Interaction of Psychology with Indigenous Australians - Essay Example

Running head: INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN IN PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTEXT ESSAY Indigenous Australian in Psychological Context Essay Name Institution Date Introduction Psychology, as both a profession and science, has had a significant impact on the understanding of the thoughts, feelings as well as the behaviours of the Indigenous Australians. The history of psychology confirms that it has been complicit in the colonizing process and, as a central discourse; it has a known past that has been ethnocentric and has dehumanized, devalued and objectified the Indigenous Australians. Moreover, psychology has been enlisted as an agent that has backed oppression and assimilation. However Rickwood et.al (2000) argues that there have been significant changes in recent times within psychology that gives an indication of a promising future where self-determination and empowerment of the Indigenous Australians could be a major consideration. This particular paper will therefore evaluate the extent at which the history of psychology’s engagement with Indigenous Australians justifies the assertion that psychology has been a significant agent of colonization. In addition, it will also make known the major roles of psychologists in repairing the damage caused by colonization. According to O’Neill (1987), the history of psychology’s engagement with Indigenous Australians has been a significant agent of colonization. The practice of psychology has traditionally had a fraught relationship with the Indigenous Australians. The colonizers, through the discipline as well as the practice of psychology, came up with the popular Western ideologies that implied that Indigenous people were inferior. According to the principles of Social Darwinism, there was a belief that the indigenous population would die off within a few generations. As it became known as a profession in the 20th century, psychological research was employed to back up popular stereotypic theories such as Social Darwinism. For instance Indigenous Australian children were taken away from their parents from the earliest days of the white settlement. Approximately 100,000 children were taken away between 1814 and 1975, taking away reaching its peak in the Protective Legislative era of the between 1920s and 1960s.As many as 1 in every 5 Indigenous Australian children were taken away from their families, with 80% (majority) of the removals being girls. These statistics indicate that approximately one third of all girls were taken away from their families over this period (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997). Ranzijn et.al (2008), also reveals that the removal of Indigenous Australian children from their families was widespread between 1950 and 1970 with psychologists being actively involved in the whole process. Over the same period of time, there was a major debate within psychology as regards the impact of maternal deprivation on children. According to Devine (1989), while Australian psychologists actively involved themselves in this debate, they failed to link the theoretical models relating to the maternal deprivation to the taking away of the Indigenous children from their mothers. Psychology as a field of study also stresses the importance motherly attachment to subsequent child development. According to psychology as a study it is vital for a child to be attached to the mother during their infant and early ages in order to facilitate effective behavioral, physical and mental health. And as far as it is known, no psychologist spoke out on behalf of the Indigenous Australian children who were being taken away. In my opinion psychologist were evidently acting as the colonizers, instead of rebuking the on going deprivation of healthy child development they supported the state. The children who were taken away to institutions faced a variety of challenges which in actual sense were dehumanizing. The children were neglected, denied access to their parents, not fed well, punished for wanting to hold on to any element of their cultures, and in a number of cases physically as well as sexually abused(Koolmatrie and Williams,2000). In this case, it can therefore be justified that the history of psychology’s engagement with Indigenous Australians has been a significant agent of colonization bearing in mind the fact that many psychologists actively played the role of agents of the colonizers, as part of the welfare system, taking away Indigenous Australian children from their families and taking them to institutions where they were later neglected. The history of psychology engagement with Indigenous Australians can also be argued as right based on the fact that as agents of colonization, early psychologists in Europe and Britain were mainly fascinated by the Indigenous people in colonies, as they were believed to be relics of earlier stages in the process of human development, as a result, they would give insights into pre-history of Western people, who were evidently at the peak of evolution. According to Dudgeon et.al (2002), these perceptions were supported by the influences of social Darwinism, where various cultural groups or races were seen to be at different evolution stages, and within which the Indigenous Australians were believed to be primitive and childish. With the perception of the Indigenous Australians as savages at a primitive stage of evolution, psychology viewed them as inferior; their colonization became easier as there was unquestioned conjecture that the superior Western powers had the right to take over from those they deemed inferior. The Indigenous Australians were therefore declared savages who were unable to properly look after themselves and were also incapable of controlling their community and institutions. Legislations were therefore designed to identify as well as control their populations and their traditional practices, which served religious, economic, social and personal tasks vital to the cultural survival of their communities (Jones, 1997). The goals of such legislations were to control as well as eventually assimilate them into social and economic mainstream. According to Dudgeon et.al (2002), there is no doubt that the colonial exploitation as well as the prolonged systematic attempt to destroy Indigenous Australians culture had the practice of psychology lying at core of the causes. As such, it can therefore be justified that the history of psychology’s engagement with Indigenous Australians has been a significant agent of colonization of the Indigenous Australians. Another basis justifying the notion that that the history of psychology’s engagement with Indigenous Australians has been a significant agent of colonization is based on psychology’s worldview that Western ways were more superior compared to all the others and that people in the other lands were inferior. The Indigenous Australians were in this regard viewed as inferior people and generally regarded as savages at a more primitive stage of evolution. Based on this viewpoint, the colonizers employed legislation to identify as well as control the Indigenous population through suppression of their legal rights (Dudgeon, et al, 2000). D.Collins, a British lawyer, for instance, argued in 1976 that Indigenous Australians were neither reasonable nor would they understand certain concepts such as good and evil. Legally, Indigenous Australians were, for a long period of time, even regarded as part of the Australian fauna, and not as human beings. The Australian continent was, on the other hand, regarded as a land that was not occupied by human beings, and therefore, could justifiably be included into the British Empire. It was believed and accepted that the primal species of Indigenous Australians was intended to be displaced by British civilization- at times by any necessary means (McCann-Mortimer et al, 2004). Psychological engagements with the Indigenous people of Australia also revealed that the social views of the time that were discriminatory and later on led to the colonization of the Indigenous Australians we just viable and correct. Rickwood et.al (2000) highlights that the history of cultural and institutionalized racism denotes that the discipline as well as the practice of psychology has been part of the colonizing process. There was unquestioned supposition that the superior Western powers possessed the right to capture other peoples’ lands and claim them in the name of their kings and queens. The rest of the world was viewed as a vast resource to be mined and used for the benefit of the colonizers. In Australia, this mind-set was taken to extreme. Since the Indigenous population was considered inferior to Europeans, a reserve system was designed by the colonizers to segregate the Indigenous Australians and claim their traditional lands, based on the viewpoint of Indigenous Australians and communities as ‘heathen’ (Devine, 1989).. Since Indigenous Australians were considered ‘heathen’, their territories were considered unsettled. It was therefore deemed acceptable to conquer their land, whether by force or by lack of direct resistance. Many communities were forcibly relocated from their traditional locales to very tiny reserves that had very little resources to ensure the continued survival of the community. These relocations created up traditional territories for the non-Indigenous resource use and allowed Indigenous Australians to be more easily administered by the colonial government. This aspect in my opinion also justifies the notion that the history of psychology’s engagement with Indigenous Australians was a significant agent of colonization. As highlighted by Dudgeon et.al (2002), race can also be employed in evaluating the extent at which the history of psychology’s engagement with Indigenous Australians justifies the assertion that psychology has been a significant agent of colonization. Although it is largely discredited as a scientific idea, McCann-Mortimer et.al, (2004) argues that race has been used as a way of organizing our thinking about individuals and groups in which they belong to. As a cultural as well as a social construction, race in psychological view point has been employed in separating groups that have been defined by the physical and cultural difference, as well as the supposed inferiority and superiority of members of particular groups (Jones, 1997). Colonizers of the Indigenous Australians, for instance, employed power and control as the modes by which they imposed racial definitions so as to maintain as well as enforce the views that they were naturally superior and correct and that the Indigenous people were inferior and wrong. Cunneen (2001) highlights that the frequency of systematic racism is difficult to establish, however, a number of studies highlight the widespread nature or racism in domains such as education, welfare system, legal/criminal justice systems as well as the provision of public housing systems. Evidence from the 2009 report on overcoming Indigenous Disadvantages, for instance, revealed some acts of racism by giving evidence that the detention of indigenous youths was approximately 28 times compared to non- indigenous juvenile youths. The high rate of over-representation of Indigenous youth in juvenile detention is evidently an alarming concern. Another report by the Institute of Criminology (2006) showed that the annual average detention rates of indigenous youths experienced some level of fluctuation between the years 1999 to 2000. However there has been a significant increase in the level of juvenile detention of indigenous youth since then, in despite of the introduction of reform programs which were devised with the basic aim of reducing the number of Aboriginal young offenders in custody. Race can therefore show the extent at which the history of psychology’s engagement with Indigenous Australians justifies the assertion that psychology has been a significant agent of colonization. This is attributed to the views that the Colonizers were naturally superior and correct and that the Indigenous people were inferior and wrong. Major roles of Psychologists in repairing the damage caused by Colonization According to Rickwood et.al (2000), there have been a number of positive developments in repairing the damage caused by colonization, as far as Indigenous affairs are concerned. One of the most important developments largely initiated by psychologists is Indigenous self-determination. As a result of self-determination, Indigenous Australians voices are increasingly speaking up and initiatives to enhance their welfares are increasingly being driven. Some examples of the initiatives initiated by psychologists to enhance the wellbeing of the Indigenous Australians include the development of the Cultural Respect Framework for Indigenous health in South Australia as well as the development of curriculum guidelines for medical schools, a process that has been initiated by psychologists (Australian Psychological Society, 2003). Psychologists have also been able to develop university courses containing Indigenous content in addition to addressing various issues such as racism developed by Indigenous academics working in partnership with non-Indigenous. The late 1990s also witnessed the commencement of university psychology courses initiated by psychologists that had some elements of cultural competence. The courses contained what was thought to be important for students to know about indigenous history as well as psychology’s role in restoring Indigenous disadvantage. Effective teaching strategies to overcome resistance and deal with some of the emotional issues that arise in the course of such teaching were also developed (Westerman, 2004). Another major role of psychologists in repairing the damage caused by colonization has been through their support for empowerment of the Indigenous Australians, as well as their input in the community and health psychology towards understanding the social determinants of health and wellbeing, particularly the impact of social disadvantage and the importance of empowerment (Dudgeon et.al,2000). As a result of this role, the professional practice of psychology has had a great impact on mental health interventions, as well as the general health and human welfare service delivery. Conclusion From the analysis presented above, it is clear that psychology has been drawn in the marginalization, dispossession as well as the oppression of Indigenous Australians, as it is an agent of the dominant culture. As an academic discipline, it has portrayed Indigenous Australians as inferior and focusing mainly on the deficits and problems of the Indigenous Australians as minority group members, rather than their competencies. However, the situation has gradually changed as better relations between Indigenous Australians and psychology has been largely initiated by the Indigenous Australians themselves, especially Indigenous psychologists, in partnership with non-Indigenous psychologists. This fact is attributed to the growing interest in enhancing these relations, and this interest has accelerated in recent years. References Australian Psychological Society. (2003). Guidelines for the Provision of Psychological Services for, and the Conduct of Psychological Research with, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia, Australian Psychological Society, Melbourne, Australia. Cunneen, C. (2001).The Criminalization of the Indigenous People: Conflict, Politics and crime: Aboriginal Communities and the Police, Allen & Unwun. Dudgeon, P, Wright, M & Walker, I. (2002).Context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians Dudgeon, P, Garvey, D & Picket, H. (2000).Working with Indigenous Australians: A Handbook for Psychologists, Gunada Press. Devine, P. (1989).Stereotypes and Prejudice: Their Automatic and Controlled Components, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 5-18. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. (1997).Bringing them Home: National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. Jones, J. (1997).Prejudice and Racism, McGraw-Hill, New York. Koolmatrie, J & Williams, R. (2000).Unresolved Grief and the Removal of the Indigenous Australian Children, Australian Psychologist, 35(2), 158-166. McCann-Mortimer, P, Augoustinos, M & LeCouter, A. (2004).Race and the Human Genome Project: constructions of Scientific Legitimacy: Discourse and Society, 15,409-32. O’Neill, W.M. (1987).A Century of Psychology in Australia, Sydney University Press. Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage Report. (2009). Rickwood, D, Dudgeon, P & Gridley, H. (2000). A History of Psychology in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health. Ranzijn, R, McConnochie & Nolan, W. (2008).Psychology and Indigenous Australians: Effective Teaching and Practice, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Ranzijn, R, McConnochie & Nolan, W. (2008).Steps along a Journey: The Growth of Interest in the Relations between Psychology and Indigenous Australians Westerman, T. (2004). Engagement of Indigenous Clients in Mental Health Services: What Role does Cultural Differences Play? Australian E-Journal for the Advancement of Mental Health, 3(3). Read More