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The ARPNet Dilly bag. A practical field guide to participatory and other research tools for use by Aboriginal research practitioners in Australia
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... This has led to considerable growth in health research related to Indigenous Australians and communities, with government-funded institutions and organizations supporting studies that lead to better health outcomes for the relevant peoples and communities (e.g., Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2016;Lowitja Institute, 2016). The growth in indigenist health research also explains the push to develop methods that resist ongoing colonizing influences and facilitate self-determination and healing for Indigenous peoples (Shahjahan, 2011); support Indigenous communities to create and control research processes to self-define their relationships with others and the environment (Carm, 2014); and in so doing, give rise to conditions where the researched become the researchers (Henry et al., 2002;Sithole, 2012). ...
... Participatory approaches link an Indigenous way of being to the research itself (Bainbridge, Whiteside, & McCalman, 2013). This is demonstrated by Sithole (2012), who developed a practical field guide, including a set of tools, to guide the research undertaken by Aboriginal researchers, including participants, in northern Australia. The field guide provides a valuable means of explaining research to Indigenous peoples and communities, and actively supports their involvement in implementing a study, and collecting and interpreting data. ...
... Indeed, rather than Indigenous core values being integrated into Western approaches, with these Western approaches leading the way, the Yerin Dilly Bag Model serves to privilege Indigenous ways of being. Similarly, the approach is more than a collection of tools to support Indigenous researchers to gain greater participation by groups or communities in the Indigenous research (Sithole, 2012). Instead, the Yerin Dilly Bag Model positions indigenist knowledges and core values at the center of the research itself as a means of, first, legitimizing indigenist knowledges and core values, and, second, acquiring or creating additional knowledge(s) that recognizes and addresses the power-knowledge relationship in the research (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009). ...
In this article, we discuss indigenist approaches to health research, including indigenist knowledges, cultural proficiency, and core values. We also highlight the importance of conducting Indigenous research in ways that are congruent with the needs and interests of Indigenous peoples. The discussion includes consideration of how indigenist approaches can be utilized to generate new Indigenous knowledges, in culturally appropriate ways. We then introduce the Yerin Dilly Bag Model for indigenist health research, an approach that allows for indigenist knowledges to be employed and created by the research/er/ed within an Indigenous framework. Use of the Yerin Dilly Bag Model enables research/er/ed concordance, together with the privileging of Indigenous voices. This is achieved by guiding researchers to align their research with the core values of the researched, with the Yerin Dilly Bag a metaphor for the holder of these core values.
... Following a BNHCRC-sponsored EM research workshop held at the remote Indigenous community of Ngukurr, population 1100, in 2015 (Morley et al. 2016;Sangha et al. 2017b), participating elders from Ramingining, population 870, felt inspired to initiate discussions concerning EM arrangements with their own community members especially given the significant impacts of Cyclones Lam and Nathan in 2015. Community-based Indigenous researchers used PAR tools (Sithole 2012) to engage with the wider community. ...
Northern Australia is prone to recurring severe natural hazards, especially frequent cyclones, flooding, and extensive wildfires. The region is sparsely populated (≪ 0.5 persons km-2), with Indigenous (Aboriginal) residents comprising 14% of the population, and typically the majority in remote regions. Despite national policy committed to addressing emergency management (EM) in vulnerable Indigenous communities, implementation remains unfunded. We synthesise participatory intercultural research conducted over seven years exploring core challenges, opportunities and potential solutions towards developing effective EM partnerships. Similar EM engagement and empowerment issues face First Nations and local communities in many international settings. In search of solutions, we explore developing effective partnership arrangements between EM agencies and culturally diverse Indigenous communities. Observing that government already provides substantial investment in cultural and natural resource management programmes conducted by over 150 Indigenous Ranger Groups (IRGs) nationally, we demonstrate that expansion of IRG roles to incorporate EM community engagement and service delivery can provide multiple cost-effective community and business development benefits for many remote communities.
... A variety of initiatives have been initiated by Australian institutions to promote and guide ethical Indigenous participation and engagement. For example: the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies provide Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies (AIATSIS, 2012); national marine research agencies have developed Indigenous engagement strategies (e.g., AIMS, 2020; CSIRO, 2020); and universities and administrators of research grants have established guidelines for engagement (Sithole, 2012;Australian Government, 2014) or identified Indigenous research priorities to direct research investments (FRDC, 2013). Indigenous land councils have provided guidance on how researchers and others should engage with Indigenous communities. ...
Australian science has evolved to include a number of initiatives designed to promote and guide ethical and culturally appropriate Indigenous participation and engagement. While interest and overall engagement between Indigenous people and marine scientists appears to have grown in the last decade there are also signs that some researchers may not be setting out to engage with Indigenous Australians on the right foot. This research seeks to move beyond anecdotal evidence about engagement of marine researchers with Indigenous Australians by gathering empirical information from the scientists’ perspective. Our survey of 128 respondents showed that 63% (n = 79) of respondents have engaged with Indigenous communities in some way throughout their career, however, most marine research projects have not included Indigenous engagement and when it occurs it is often shorter than 3 years in duration. Responses indicated that the majority of marine scientists see mutual benefits from engagement, do not avoid it and believe it will become more important in the future. We identify a number of challenges and opportunities for marine research institutions, marine researchers and Indigenous communities if positive aspirations for engagement are to be converted to respectful, long-term and mutually beneficial engagement.
... For example, in the year 1965, a new revolutionary invention of the Internet changed the world. In the 1970s, ARPANET [8] was reformed from the military securenet to a civilian secure Internet which becomes an integral part of human lives. Nowadays, Internet creates a new market place which turns into a big business which never happens. ...
Path planning is one of the most important problems to be explored in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for finding an optimal path between source and destination. Although, in literature, a lot of research proposals exist on the path planning problems of UAVs but still issues of target location and identification persist keeping in view of the high mobility of UAVs. To solve these issues in UAVs path planning, optimal decisions need to be taken for various mission-critical operations performed by UAVs. These decisions require a map or graph of the mission environment so that UAVs are aware of their locations with respect to the map or graph. Keeping focus on the aforementioned points, this paper analyzes various UAVs path planning techniques used over the past many years. The aim of path planning techniques is not only to find an optimal and shortest path but also to provide the collision-free environment to the UAVs. It is important to have path planning techniques to compute a safe path in the shortest possible time to the final destination. In this paper, various path planning techniques for UAVs are classified into three broad categories, i.e., representative techniques, cooperative techniques, and non-cooperative techniques. With these techniques, coverage and connectivity of the UAVs network communication are discussed and analyzed. Based on each category of UAVs path planning, a critical analysis of the existing proposals has also been done. For better understanding, various comparison tables using parameters such as-path length, optimality, completeness, cost-efficiency, time efficiency, energy-efficiency, robustness and collision avoidance are also included in the text. In addition, a number of open research problems based on UAVs path planning and UAVs network communication are explored to provide deep insights to the readers.
... The mutual support encouraged among Indigenous researchers in the safety and wellbeing study is an important step, identified by Sherwood (2013), in developing a skilled workforce of Indigenous research practitioners. To boost the ongoing development of participatory methodologies suitable to remote Indigenous Australians, in 2012 the department 5 commissioned Dr Bevyline Sithole to produce a toolkit called a 'dilly bag', documenting research approaches for Aboriginal Community Researchers ( Sithole, 2012). In addition, the department facilitated local researcher skill development through a number of funded research streams with varying levels of community and researcher autonomy ( Vanian et al., 2014). ...
This paper demonstrates how the voices of people affected by a policy can contribute to evaluation quality and utilisation. In this participatory mixed-methods approach, Indigenous Australians in remote parts of the Northern Territory of Australia were involved in evaluation of an intervention that significantly affected their daily lives. The evaluation was inspired by the ideas and values demonstrated in a both-ways learning model. This mixed-methods approach combines a people-centered participatory methodology with a more standardised policy-focused application of survey methods to contribute to policy development and local planning.
The aim of the study was to hear from local people in communities and encourage them to share their views about changes in community safety. It provided a voice for Indigenous Australians affected by the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), which sought to protect children in 73 Indigenous communities across the Northern Territory. The aim of the NTER was to create safer communities and to improve health, nutrition, educational outcomes, service delivery and engagement with Indigenous people. Regardless of views about the NTER, a clear gap in the evidence base for evaluation was to understand if people felt safer after the intervention. Increased police, safe houses, night patrols, health services, family support services and management of income support payments were introduced, but what did Indigenous people living in remote communities think? What was their experience and what will happen to the information they may choose to share?
Adopting a mixed-methods approach that included a large-scale survey and qualitative research conducted with local Indigenous residents of remote communities strengthened evaluative findings, particularly for policy makers and community residents. A participatory research cycle was used to engage local people and return results in an ethical feedback process that aimed to build capacity on the ground and link into future planning. We sought to promote the role of evaluation in remote Northern Territory communities as a worthwhile way for local people to share their voice, stories and experiences with the policy makers whose decisions can so significantly affect their lives.
... Key questions used for each technique are described in detail in the ARPNet field guide for the scoping project (see Sithole 2012). Our main approaches included ranking activities to understand relative differences between hazards, and matrices to understand how perceptions were changing over time. ...
Risks and challenges associated with recurring natural hazards (especially wet season cyclonic and flooding events; dry season extensive savanna fires) facing remote north Australian Indigenous communities are well recognised. Less well appreciated are longer-term challenges required for building community resilience in the face of responding to natural hazards. We report on detailed surveys of community perceptions of resilience undertaken in two communities, Ngukurr and Gunbalanya, in northern Australia. This assessment highlights the critical challenge for government authorities to effectively engage with remote communities. We then address the equally challenging Sangha et al.: Empowering Indigenous Communities in Northern Australia 138 issue of enhancing resilience through building enterprise opportunities. Currently, only few employment opportunities exist in either community. Based on experience with market-based savanna burning greenhouse gas emissions abatement projects in north Australia, we illustrate the potential for ecosystem service-based enterprises to deliver culturally appropriate employment, which offers evident benefits for local communities in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from major natural disaster events.
... Despite these communities having access to large tracts of land and coastline, there are few mainstream economic opportunities available to community members (Altman 2012). To address this issue there have been large Federal initiatives, such as the Working on Country and Caring For Country programs (May 2010), as well as NT specific programs, such as the Aboriginal Research Practitioners' Network, aimed at increasing community capability to take advantage of opportunities that arise in Natural Resource Management (NRM) (Sithole 2012). Given the synergy between Indigenous communities and the environment they live in, these programs have focused on developing skills in NRM with land and sea ranger positions being the most substantial area of employment (Altman et al. 2011). ...
Involving Indigenous community members to assist with the monitoring of harvested populations can greatly assist with the sustainable use of these resources. The benefits of training Indigenous community members in western scientific methods include: increased capability development, increased employment opportunities and more cost effective monitoring output than could be undertaken by government agencies. The aim of this project was to develop a training course to provide elementary scientific skills to Indigenous participants from communities throughout the Northern Territory of Australia. The short term goals of the training were: (1) to increase the capacity of Indigenous communities to conduct monitoring activities and collect biological and physical samples, (2) to increase the employment opportunities for Indigenous community members by providing them with additional skills and a recognised qualification and (3) To provide a cost effective way of conducting monitoring activities in remote areas by using local capability rather than incurring the expense of sending a research team to these locations. The longer term goal of the training is to facilitate the development of research partnerships between Indigenous community members and management agencies as a first step in the move to co-management of aquatic resources. The key components for successfully developing the course were; consistent engagement with Indigenous communities to build relationships and identify priorities for both the community and government agency, the course content involved participation from community members and government scientists, the training addressed the needs of students with English as a second language, the course content was heavily practical and pictorial, assessments were verbal and/or practical and students were housed in accommodation that allowed them to conduct the course to the best of their ability. The research that has been conducted by the participants, as well as three students gaining employment in government research agencies since the completion of the course, suggest that the training has been successful in achieving its short term goals. The research partnerships that have been developed between the government agency and Indigenous community members are still in their infancy, so the move to co-management between these groups is still several years away. However, this training has provided an initial step in this process by increasing the monitoring capability within a substantial number of coastal Indigenous communities that allows them to participate in research programs that underpin the management of their aquatic resources.
Maintaining connections to family, culture and community is essential for strengthening an Aboriginal child’s educational achievements. The Australian Bureau of Statistics collects self-reported information on a range of factors that can assist in understanding what influences Aboriginal children to complete school. The 2014–2015 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) provides a national snapshot about how various characteristics influence the educational experience of Aboriginal children in remote Australia. In this article, findings from NATSISS have been used to interrogate qualitative data from the Whole of Community Engagement initiative led by Charles Darwin University. This is a multi-site participatory action research project working across six remote communities in the Northern Territory, Australia. We use Indigenous community perspectives to describe why maintaining connection to family, culture and community is important for both Aboriginal high school completions in remote Australia, and the subsequent impact this has on pathways into higher education.
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