Can a white nurse get it? 'Reflexive practice' and the non-Indigenous clinician/researcher working with Aboriginal people

Dr Liz Rix

qualifications: BN(Hons)

contribution: original concept, wrote the first draft

position: Postgraduate student

Australia

Lesley Barclay

qualifications: PhD

contribution: contributed to drafts

position: Professor

Lesley Barclay (AO PhD) is the foundation Professor of Health Services Development at Charles Darwin University and co directs a new Graduate School of Health Practice. As the Chief Investigator she guided medical and midwifery colleagues in one of the first National Health and Medical Research Council Centres of Clinical Excellence in Research focusing on improvements to maternity services. She is currently leading research into maternity services in China funded by ARC in partnership Chinese colleagues, and on Indigenous birth and systems to support this in Australia. Lesley has led over 30 research projects and been successful with 8 NHMRC and ARC grants in the last decade, supervising more than 30 major research theses to successful completion. Five of her graduates are now in professorial positions. In recent years she has published 3 books, 25 refereed journal articles and 15 major reports for government. Lesley has worked in International development for nearly 20 years, as a technical adviser to governments, AusAID, World Bank and WHO, in provision of primary health car, maternal infant/child health and capacity building in health worker education systems. This work has occurred in Asia, Melanesia and the Pacific Islands. Lesley has also served on a variety of national committees such as the NHMRC Council for two terms and was an inaugural ministerial appointee to the Australian Council for Safety and Quality. She was awarded an AO in 2004 in recognition of her contribution to professional and international developments and child health.

Shawn Wilson

qualifications: PhD

contribution: contributed to drafts

position: Sub-Dean, Early career researchers

B.Sc. (U of Manitoba, Canada), M.A. (U of Alaska, USA), PhD. (Monash University, Australia). Research Fellow, University Centre for Rural Health Sub-Dean (ECR) for Rural Health, Sydney Medical School University of Sydney I am Opaskwayak Cree from northern Manitoba, Canada. My main area of expertise is in research methodology and epistemologies, particularly in ways of knowing and conducting research used by Indigenous peoples. I have applied these methodologies and epistemologies within the contexts of Indigenous education, counselling and counsellor education, Indigenous mental health and general Indigenous studies through comparison between Indigenous peoples internationally. In my previous book Gwitch'in Native Elders: Not just knowledge but a way of looking at the world, I began to document some ideas about just what an Elder is and how they can be supported. My more recent book Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods (2008) examines some of the similarities in philosophy underlying Indigenous peoples' research methodologies in Canada and Australia. In addition to further articulating Indigenous philosophies and research paradigms, my research focuses on the inter-related concepts of identity, health and healing, culture and wellbeing.