READ THE STUDY ATTACHED!
The article is about trauma and resilience in indigenous people, specifically about an Aboriginal group in Australia. Most Westerns conceptualize trauma (and the effects of it) and resilience as exclusively an individual person-oriented experience, unaffected or minimally affected by environmental factors. When environmental factors are discussed, they usually are limited to household/family dynamics (e.g., Bronfenbrenner’s microsystem level). The article attached challenges this common Western perspective by situating resilience and trauma in a historical and collective group context.
The authors of this study conducted a systematic literature (conceptualize this kind of like a meta-analysis) review to identify studies with spoken words (qualitative data) of Aboriginal people about trauma/resilience & experimental studies which measured the correlation between Aboriginal cultural values and psychological outcomes.
Specifically, read the following parts of the study:
Page 1(skip abstract) – 4 (stop at method)
page 6(start at conceptional model heading)
13-22 (skip all the tables)
Approaches to the discussion:
Paraphrase (do not quote), who this article is about? Why does it matter? What is intergenerational trauma (IT)? How does IT specifically impact the groups discussed in the study? What are some of the health outcomes associated with IT? What is resilience overall and or this group specifically? Discuss any of the results: cultural activities, connection, identity? Take away conclusions?
You do not have to answer all these questions, you may focus on specific parts of the study but make sure your reply to the prompt has ample depth.
Please note, be mindful not to draw broad generalizations about a culture without providing evidence from other sources. Well intentioned thoughts can be unintentionally ethnocentric if you really haven’t unpacked the implications of your argument. If you are not sure, the recommended scientific practice is to temper your arguments by adding caveats.
