Decolonise This Space: Centring Indigenous Peoples in Music Therapy Practice

Suzi Hutchings

doi:10.15845/voices.v21i3.3350

Forfattere

Suzi Hutchings Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v21i3.3350

Emneord (Nøkkelord):

Royal Commission, Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Indigenous Australians, Indigenous Knowledges theory, therapy, cross-cultural

Sammendrag

The 15 th April 2016 marked the 25-year anniversary since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) in Australia handed down its Final Report. The report signified a landmark in the relationships between Indigenous Australians and the post-colonial State and Federal governments. Established by the Hawke Labor Government in 1987, the Commission examined 99 Indigenous deaths. Most significant was the finding that the deaths were due to the combination of police and prisons failing their duty of care, and the high numbers of Indigenous people being arrested and incarcerated.

In the wake of the RCIADIC, cross-cultural sessions and cultural competency workshops have become ubiquitous for public servants, therapists, and legal and welfare employees, in attempts to bridge gaps in cultural knowledge between agents of the welfare state and Indigenous clients. Using Indigenous Knowledges theory, this chapter assesses how cultural misalignments between Indigenous clients and those who work with them in the name of therapies designed to improve Indigenous lives, dominate cross-cultural interactions. In so doing the questions are posed: how do good intentions become part of the discourses and practices of on-going colonialism for Indigenous Australians, and what can be done to change the balance of power in favour of therapies of relevance to Indigenous people?

Japanese abstract

この場所を脱植民地化する。

音楽療法の実践における先住民族の位置づけ

スージー・ハッチング

要約

オーストラリアの「Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC)」が最終報告書を発表してから、2016年4月15日で25年が経過した。この報告書は、オーストラリアの先住民と植民地時代以降の州政府および連邦政府との関係において、画期的な出来事だった。この委員会は、1987年にホーク労働党政権によって設立され、99件の先住民の死を調査した。最も重大なのは、警察や刑務所が注意義務を怠ったことと、先住民が大量に逮捕・投獄されたことが重なって死亡したという結果である。

RCIADICを受けて、福祉国家のエージェントと先住民のクライアントとの間にある文化的知識のギャップを埋めるために、異文化交流セッションや文化的コンピテンシーのワークショップが、公務員、セラピスト、法律家や福祉関係者の間で頻繁に行われるようになった。本章では、先住民の知識理論を用いて、先住民のクライアントと、先住民の生活を向上させるために計画されたセラピーの名の下に彼らと働く人々との間の文化的なずれが、異文化間の交流をどのように支配しているかを検討する。善意がどのようにしてオーストラリア先住民の現在進行中の植民地主義の言説と実践の一部となるのか、そして先住民に関連した療法に有利なようにパワーバランスを変えるためには何ができるのか、という問いが投げかけられている。

キーワード：王立委員会、アボリジニの監禁死、オーストラリア先住民、先住民の知識理論、セラピー、異文化交流

Forfatterbiografi

Suzi Hutchings, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia

Dr Suzi Hutchings is a Social Anthropologist and member of the Central Arrernte Nation. She is Associate Professor in Criminology and Justice Studies in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University. She teaches Indigenous Studies, Indigenous policy and policy design.

Suzi’s career is dedicated to working with First Nations peoples and communities throughout Australia. Since 1983, as a social anthropologist and Indigenous scholar of native title and family jurisprudence, Suzi has been consulting on the impacts of criminal justice and welfare intervention on Aboriginal youth and families. Her most recent engagement in this capacity was with the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement (SA) providing expert cultural evidence in a child protection matter for a Pitjantjatjara family living in South Australia and the Northern Territory.

Suzi has also worked extensively as a senior anthropologist on native title claims across Australia, including in Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT. She was the senior anthropologist on the successful Esperance Nyungar native title claim. Suzi also collaborates with First Nations young people exploring innovative ways to maintain and express Indigenous identities, resilience, resistance, sovereignty and indigeneity through music and performance. This has included a highly successful co-production on Indigenous Hip-Hop with Melbourne based Indigenous musicians and Boonwurrung Elders, and the Australian Music Vault, Arts Centre Victoria.

Suzi produces and presents Subway Sounds for Community Radio station PBS 106.7FM in Melbourne. Suzi is co-editor with R. Aída Hernández Castillo and Brian Noble, of the 2019 publication: Transcontinental Dialogues: Activist Alliances with Indigenous Peoples of Canada, Mexico, and Australia, University of Arizona Press (https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/transcontinental-dialogues).

Decolonise This Space

Centring Indigenous Peoples in Music Therapy Practice

Forfattere

DOI:

Emneord (Nøkkelord):

Sammendrag

Forfatterbiografi

Suzi Hutchings, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia

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