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From Sorcery to Laboratory: Pandemics and Yanyuwa Experiences of Viral Vulnerability
Author(s) -
Norman Dinah,
Miller Jemima,
Timothy Mavis,
Friday Graham,
Norman Leonard,
Friday Gloria,
Friday Adrianne,
Timothy Warren,
Miller Joanne,
Norman Lettie,
Raggett Noeleen,
Charlie Colleen,
Hammer Rhoda,
Timothy Marlene,
Mawson Peggy,
Kearney Amanda,
Bradley John
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1834-4461
pISSN - 0029-8077
DOI - 10.1002/ocea.5294
Subject(s) - pandemic , vulnerability (computing) , attribution , covid-19 , sociology , geography , political science , medicine , psychology , social psychology , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , computer security , pathology , computer science
The COVID‐19 pandemic has prompted renewed attention among health professionals, Aboriginal community leaders, and social scientists to the need for culturally responsive preventative health measures and strategies. This article, a collaborative effort, involving Yanyuwa families from the remote community of Borroloola and two anthropologists with whom Yanyuwa have long associations, tracks the story of pandemics from the perspective of Aboriginal people in the Gulf region of northern Australia. It specifically orients the discussion of the current predicament of ‘viral vulnerability’ in the wake of COVID‐19, relative to other pandemics, including the Hong Kong flu in 1969 and the Spanish flu decades earlier in 1919. This discussion highlights that culturally nuanced and prescribed responses to illness and threat of illness have a long history for Yanyuwa. Yanyuwa cultural repertoires have assisted in the process of making sense of massive change, in the form of past pandemics and the onset of sickness, the threat of illness with COVID‐19 and the attribution of ‘viral vulnerability’ to this remote Aboriginal community. The aim is to centralise Yanyuwa voices in this story, as an important step in growing understandings of Aboriginal knowledge of pandemics and culturally relevant and controlled health responses and strategies for communal well‐being.