From Deficit to Strength-Based Aboriginal Health Research – Learning from those Who Flourish

Abstract

Aboriginal Australians have a fundamental human right to opportunities that lead to healthy and flourishing lives. While the impact of trauma on Aboriginal Australians is well-documented, a pervasive deficit narrative that focuses on problems and pathology persists in research and policy discourse. This narrative risks further exacerbating Aboriginal disadvantage, through a focus on ‘fixing what is wrong’ with Aboriginal Australians, and the internalising of these narratives by Aboriginal Australians. While a growing body of research adopts strength-based models, limited research has sought to explore Aboriginal flourishing. This conceptual paper seeks to contribute to a burgeoning paradigm shift in Aboriginal research, seeking to understand what can be learned from Aboriginal people who flourish, how we best determine this, and in what contexts this can be impactful. Within, we argue the case for a new approach to exploring Aboriginal wellbeing that integrates salutogenic, positive psychology concepts with complex systems theory to understand and promote Aboriginal wellbeing and flourishing, While deeper work may be required to establish the parameters of a strength-based, culturally aligned Aboriginal conceptualisation of positive psychology, we suggest the integration of Aboriginal and Western methodologies offer unique and potent means of shifting the dial on seemingly intractable problems.

A Call for Transformative Intersectional LPAA Intervention for Equity and Social Justice in Ethnosocially Diverse Post-Stroke Aphasia Services

“…Illness narratives can also provide insights on health care experiences and facilitator-barrier dynamics in the post-stroke communication environment (Bennett et al, 2020;Guerrero-Arias et al, 2020;Kambanaros, 2019;Sather & Howe, 2021). Furthermore, personal reflections on the illness can be helpful to understand group-specific social hierarchies, particularly the social position of older individuals, and the systems of support, resilience, and flourishing in the community (Bennett et al, 2020;Bullen et al, 2023). In terms of older individuals, some communities view their older adults as a blessing because they represent experience, wisdom, and knowledge.…”

“…Rich intersectional client and caregiver input would align the LPAA's social purpose of life reintegration with PWAs' life histories, multifaceted identity profiles, resilience mechanisms, and sociocultural norms. Additionally, client and caregiver input would shed light on PWAs' experiences with institutional health care factors such as cultural adequacy, resource availability, practitioners' extent of training, and social responsiveness in care practices (Bennett et al, 2020;Bullen et al, 2023;Centeno, 2023;Holman & Walker, 2020). Very importantly, input from PWAs and their caregivers in ethnosocially diverse contexts would leverage the influential LPAA model with health equity principles to shift clinical attention away from monocultural normative intervention models toward stakeholder-informed approaches grounded in the life trajectories of marginalized geriatric PWA populations (Ferraro et al, 2017;Inungu & Minelli, 2022;Webkamigad et al, 2020).…”

Intersectionality and Its Relevance in the Context of Aboriginal People with Brain Injury in Australia

“…Such framing locates the problems within Aboriginal people and communities and thus marks them as the "areas that require change" (Watego et al 2021b). There is a focus on disease and "problems" rather than strengths or Aboriginal peoples'/community's ability to "flourish" (Bullen et al 2023). This reinforces the historic and ongoing deficit narrative that so often removes agency from Aboriginal clients, despite national policies which promote Aboriginal leadership and self-determination (Commonwealth of Australia 2013) and which align with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ( 2007).…”

Indigenous philosophy in environmental education

“…For a historical context we draw on Tuhiwai Smith (2021) who shows the Indigenous “problem,” is that of Indigenous presence on Indigenous Lands coveted by colonisers. After Indigenous people were hunted and placed in reserves, the “Indigenous problem” became one of policy discourse and “deficit.” The discourse is now changing with a shift from deficits – to strengths – to flourishing-based approaches which recognise that what enables well-being for Indigenous peoples is what enables well-being and flourishing for all (Bullen et al, 2023). However, the Eurocentric psyche still holds a belief of Indigenous “problem,” leading to racism and more (Tuhiwai Smith, 2021, pp.…”