Walking in two worlds

I recently watched In My Blood It Runs. Amazing documentary, really well put together… but also tragic and sad. I found myself wanting to give Dujuan a big hug and tell him it’ll be alright. You can see the look on his face, he is not stupid, he is a very intelligent kid, but he is trying to reconcile his experiences of the world around him and it doesn’t seem to be fitting. It’s a clash of cultures, Nanas desperately trying to keep their grandchildren on track and embraced by their culture and language, while the community is reeling from grief and trauma, which plays out in anti-social behaviour and violence.

It’s a story I’ve heard before. Through the work of my PhD, about a young kid in Wiluna that the police had been keeping an eye on. He was brilliant on the drums and had been able to do some recordings for a music project up there, but he was off the rails, not attending school, and in and out of police custody. As well as my work in Roebourne, supporting the evaluation of the Act-Belong-Commit adaptation, Standing Strong Together. Children are struggling at school. They are acting out, attendance is poor, and achievement is low. Their parents’ own experience of school is much the same, so they might tell their kids it’s important, and that they have to go, but the children are finding it hard to see the relevance. It has no meaning or significance for them. They know the stories of the past from their parents and grandparents, aunties and uncles, but these are not adequately acknowledged or dealt with at school. They learn culture and language from their elders, but again, these are not given authority or adequately acknowledged at school.

While lying awake this morning thinking through all of this, I was reminded of the work of Professor Marion Kickett on Aboriginal resilience. Aboriginal people who are successful, against all odds, were those who were able to walk in two worlds. They found a way of reconciling their culture, identity and sense of belonging as an Aboriginal person with mainstream culture in Australia. This then also reminded me of a video I watched as part of the volunteer training for the AIME program I took part in while studying for a Graduate Diploma in Education at ECU. It spoke about parents walking alongside their children to a river, but they couldn’t go with them across the river. They needed to cross the river because all the opportunities were on the other side of the river. But the river was dangerous, with strong currents and crocodiles. It’s a great analogy.

The final thing all this made me think about was a children’s book. I actually bought it while I was studying towards my PhD at UWA, five years or so before I had my own children. I have three kids now and they love the book. It’s called, The Two Hearted Numbat by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina. Numbat was able to reconcile having two hearts, a heart of stone and a feather heart by wearing both together. I also picked up a few books while I was working in Broome, My Lost Mob by Venetia Tyson and Scaly-tailed Possum and Echidna by Cathy, Katrina, Marlene and Myron Goonack. It is so important to see these stories in print. To have them available to read to normalise these stories and make them available and accessible (and on par) with other stories we regularly read to our children. It occurred to me that we really need stories that speak to kids like Dujuan, and their experience of having to reconcile, come to terms with, and ultimately become successful at walking in two worlds.

In My Blood It Runs presented a contrast in Dujuan’s school in Alice Springs between the teaching of European settlement of Australia (it was “discovered” and claimed by the British) and the teaching of Aboriginal Dreaming, where the teacher was reading a book she didn’t really understand, or feel convinced that anyone might believe in it. While it may have changed since, during my teacher training we had only one lecture/tutorial on teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. That was it, blink and you missed it. The attitude of some of my fellow students during the tutorial after the lecture surprised (shocked) me. I guess it’s not the prevailing attitude of sector I have worked in previously. Mandatory cultural awareness training for teachers working in schools with higher proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students would really go a long way. Professor Juli Coffin’s work on cultural security could easily be adapted from healthcare settings to education and taught alongside Professor Kickett’s findings on Aboriginal resilience. This should really be taught to the children as well. Give them a framework and toolkit for success. Then it won’t be such a surprise when someone does succeed, or unusual how they could have done it against all odds, because we want them to succeed, we’ve told them how they can be successful, and we’ve supported them to do it.

Can we have children’s books about living and succeeding in two worlds? I feel there is a real need for children’s books that demonstrate Aboriginal success and experience. How different would it be if Dujuan was read a story way back in Kindy about a child who went to school to learn about letters and numbers, then spent time with his Nana after school learning about language. By showing a contrast between the two worlds, you can also show how they can fit together and what determines success in both of those worlds. Sitting in a classroom and all the routines and expectations of that environment contrasted with being at home or out on country and what routines and expectations are considered acceptable there. Aboriginal people shouldn’t have to make a choice about which world they prefer to live in or which one they can be successful at. Just like Numbat with two hearts, there are positives to both, but how can be better support the reconciliation of them both together in order to be successful at life. 

The arts and mental health

The arts are good for your mental health.

According to the World Health Organisation, “mental health is … a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community”. But, not everyone is mentally healthy all of the time and according to the WA Department of Health, mental ill-health is the third leading cause of disease burden in Western Australia.

Mental health is a resource of intrinsic value, and as such, the benefits in terms of wellbeing, quality of life, satisfaction, social capital and creativity are in-tangible, and thus is not seen or measured as easily as physical health. Yet, being mentally healthy enables us to experience life as meaningful and to be creative and productive members of society. Furthermore, people who are mentally healthy are happier and generally enjoy better health, better relationships, and are more likely to live longer.

So how do you maintain good mental health? Well, the best answer is that it is a complex task and requires work across individual, community, organisational and societal levels. This is why there is an increasing interest in community, cultural, and yes, you guessed it, arts participation on mental health and wellbeing.

It is well known that community participation is a key element in individual wellbeing and community health. Participation in sport and recreation provides opportunities for socialising, building friendship networks, reducing social isolation and enhancing community wellbeing through the development of relationships, networks and norms that support collective action …and the arts?

Well, Matarasso suggests that the arts stand out from other forms of engagement in terms of who engages in the arts and the quality of that engagement. The arts are thought to be different because they deal with meaning, provide opportunities for self-expression, and offer a way of viewing the world from a different perspective.

Evidence on the specifics of the contribution of arts engagement for mental health and wellbeing is still light on the ground. However, it is widely recognised that mental health and mental illness result from complex combinations of events and conditions that occur in everyday life across all of life’s domains – biological, individual-psychological, social-psychological and structural. People are not just exposed to risk factors, they also get exposed to protective factors, which are just as important in the maintainance of good mental health. Protective factors include social relationships and networks, as well as individual skills and abilities for resisting stress.

My research so far is suggesting that people engage in the arts for entertainment and light relief - time out from a stressful week, perhaps? That it provides opportunities for self-reflection and a means for expressing yourself - skills and abilities for resisting stress? And that its a great opportunity for socialising and networking - strengthening those protective factors even further!

We understand physical health quite easily. If you are physically unfit... give up smoking, don't drink so much, and go do some exercise! But, if mental health is in-tangible and of intrinsic value, then realising your potential and being able to make a contribution is going to take more than going for a walk (though this does help, so it's a great start!). No amount of prescribed drugs is going to permanently change your outlook on life, and you also don't need to be considered 'mentally ill' to not be enjoying life as much as you could.

It is important that promotion, prevention, and early intervention for mental health takes place beyond the traditional mental health, or even health, sectors. In fact, in all the sectors that are a part of, and impact on, people’s daily lives. So next time you write down your thoughts in verse, watch (or play) some live music, visit a gallery, or join a theatre group, good on you for keeping yourself mentally healthy :)

Further reading

* Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care. (2000). Promotion, prevention, and early intervention for mental health: A monograph. Canberra: Mental Health and Special Programs Branch, Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care.

* Keleher, H., & Armstrong, R. (2005). Evidence-based mental health promotion resource. Melbourne: Department of Human Services & VicHealth.

* Lehtinen, V., Ozamiz, A., Underwood, L., & Weiss, M. (2005). The intrinsic value of mental health. In H. Herrman, S. Saxena & R. Moodie (Eds.), Promoting Mental Health (pp. 46-58). Geneva: World Health Organisation.

* Matarasso, F. (1997). Use or ornament? The social impact of participation in the arts. Stroud: Comedia.

Survey Results

I recently presented a paper at the 2009 State of Australian Cities (SOAC) Conference in Perth, Western Australia. The presentation was focusing on the quantitative component of my research. The data is still fairly raw at this stage and warrants further analysis. However I thought I'd provide a few statistics for you to ponder upon.

The title of my paper is "Art will save the city": The arts and city vitality, growth, and sustainability. This was inspired by an article by Matarasso in 2000 in which he states that culture is "perhaps the only thing which can save the city" (p1). As I've already mentioned in this blog, and I'm sure many already know, the arts, culture, and creativity have been applauded for their role in the attraction and retention of Florida's 'creative class' and all that this subsequently implies, for their role in the gentrification and revitalisation of neighbourhoods, in establishing, strengthening or reinventing identity and sense of place, building social cohesion, resilience, and wellbeing, etc., etc. The arts also allow us to explore social constructs and the lived experience of place, space, and identity for the residents involved.

This presents a dilemma for regional and rural residents. They often have limited access and opportunity to experience or engage in the arts. There are few statistics on the nature and level of arts activity in regional Western Australia, and research is often limited and narrow in scope.

So one of my aims was to determine the level and nature of artistic activity in regional WA, so here are some of the statitsics...

As expected, the majority of the respondents were female (59%), with 30% male and 11% did not specify their gender. The age range was 13 to 90 years old with an average of 53 years. Overall they were a pretty active bunch with 96% actively engaging in non-arts activities, such as volunteering, sport, gardening, etc. and 87% attended other non-arts related events.

The greatest level of arts engagement was through reading literature, ie novels, poetry and plays of which 76% of the sample engaged in. This was followed by attendance at a gallery, an arts or craft festival, or other places for their design or hertiage value (69%). Almost two thirds (62%) activiely participated in some art form, including creative writing, playing music, dance, or visual arts and 35.5% had attended a performing arts event in the past 12 months.

All of the sample (n=948) engagaed in the arts by listening, watching, or reading it in the media or on the internet. Which would suggest to me that perhaps the attendance figures cited above would be higher if regional and rural audiences had greater access and opportunities to experience the arts.

The common responses for why they attended arts events was as a social opportunity, for entertainment value, and to show their support to the community, the artists and the organisers. One respondent even stated that "we need these kinds of shows to cope with life these days".

Overall I think the levels of arts activity in regional Autralia is quite high. There is definitely patterns and trends starting to emerge from the data which is encouraging as I delve further into the final year of my PhD.

Honours Book

My Honours thesis has been published in paperback and is available from http://www.amazon.com/Participation-Wellbeing-Regional-Western-Australia/dp/3838318315/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256211939&sr=1-1

I haven't received my copy yet, but the original honours thesis is in Edith Cowan University's Mt Lawley Campus Library, Western Australia. I can also email a pdf version for no charge if anyone is interested.

Research, not evaluation

I want to focus on research, not evaluation. Its not that I don't think evaluation is important, quite the opposite. Evaluation is an essential component of the strategic planning process and should be employed by everyone as a matter of good business practice. If a project or programme has specific objectives, including an aim or a vision, then the contribution of that project to those original aims should be evaluated so you can make a judgement about how successful it was.

But what I'm interested in focusing on is research.

According to the University of Western Australia, "research comprises creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humanity, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications... it should have investigation as a primary objective and should have the potential to produce results that are sufficiently general for humanity's stock of knowledge (theoretical and/or practical) to be recognisably increased.”

To achieve this I'm suggesting that a reframing the language is needed. I want to determine the “role” of the arts in rural communities, rather than the “impact” of the arts on particular outcomes.

“ROLE” suggests that the arts forms an integral part in adapting to change and the aim of the researcher is as such to determine how and where the arts fits, among other factors, to contribute towards the social sustainability of rural Australia.

“IMPACT” implies that the arts is something which is external to rural life and should be administered in order to effect change, rather than work with what arts activity is already taking place.

My problem with evaluation masquerading as research is the ability to make generalisations based on those evaluations. All kinds of arts activities are going on all the time. The difficulties in measuring arts impact to date is not just that the arts is so extremely variable, but impacts are difficult to quantify because they are not so easily isolated among the myriad of other influences and interactions that take place whilst engaging in the arts. This includes the various nuances, personalities, environments specific to individual projects.

There is a need to build both a tool kit for evaluating and measuring outcomes for evaluation purposes, as well as building a sound research base on the role or the place of the arts in society.

Wide Open Road

I don't think anyone born in Australia can quite grasp how big and comparatively empty our continent is compared to the rest of the world. More so for those of us born in Western Australia (WA) which is again less fertile, more isolated and less populated than the east coast of Australia.

I am sitting in a rural conference in Maribor, Slovenia. A place where only one third of the population live in towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants, the remainder in smaller towns and villages. But I have a suspicision that their experience of 'rural' is quite different to that we have in WA.

Despite so many people living in small towns, the country still has a population density of almost 100 people per square kilometre. Compare this to WA, which has around 70% of the state population living in the capital city of Perth. A look through the regions of WA reveals that the majority, again, live in regional city centres, not in the rural countryside. Furthermore, compared to Slovenia's population density of 100 people per square kilometre, WA only has 0.08 people per square kilometre.

Australia is big and it's siye is only made more vast by the few people that inhabit it. So considering both size and isolation of the population, how does this impact on AUstralian culture and the arts?

Keep in mind also that, with the exception of Indigenous culture and heritage, exisiting cultural traditions are extremely young compared to the monuments, icons and traditions of much of the rest of the World. As a nation, Australia is only a few hundred years old, yet the constant steady stream of migrants from all over the world has further disrupted the development of a unitied cultural tradition.

Less people, bigger spaces, fewer icons. Yet also greater diversity and freedom to create and invent our own traditions. Not binded by the past, not living in the shadows of a long or mighty history.

For me, this creates a nation with fewer hang ups, proud to be new and different, less formal, easy going and willing to give anything a go.

Australia is a blank canvas, reflecting and absorbing the cultures opf the world to create and define our own sense of self, our own art, our own tradition. Space is a big factor, we have lots of it, this is unique in itself. We have space to try, to experiment, to create. It's fertile ground in terms of culture and the arts, our wide open road.

Drowning in Nouns

How many ways can we possibly say, "we like it, and it's good for us in lots of ways that are good"?

One of the truly fascinating, and sometimes extremely frustrating, parts of this research is the number of different nouns available for me to use to say essentially the same thing in slightly different ways.

Not sure what I mean? The working title of my research when I first started this project was, 'the arts and social wellbeing of Australian rural communities'. Fairly straight forward? Well, yes. However, as with the term 'social capital', I'm getting the feeling that some people are a little over the term 'wellbeing' and prefer instead to use language like, 'resilience', 'inclusive' or 'engagement'. I was doing some reading today and was surprised to find the use of the noun 'community' also coming under some criticism.

A scan of some of my working titles for individual papers includes titles like: 'Determining the role/Measuring the impact/Finding a place for the arts and rural resilience/inclusion/revitalisation/inequity/empowerment'.

Yes, I do realise they are not all the same thing. But the amount of overlap is uncanny. That I can use the one project to generate a list of nouns like the ones above is quite a feat.

While it is useful to make distinctions between these terms, none of them has ever come out on top as the best name for all the applications/use/benefits/outcomes of the arts. I guess then I'm back to where I started.

When I think about the definition of wellbeing, at its most basic it refers to being well. Being well could easily encompass a huge array of nouns that all contribute to the betterment of both individuals and communities (or clusters of people who share a commonality, such as location, interests, etc.). To be socially well, we need to have a certain amount of understanding, tolerance and respect for each other. We also need to feel confident and empowered within ourselves in order to build individual resilience so that we can support each other to make our communities resilience.

I think I'll stick with my original title :)