Media Portfolio Collection and Analysis of an Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Issue

Running Head: MEDIA PORTFOLIO ON INDIGENOUS HEALTH AND WELLBEING
Media Portfolio Collection and Analysis of an Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Issue
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MEDIA PORTFOLIO ON INDIGENOUS HEALTH AND WELLBEING 2
Introduction
Indigenous health as an issue is an existing phenomenon that has attracted a lot of
attention from all aspects of life. In this regard, domestic violence as an issue has been focused
as a sensitive topic of discussion. As a factual thing, violence has been the order of the day in
most nations all over the world. When we direct our eyes to Australia, we get to analyze matters
concerning the same. The topic above has raised concern from a number of organizations in the
world therefore making it a topic of discussion. Domestic violence in most regions of Australia is
clearly evident in the aspects of gender, age and color (Atkinson,2013). For instance, research
shows that women are faced by violence regularly. Children on the other hand who are
indigenous desperately lack an adequate home care and system of Education.
This paper therefore seeks to come up with information from the various media items that
enable us connect the incidences of violence with real life situations and other sources, hence
analyzing the major causes occurrences and remedies to domestic violence in Australia and rest
of the world. The target here is to end such inhuman issues like murder cases and racism.
Media item 1-Disadvantage, trauma causing high rates of indigenous family violence.
Thorpe, N. (2018). Disadvantage and intergenerational trauma play a major role in the high rates
of family violence in Indigenous communities. NITV. Retrieved from:
https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/nitv-news/article/2018/02/28/disadvantage-trauma-causing-
high-rates-indigenous-family-violence
Summary and key points outlined
Thorpe (2018) revealed that aboriginal community are predisposed to risk factors
associated with violence such as social stressors, poor housing, financial difficulties and

MEDIA PORTFOLIO ON INDIGENOUS HEALTH AND WELLBEING 3
unemployment. Citing the sources such as Australian Bureau of Statistics data, the report
revealed that Aboriginal women are 32 times likely to be hospitalized because of family violence
as compared to non-aboriginal women. Aboriginal men, on the other hand, are 23 times likely to
be hospitalized compared to non-aboriginal men.
Citing the work of Antoinette Braybrook, Thorpe (2018) revealed that the underlying
causes of such violence include removal of land and cultural dispossession, which resulted in
social, economic, physical and psychological problems for Aboriginals. The article also cited the
need to understand intergenerational trauma.
Links to model approaches, debatable issues and current issues
There is a vast amount of literature that can help us link the violence among the
aboriginal, cultural dispossession and intergenerational trauma. Polish sociologist Peter
Shtompka defined cultural trauma as the consequence of clashes of cultural values of society
with the" alien "and hostile environment that caused dysfunctional changes in social life.In other
words, a cultural trauma can be understood as the pathological transformation of the historical
memory of a group of people caught in the vortex stream of an event with a destructive potential.
Just as space is born out of chaos, world history is constructed from a permanent stream of social
trauma, and this gives reason to believe that, one way or another, their destructive power is not
finite, but, in accordance with the laws of nature, initiates a new round of events , the
consequences of which form the historical consciousness of the descendants of those who were
involved in them. In this regard, can we consider the Kantian concept of antagonism - the
unwholesome sociability of people, as a universal trigger of all benign disasters that fall to the
share of humanity?

MEDIA PORTFOLIO ON INDIGENOUS HEALTH AND WELLBEING 4
The source of intolerance between people is primarily their natural desire to expand the
boundaries of personal freedom, the collision of the borders of freedom provokes conflict, but on
a state scale such a clash provokes a global conflict that neutralizes internal strife according to
the classical scheme of collective solidarity and consolidation against a common enemy
(Calabria, Doran, Vos et al. 2010). Thus, we see that in any historical event, how horrifying and
how deeply traumatic its consequences are, there is also the shadow side - the labyrinth of the
subconscious, from where in the most difficult moments the divine essence of man finds its way
- his desire for creation. (Austin, van den Heuvel & Byard 2011). The way to address such
trauma is not easy. Australian government has attempted but has not succeeded to date because
the government fails to address the root causes. In order to combat the multiple inequalities and
to "close the gap" between the natives and the rest of the population, the former Labor Prime
Minister, Kevin Rudd, had defined in 2008 seven objectives to be achieved in the fields of
education, health and employment. He had set a deadline of 2018 for the majority of them. On
February 12, 2018, Conservative Leader Malcolm Turnbull presented the annual report to assess
progress. Ten years after the implementation of this "Closing the Gap" strategy, none of the goals
has been met and only three are "on track". This clearly suggest that there is problem with the
aboriginal and that the problems has deeper roots that cannot be solved easily unless holistic
measures to address not only current needs but also historical injustices are addressed.
Personal reflection on the issue.
I believe that what the above article presents and the existing models captures the reality
of situations facing the Aboriginal people. I agree that the reason why it is difficult to address the
issue is because government fails to address the root cause of problem (Cutcliffe, 2006).