Developing Cross-cultural Agility: Implications of an Examination of Service Provider and Recipient Movements towards, Away from, and within the Indigenous Australian Mental Health Arena

Efforts to address the poor mental health of Indigenous Australian people emphasize the need to examine the quality of historical and contemporary service provision. Previous analyses have proposed that enduring difficulties are a consequence of ‘conflicting cultural perspectives’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous stakeholders about the meaning and promotion of mental health. This presentation reports on an investigation into the experiences and expectations of providers and recipients of Indigenous mental health service, with a view to understanding the conflicts inherent to this ‘tensely contested arena’.

A Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) of fourty-four semi-structured interviews with providers and recipients of Indigenous mental health service indicated that the arena is a more complex site than that suggested by common litanies of Indigenous/ non-Indigenous antagonism, and highlighted complex navigations of this unsettled cultural context. Participants` explanations of their movements towards, away from, and within the arena highlighted metaphors and myths emblematic of righteous and wronged discursive positions employed to attract or maintain authority, evade scrutiny, or validate presence in the arena. Participants also described encounters with uneasy decisions that underpinned an ambivalence towards their involvement as providers or recipients of service.

Considering how people describe their movements has implications for those engaged in the preparation of providers and recipients of mental health service. The findings encourage reflection on the conceptualization of cultural competence, and critique those approaches that promote a naïve mimicry of inappropriate actions, or oppressive systemic regeneration. This investigation suggests that a depth-oriented conceptualisation of the cultural features of participant positioning towards their involvement in the arena of Indigenous mental health could enhance their cultural agility and deep competence in this domain.