimilation: Expanding Understandings of First Nations Cultural Connection in Child Protection and Out-of-home Care

ABSTRACT

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are integrated into child protection and out-of-home care (OOHC) systems via the connection element of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (ATSICPP). This article focuses on cultural connection in Australian child protection and OOHC systems over time, from its inception to its contemporary use to improve health and wellbeing and ameliorate cultural disconnection. An expanded understanding of cultural connection in Australian OOHC systems is articulated where cultural connection is theorised as a process of culturally connecting, while a critical position concerning the risk of cultural disconnection in OOHC is held. Indigenous cultures are fundamental to individual and community health and wellbeing. However, cultural connection in Australian OOHC systems risks becoming a site of bureaucratic policy compliance to ameliorate the effects of cultural disconnection produced by disproportionate First Nations child removals. This article illuminates this critical position while theorising how culturally connecting can be better understood in OOHC.

IMPLICATIONS

• Cultural connection for First Nations children and young people is important for health and wellbeing, but is poorly understood in child protection and out-of-home care contexts.

• Cultural connection includes a community element, where culture acts as a point of distinctiveness to show that Indigenous peoples are surviving. At this juncture, cultural connection is a tool to resist the assimilatory impacts associated with ongoing child protection removals.

• Cultural connection can be understood as a complex journey of connecting for First Nations children and young people.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural Connection
• Indigenous Cultures
• First Nations
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
• Out-of-home Care
• Child Protection
• Assimilation

Acknowledgements

This publication has been written from an Indigenous standpoint. The authors wish to declare our positionality: Jacynta Krakouer is a Mineng Noongar woman, Sana Nakata is a Torres Strait Islander woman, James Beaufils is a Gundungurra man, Sue-Anne Hunter is a Wurundjeri and Ngurai Illum Wurrung woman, and Tatiana Corrales, Heather Morris and Helen Skouteris are non-Indigenous women. Thank you to Associate Professor Sarah Wise for her support throughout Jacynta Krakouer's doctoral candidature. The authors also wish to thank the Australian Government for supporting this article via a Research Training Program Scholarship throughout Jacynta Krakouer’s doctoral candidature.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The term “Indigenous” is used in this article to refer to First Nations peoples globally (except in relation to ‘Indigenous standpoint’), while the terms “Aboriginal”, “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander”, and “First Nations” are used to refer to First Nations peoples and cultures from Australia. These terms are deliberately used interchangeably to reflect diverse preferences for terms of address held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Other regional terms (i.e., “Muruwari”) are used where appropriate.

2 From around 1910 to 1920s, assimilation policies were introduced to address the so-called half-caste problem, and were pursued through the forcible removals of the “Stolen Generations” (Wilson, 1997). Note that “half-caste” is an offensive term and is used here in its historical context.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Government via a Research Training Program Scholarship throughout Jacynta Krakouer's doctoral candidature.