Deconstruction Essay on Health Culture and Safety of Indigenous People

Running head: DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
Deconstruction essay
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
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DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
Introduction:
Deconstruction in literature has been considered as the theory of criticism that creates
questions for traditional assumption regarding identity, culture, certainty and truth. In
deconstruction literature questions are focused instead of answers. It is required to inquire the
situation from which the questions were developed (Vo 2013). The purpose of the assignment is
to prepare deconstruction literature regarding the health culture and safety of indigenous people
in order to understand the philosophical position and underpinning responses regarding the
health issues of aboriginals. The chosen topic for the assignment is why are Aboriginal people
prone to alcohol and substance abuse? In this regards the following paper will provide
terminology, assumptions, ‘question the question’ and brief discussion about the question
Terminology:
A deconstruction essay focuses entirely on segmentalising each and every word or terms
that has been used in the question and deconstructing the meaning behind the same all the while
refraining to answer the actual question being asked (Vo 2013). For this deconstruction essay,
the question asked is “Why are Aboriginal people prone to alcohol and substance abuse?”, and
there are various terms associated with this question indicating at certain assumptions and
stereotypes which is going to be explored and evaluated here. The first notable term used in here
is “aboriginals”, which is a broad umbrella term that signifies a wide community living in
Australia. The aboriginals are described as the first people of Australia, the natives that have
been living in the Australia close to 40000 years before the colonization period began in
Australia (Nikro 2014). The second notable term that is present in the selected question is
“alcohol” or the abuse of it. Now it has to be mentioned that alcohol is a generic term that
denotes the psychoactive substance that is the preliminary active ingredient in beer, wine and

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DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
hard liquor that causes the effect of intoxication in the consumer. The next term is also
associated with abuse is “substance” which signifies drugs which is also a psychoactive
substance that can be inhaled, smoked, injected, consumed or absorbed via a patch causes a
temporary sense of intoxication (Alterman 2014). Now the most important fact that needs to be
discussed here is the term abuse and whether the use of this term has been justified. Abuse can
be defined as a malicious act that is committed with the intention of harming or a negative intent.
However, the aboriginals have been through a prolonged history of trauma and torture which can
be a fact that contributed to the habit of addiction. Based on this assumption, the term abuse
seems misfit and stereotypical, which could have been replaced by addiction.
Assumptions or concepts:
The aboriginal people have been consistently linked with poor quality of life as indicated
by different social determinants of health. The health outcomes of the individuals of the
community are of poor standards in comparison to the non-aboriginal counterparts. Mortality and
varied morbidities have been rising at an epidemic rate in the Aboriginal communities which are
known to be perpetuated in a vicious cycle of poor living conditions. A lack of justice and health
facilities is reported to have an associated with the poor health outcomes of the individuals at
different stages. The health conditions that are related to substance abuse are brain
cardiovascular problems, gastrointestinal problems, liver damage and respiratory problems. In
addition, the other adverse health impacts include kidney damage, impairment in the immune
system and frequent chances of infection (Conway et al. 2017). As per the health data published
by the Australian Government Department of Health, aboriginal population has more chances of
dying at a lesser age as compared to the non-indigenous counterpart. Around one-in-eight
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people reported to have cardiovascular diseases such as