Reflective Essay on Indigenous Australians over the last century

This reflective essay explores the history and treatment of Indigenous Australians over the last century. It discusses the ethical implications for engineering practice and provides insights on how to effectively communicate with Aboriginal communities. The essay also highlights the importance of cross-cultural communication and community engagement in engineering projects.

Running Head: ETHICS
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Reflective Essay
Indigenous Australians over the last century
(Student details :)
5/6/2019

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Contents
Reflective Essay.........................................................................................................................3
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Reflection...................................................................................................................................3
Description: of what I have learned.......................................................................................3
Interpret: interpretation of my insights..................................................................................4
Evaluate: evaluation of what I have learned..........................................................................4
Plan: how my learning will be applied to future practice......................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Reflective Essay
Introduction
In this reflective essay, I will demonstrate my ability to reflect upon being truly
effective professional in the engineering discipline. To do so, an interesting topic of
‘investigation on the history of the treatment of indigenous Australians during the last
century’ will be utilised. In this context, my views over how this history should affect the
ethical practice of engineering (herein after referred as EPOE) will be included. In addition, I
will also explain how the history of the Indigenous Australians during the last century is
influencing me while communicating with Aboriginal representatives and communities being
a modern engineer.
Reflection
To have a systematic approach while reflecting from an engineering perspective, I am
using an important framework called DIEP (Describe, Interpret, Evaluate, and Plan)
framework (RMIT University, 2019). I find DIEP a good strategy to assist me and others
while writing an academic reflection. Besides, the four major steps of this framework are
helpful for describing insights over a new understanding or concept. The framework has
assisted me to interpret, evaluate as well as plan for my future career practice and learning
(RMIT University, 2019).
Description: of what I have learned
The most important thing which I have realised during this module learning is that
community engagement as well as consultation is very important for every project wherever
the common community is involved. I have observed that the process of engagement with
Indigenous Australians becomes more complicated as the peoples in Australia come from
different social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. During this module, my readings and
research made me learnt that Indigenous Australians own a close spiritual and cultural
connection with their land and water sources around their ancient homelands. I have learnt
that such connection of the Aboriginals is termed as their ‘connection to the country’
(Tonkinson, 2019).

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Additionally, after I explored the history of the treatment of Aboriginal people of
Australia then I got to know about following three important events related to their lives and
treatment within Australia:
 Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972
 Native Title Act 1993 (Purdie, Dudgeon, & Walker, 2010).
 Engineers and their Land access
Apart from all of the above I have read about the racial discrimination act related to
Indigenous Australians. Such racial discriminations resulted in the replacement of a huge
number of innocent children form their families under the act of ‘Stolen Generations’. When
I was getting the image of these peoples of Australia, I got to know that Non-Indigenous
people have removed many Indigenous people from their traditional homes just for the sake
of their historical background (Johns, 2014).
Interpret: interpretation of my insights
After researching over Aboriginals and Torres Islander peoples of Australian history,
my interpretation suggests that effective communication plays a vital role in respecting these
communities (Knott, 2010). In this context, I have found cross-cultural communication as an
effective tool to interact with these native peoples of Australia. Moreover, rapport building
seemed crucial while communicating in a cross cultural scenario of Australian communities.
In addition to that, my evolved thinking and thoughts are suggesting that in order to facilitate
Indigenous Australian engagement from an engineer’s perspective (Hickson, 2011),
following measures should be utilised:
One should not assume anything: as an engineer, I realized that non-Indigenous
people of Australia should not assume anything while understanding the key points about
community as well as cultural context (Bassos, 2016). All non-Indigenous peoples should
assess the challenges faced by the Indigenous Australians and hence must help them to
address those challenges in an effective manner.
Australian Govt. should not adopt a centralised approach: being an engineer, I
interpreted that the regional Govt. should not take a bureaucratic approach for solving
traditional owners’ concerns, issues and aspirations but an engagement of the communities
should be used for spending time and solve issues (Purdie, Dudgeon, & Walker, 2010).

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Evaluate: evaluation of what I have learned
Post understanding the significance of Indigenous people community within the
Australian community, I have analysed the importance of cross-cultural communication. One
most important advantage of writing this reflective paper is that I have got a lot of tips over
how to have an effective engagement with Aboriginal peoples as an engineer. Now, from an
engineering perspective I can solve the landscape as well as cultural communication
problems easily (Australis College, 2018).
This reflection allowed me to understand the fact that community engagement,
engineering innovation and ethics requires an effective non-verbal communication along with
the effective verbal communication (Tonkinson, 2019). However, a detailed study over the
history of Aboriginal Australian peoples within this module raised a lot of challenges in front
of me to deal with the Indigenous Australians from the perspective of effective
communication. Hence, after knowing the historical treatment of the Aboriginal Australians, I
am not frightened or deprived of anything but I am now feeling motivated to effectively
communicate and facilitate engagement with those people during future practice (Purdie,
Dudgeon, & Walker, 2010).
Plan: how my learning will be applied to future practice
In this way, based on my learning from this reflective writing, my future plan will be
as follows:
 I will demonstrate a good practice while communicating with Aboriginal Australians
by using clear as well as uncomplicated language.
 Being an engineer, I will always use correct languages for written, verbal and non-
verbal communications in future.
 As an engineer, I will encourage good relationships, deals and business with the
Aboriginal peoples of Australia, so that monetary benefits to this community can help
them to improve the well-being as well as overall community health (Tonkinson,
2019).
Conclusion
In conclusion, I have successfully demonstrated the ability to reflect upon my practice
of being truly professional, innovative and ethical in my discipline of engineering. In

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addition, I have used DIEP framework of reflection which taught me how to reflect within a
systematic way while utilizing critical thinking and analytical approaches. Post reflecting
upon this topic of Australian community engagement I learnt important things such as cross
cultural communication, effective non-verbal communication, empathy and emotional
intelligence and many more. Finally, with the help of this reflective writing I could easily
evaluated that how this investigation over the history of Australian community would impact
me while communicating with Aboriginal communities as an engineer.
References
Australis College. (2018, 05 13). The Importance of Reflective Practice. Retrieved from
Australis College: https://www.australiscollege.edu.au/blog/community-and-
counselling-study-blog/the-importance-of-reflective-practice/
Bassos, B. (2016). What is reflective practice? In The reflective practice guide: An
interdisciplinary approach to critical reflection. Oxon: Routledge.
Hickson, H. (2011). Critical reflection: Reflecting on learning to be reflective. Reflective
Practice, 12(6), 829-839.
Johns, C. (2014). What is reflective practice? In Becoming a reflective practitioner. England:
John Wiley & sons.
Knott, C. (2010). Chapter 1: Reflective practice revisited. In C. Knott, & T. Scragg (Eds.),
Reflective practice in social work. London: Reflective Practice in social work.
Purdie, N., Dudgeon, P., & Walker, R. (2010). Working together: Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing principles and practice. Australia:
Ausralian Government.
RMIT University. (2019). How to use DIEP. Retrieved from RMIT Australia:
https://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/how-use-diep-0
Tonkinson, R. (2019). Australian Aboriginal peoples. Retrieved from Britannica:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Australian-Aboriginal

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