'Between Shadow and Light': A hermeneutic inquiry of Aboriginal families' meaningful world of caring, ageing and dementia

Abstract

Dementia in Australia's Indigenous population is an area of growing public health concern with prevalence rates three to five times higher than for the non-Indigenous population. In both ageing populations, Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia are the two most common causes of dementia. A number of scholarly paradigms traverse the dementia field. This range shifts from the portrayal of dementia in predominantly Western diagnostic terms on the one hand, to cultural approaches for Indigenous populations on the other. This thesis highlights the 'lived relation' of research in the human encounter of the ageing and dementia experience. The study began with the centrality of the family caregiver in an Indigenous 'world' of ageing and dementia and then moved into a focus on 'being-in-research' in this complex space. The study used the methods of in-depth conversational interviews with family caregivers, 'yarning circles' with carers and community members in a group setting, and detailed journaling to facilitate critical thinking. Phenomenological, existential and hermeneutic analysis and writing techniques were used to take the reader deep inside the immersive space of these 'worlds'. The study approached the scholarship as a philosophy and methodology and as an existential method for 'being-in' the practice of the research. The work drew on the way time and history are expressed in human experiencing which resonates deeply with Indigenous thought. The study provides original research in an area of growing public health concern and contributes to an emerging literature on the experience of carers in Australia, in particular, the experience of Aboriginal carers in urban communities. It recognises the importance of reflexivity in developing researcher presence for the complexity and richness of research and practice in both the dementia and Indigenous health fields