A risky business? Health and physical activity from the perspectives of urban Australian Indigenous young people

Abstract

Being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander in contemporary Australia is often discursively constructed in health literature as equating with risks of many kinds. This article explores the ways in which a group of urban Australian Indigenous young people perceive, navigate and articulate the so-called ‘risks' pertaining to issues surrounding their health and physical activity. Eight girls and six boys aged 11–13 years were recruited from an urban school in a major Australian city. Each young person was interviewed up to eight times, using multi-modal tools, over two and a half years, to explore the ways in which they engaged with discourses about health, risk and physical activity. Data were analysed both thematically and through a process of critical discourse analysis. The young people in this study did not perceive themselves as ‘at-risk’ of ill-health despite the recognition of ‘unhealthy’ choices or a family history of chronic illness. They appeared to negotiate risk based on both their knowledge of public health messages and their trust in themselves and those around them. The young people's narratives offer an alternate view to the pathologised, statistical ‘stories’ often representing Indigenous Australians in scientific and popular literature and the media.

Keywords:

• risk
• risk perception
• public health
• Indigenous Australian
• young people

Notes

1. In Australia, the term Indigenous incorporates two culturally distinct groups: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The accepted definition of an Australian Aboriginal person is social more than racial. An Aboriginal person is defined as a person who is a descendant of an Indigenous inhabitant of Australia, identifies as an Aboriginal person, and is recognised as Aboriginal by members of the community in which she or he lives (Jonas and Langton 1994). A Torres Strait Islander person is a descendant of an indigenous inhabitant of the Torres Strait Islands (Queensland Government 1991).

2. Murri is a term used by Aboriginal people from Queensland and parts of Northern New South Wales to identify where they come from (NSW Department of Community Services 2009).

3. Blackfellas was historically used by colonialists as a derogatory word for Indigenous Australians but has now been reclaimed by Indigenous people as a term of collective identity and pride.