Action Research to Build the Capacity of Nyikina Indigenous Australians

Abstract

Indigenous Australian people in the remote West Kimberley region of Western Australia experience extreme disadvantage as a legacy from 128 years of European colonial rule. I bring to this study a unique insider perspective as a Yimardoowarra marnin, an Indigenous woman from the Mardoowarra, Fitzroy River, researching local people and communities. This research has been a deep personal and shared journey with the Nyikina people, as we made meaning of both the construction of disadvantage and strategies to reduce the impact of disadvantage in the West Kimberley. Utilization of a cultural action research framework, with mixed methods of data collection, opened up an understanding of Indigenous disadvantage and strategies to overcome it in one particular context. Narratives of the Elders and other Nyikina people, plus multiple information sources, identified that the processes of systemic racism, established during the early colonial period, have evolved to maintain an endemic state of structural violence. This process has been responsible for the overwhelming disadvantage experienced by Indigenous people in the West Kimberley.