What do you hope to accomplish or learn throughout the course? What do you want to learn about Indigenous Australia and its people? Please provide a comment about both your personal and professional life/perspective.
Throughout this course, I hope to obtain a thorough grasp of Indigenous Australia and the current community in this country. I am confident that fear about indigenous Australia is an important piece of information that all Australian people should be aware of. At this level, I am already I am thoroughly appreciating the traditional cultures practiced by this community, the psychological implication of colonization and outlooks amid the Western and Indigenous cultures; and all this are clearly explained in my course. As I yearn to be a professional psychologist, I hold that this knowledge shall act as a positive attribute toward my career since it will help me to interact effectively with my clients from indigenous cultures.
After being provided with a brief overview of the course and some initial material, how have you responded to the information and what are your initial feelings about the course?
After being briefed about the course and when I came across the scholarly material concerning my field I was first got confused and irritated. For instance, I wondered how I will deal and interact with some cultural groups which look like primitives or uncivilized.
What was your reaction to the content; hearing/reading the historical documents and books’ depictions in relation to Indigenous Australians before and during colonization?
After reading and receiving some information about Indigenous Australian from the historical books and documents, I started to appreciate the way they have culturally developed before and in the course of colonization.
(a) What can you remember about the earliest times you met or heard about Indigenous Australians? For example was it at kindergarten, primary/high school, friends, at home (through your parents, siblings), family connections, workplace, media? What was said implied, shown about Indigenous Australians? Was it positive or negative in its message? What do you think were the implications of these messages?
The first time I heard about Indigenous Australians I was in Primary school. At this point, we were taught about the Aboriginal community and they were referred to as uneducated people, they lacked civilization, wandered along the desert hunting for food, and we were also told that in 1978 this group complied peacefully during the Western Civilization. Our teacher also uttered that this person had sophisticated systems including medicine men, navigation through the application of oral maps and stars to reinforce flourishing trade routes crossways the region. Moreover, I was informed about the way the Aboriginals mounted fierce rebellion to British invaders, and in some instances, they conquered military victories.
(b) After completing the first four weeks what do you think/perceive and feel? What have you learned that has changed your perceptions or knowledge about Indigenous Australians?
After I completed the first four weeks I started understanding Aboriginal scientific and intellectual achievements. For instance, in the view of Yolngu community, I got surprised their action of using tides through liking them with the stages of the moon (Foucault, 2013). Moreover, I also appreciated the way into which some Aboriginals used eclipses hence knowing how the planets move in a different way from the stars. Indeed, I realized that this tribe used nature-based knowledge to monitor the cycles of travel from one place to the other as well as for optimizing the availability of seasonal foods (Garling, Hunt, Smith, and Sanders, 2013).
According to Clay’s article, what were the key three issues that contributed to psychologists’ growing interest in Indigenous Australians and psychology?
There are three core factors that have led to psychologists’ developing curiosity in native Australians and Psychology. First, the community-oriented psychologists started to identify the appalling statistics concerning mental health (Berkes and Ross, 2013). Second, the Australian inhabitants themselves began becoming psychological coached and established a course of attaining greater control of their own mental services. Moreover, the non-native psychologists started recognizing their personal racist attitudes of their profession (Rebecca, 2002).
Why did psychologists seemingly “get absolutely nowhere” when attempting to treat an Indigenous person in practice? [50]
The psychologists appear to get completely nowhere because of lacking experience about the community which they are intending to explore. This deficiency makes them attempt treating indigenous individuals in a psychiatric ward since they are only using the fresh knowledge they have acquired from the universities, that is, the western ways of intervention (Rebecca, 2002).
What does psychologist, Patricia Dudgeon say non-Indigenous psychologists should do in order to work effectively with Indigenous Australians?
In order for non-indigenous psychologists to work effectively with Indigenous Australians, they need to learn about numerous peoples and the traditional practices. For instance, while these psychologists are working cross-culturally, they need to investigate the group’s beliefs and values hence avoiding chances where they can’t act against someone’s customs (Rebecca, 2002).
Three areas of competence were identified for a practitioner to develop, in order to become ‘culturally competent’ working with Indigenous people? [150]
A practitioner is supposed to have values, skills and knowledge competencies so as to be able to become culturally competent while dealing with indigenous individuals. In the view of knowledge, the social workers should recognize that there are numerous variations existing amid native nations in elements such as customs, spirituality, and beliefs (Waterton and Watson, 2013). Moreover, the skills endowed by the culturally competent practitioners should be drastically different those normally required for psychological practice. However, some skills do have specific relevance and importance given cultural considerations with a particular population. As far as values are concerned, the practitioners must have their personal set of values taught by their paradigms. These positive values and a sense of optimistic self-esteem and things around the will motivate them to have a continued positive interaction with indigenous communities. Indeed, the above competencies will aid the practitioner to interact with natives without the emergence of conflicts (Weaver, 1999).
Summarize in your own words, the concept of ‘cultural competence’ as it relates to the profession of psychology.
I have realized that strive for cultural competence emanates from the understanding that the community is hastily getting diversified, and along with this multiplicity there comes differing value systems norms, and beliefs. Indeed, the cultural competencies can be achieved through caring about the existing families and future generation. This action is contained with an ethical imperative for making ethnicity and cultural competence to be the ground of everything carried out in the community (Weaver, 1999).
Can you identify what your areas of development may be in order to become a culturally competent practitioner?
Culturally competency can be achieved through undergoing a development process of changing from using personal culture as a yardstick for assessing all actions or behaviors. Moreover, the practitioners must also integrate their values and knowledge with social work expertise concerning ethnically competent practice. Indeed, these professionals should obtain skills that are capable of meeting the requirements of different groups or clients. However, it is important to understand that the development of cultural competence is a long-term on-going process; hence the practitioners should be patience and optimistic (Weaver, 1999).
References
Australia, I.C.O.M.O.S., 2015. Australia. Heritage at Risk, pp.35-39.
Barbour, W. and Schlesinger, C., 2012. Who’s the boss? Post‐colonialism, ecological research and conservation management on Australian Indigenous lands. Ecological Management & Restoration, 13(1), pp.36-41.
Berkes, F. and Ross, H., 2013. Community resilience: toward an integrated approach. Society & Natural Resources, 2a6(1), pp.5-20.
Foucault, M., 2013. Politics, philosophy, culture: Interviews and other writings, 1977-1984. Routledge.
Garling, S., Hunt, J., Smith, D. and Sanders, W., 2013. Contested governance: culture, power, and institutions in Indigenous Australia (p. 351). ANU Press.
Langton, M., Palmer, L., and Rhea, Z.M., 2014. Community-oriented protected areas for indigenous peoples and local communities. Indigenous peoples, national parks, and protected areas: A new paradigm linking conservation, culture, and rights, 84.
Nakata, M., Nakata, V., Keech, S. and Bolt, R., 2012. Decolonial goals and pedagogies for Indigenous studies. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1).
Rebecca A. C., 2002. Psychology around the world: Psychologists recognize a history of oppression as they work with indigenous Australians. April 2002, 33(4), p.56.
Waterton, E. and Watson, S., 2013. Heritage and community engagement: collaboration or contestation?. Routledge.
Weaver, H.N., 1999. Indigenous people and the social work profession: Defining culturally competent services. Social Work, 44(3), pp.217-225.
