Getting to the heart of the matter: a research partnership with Aboriginal women in South and Central Australia

ABSTRACT

Within the vast majority of qualitative health research involving Indigenous populations, Indigenous people have been marginalised from research conceptualisation and conduct. This reflects a lack of regard for Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, has served to perpetuate deficit narratives of Indigenous peoples’ health and wellbeing, and contributes to failure in addressing inequities as a result of ongoing colonisation and institutionalised oppression and racism. There is a need to place Indigenous voices and ways of doing at the centre of research by working in intercultural partnership, bringing together Indigenous and Western knowledges. This paper explores how such an approach can be applied, demonstrating a reflective process of conceptualisation and conduct that brings together Indigenous ways of working with grounded theory with Aboriginal communities in Australia. Furthermore, it supported a non-Indigenous researcher to learn ways of working respectfully, guided by community protocols. A six-stage research process was developed, overseen by an Aboriginal Women’s Advisory Group. Research conceptualisation and conduct centred on three principles: bringing together Aboriginal ways of working with Western research methodology; using women’s own voices to develop a narrative of cardiovascular health and wellbeing; and ensuring that tangible outcomes were delivered to women and communities in the spirit of partnership and reciprocity. This approach, guided at all steps by Indigenous women, demonstrates a way of adapting qualitative Western methodology to ensure values and principles of ethical guidelines of conduct are upheld to unravel constructs of colonisation, redress past wrongdoing, and reverse deficit narratives.

KEYWORDS:

• Methodology
• community-based participatory research
• Indigenous people
• grounded theory
• Australia

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the wonderful contribution of the women who shared stories and knowledge and the time and support provided by the organisers of the women’s groups.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2022.2147417

Notes

1. Hereon, the term Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is used to refer to Indigenous populations in Australia. When referring to the body of research, the term ‘Aboriginal’ is used. The use of ‘Aboriginal’ to refer to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is commonplace within South Australia and Central Australia, country which spans across dozens of Aboriginal language groups. The Aboriginal Women’s Advisory Group endorsed this decision. The term Indigenous is used to refer to Indigenous populations across the globe. The term ‘non-Indigenous’ is used to refer to Australians who do not identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

2. Hereon referred to as the Advisory Group.

3. JAM reviewed study design and recommendations but was not involved in the co-analysis and interpretation of stories, which was undertaken by the Aboriginal members of the Advisory Group.

4. Hereon, the term research team is used to refer to the collective of the PhD Candidate, the Advisory Group, the supervisory team, and GVK. GVK is a non-Indigenous woman with experience in grounded theory research, joining the research team when these skills were identified as required.

5. Peer support groups involving grandmothers and/or senior women within the community.

6. In Aboriginal culture, there is private and public knowledge. It is unacceptable to make private knowledge public knowledge.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by a NHMRC Postgraduate Scholarship [1134198]; NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence [1044897]; Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship; and Commonwealth Scholarships Program for South Australia. AB is supported by NHMRC Research Fellowship [1137563].