Week 6.6

Question 1

Guidelines for conducting research in Indigenous populations

Answer 1

National Health and Medical REsearch Council Ethical guidelines for research involving Aboriginal and TOrres Strait Islander Peoples

Question 2

Narratives in psychology

Answer 2

Presently there are two [hidden] narratives within psychology

1) If culturally appropriate, well-designed, empirically-validated psychosocial interventions will have long-term positive effects on self-destructive tendencies [focuses on individual and continues to blame the victim]
2) Psychological interventions have not worked and are unlikely to work until cultural and spiritual dispossession is resolved - this is an unsolvable wicked problem from a psychological perspective [and thus leads to no action]

Question 3

Issues with society and psychology (5)

Answer 3

• Tend to attribute problems to the individual - if have depression you need to go get treatment
• If in protected society, makes resources available but if in collective society, need kin and community around me,
• If disadvantage so bad, what support do you have to advance yourself
• Facing discrimination each day, continuous
• Nobody tackles the overall problem - blaming victim

Question 4

Major problems with psychology [as a science or an intervention] (3)

Answer 4

1) The notion of universalism
2) The constraint that psychology is behavioural science and should not make direct [political] pronouncements on social issues
3) The cultural notion of individualism

Question 5

The notion of universalism

Answer 5

The dominance of ethnocentrism over cultural relativism (all ruled by set of same rules)

Question 6

The constraint that psychology is behavioural science and should not make direct [political] pronouncements on social issues, which led to (2)

Answer 6

• Silence on the stolen generation
• Silence on the current Interventions in the NT and QLD

(Silence associated with stolen intervention, apologized for silence but still remain silent and don’t change future behaviour)

Question 7

The cultural notion of individualism leads to… (2)

Answer 7

1) blaming the victim for their disadvantage
2) Failure to accept any blame - most non-indigenous Australians do not believe that they are responsible for the disadvantage and see no reason why they should apologise

Question 8

From a social justice, there are three fundamental reference points in terms of Indigenous people

Answer 8

1) Equitable treatment
2) Equal access to resources and opportunities
3) Respect for [cultural] differences

Question 9

Psychological arguments against being involved in social justice issues (3)

Answer 9

1) Psychology should be value-free
2) Psychology does not have the knowledge-base to be political
3) Intervention at the individual level is the domain of psychology, but not at community or society level

Question 10

But is psychology value free?

Answer 10

However, in the past [stolen generation], psychological research was not value free, it contributed to the narrative, and it became involved in implementing social policy

Question 11

What was the Australian Psychologists’ role in the policies associated with the Stolen Generation?

Answer 11

• Actively involved in carrying out official government policy
• Not just remaining silent on this issue

(Apologised because actively engaged in stolen generation)

Question 12

Australia voted in 1967 to change the Australian constitution in regards to indigenous people. The referendum included:

Answer 12

• Allowed indigenous people to be counted as Australians

Question 13

How was not including Indigenous Australians justified

Answer 13

Terra nullius

Question 14

Terra nullius (7)

Answer 14

• Terra nullius is a Latin expression meaning “nobody’s land”, and
• Was a legal principle that indicated that land was unoccupied or uninhabited
• Was used in international law to justify claims that territory may be acquired by a state’s occupation of it.
• in Australia, British colonizers regarded the continent as terra nullius at the time of the original settlement

However, it was a myth that indigenous people were counted as flora rather than people

• Convenient way to take over country without paying compensation but means saying they aren’t real people
• Don’t have to live in this area, don’t need passport to move out

Question 15

Apology from psychology in Australia

Answer 15

APS apology to Indigenous Australians