• Limitations or Limit conditions:
  • Underlying conditions or sets of situations that cause or initiate the cycle of “poverty”, marginalisation oppression or dependency.
• Predatory systems:
  • These are systems that are perpetuating the oppression cycle by taking advantage of the limitations people experience. These systems need to be identified and negated to free people from the cycle.

As discussed in the previous article Cultural Spaces (An example of the Limit Conditions the people face), one of the limit conditions that create Indigenous “poverty” is that Aboriginal people must engage in foreign cultural spaces, that are controlled by the Dominant Culture.  These spaces marginalise Indigenous groups and they struggle to access the necessary information they need to make choices, find solutions, or communicate their needs.

However this does not explain the factors that keep people from conquering the strange cultural spaces of the “white man’s” world.  In the article on Indigenous poverty we called these factors predatory systems.  In this article I put forward some suggestions as to what specific predatory systems maintain this situation.  These are:

• The Convenience of Maintaining English Dominance
  • Negotiating in English controlled environments
  • Discouraging the development and use of Local Languages
• Low expectations for engaging with Indigenous knowledge and systems
• Accepting short term personnel turn over
• Lack of dependence on local Indigenous workforce
• Systematic favouring of short term outcomes over effective communication
• Reporting of false positives

Explaining myself

Now before I get to that I must point out that this is an extremely complex topic, and that it is very difficult to simplify things as I have.  The mechanisms that maintain the marginalisation of Indigenous  groups are very very complex and subtle.  While there are individuals who take advantage of people’s marginalisation consciously - the chaos of remote communities encourages corruption - most Dominant culture (DC) systems are not consciously designed to oppress people.  But, because I attempt to identify the advantages the Dominant culture might be getting from maintaining Indigenous marginalisation, what I write will be controversial to some, or many.   So please give me some credit that I am not intending to blame anyone and I know I am over simplifying.  But people have been asking for me to write about this, and I would like to start the discussion. So here are my flawed ideas of what are some of the predatory mechanisms maintaining Indigenous disadvantage (please comment on these, I would like others opinions).

I have grouped the predatory mechanism under headings describing the limit conditions they prey on.

Language barriers

The  Convenience of Maintaining English Dominance

Mechanism: English only speakers working in Indigenous communities unknowingly create an advantage to themselves by maintaining an English only environment, by using English as the dominant language or the only language in the work place and at meetings. In this way they empower themselves at the expense of the people, because they prevent people from easily getting the information they require to escape their dependency on these English first language workers.

Advantage: Why does this happen? This system of marginalisation is maintained largely because it is easier for DC workers to use their own native language “English” than working with the difficulty of learning and  utilising local languages.

Negotiating in English controlled environments

Mechanism: Similarly Government and NGOs, by ignoring Indigenous languages, are better able to control the conditions and outcomes of negotiations, surveys, consultations and even education, because in the English speaking environment they create, they limit peoples ability to compete and challenge government workers policies, views and arguments.

Advantage: Government, NGOs and other entities benefit by being able to more easily control, influence  and dominate negotiations.  They can even subconsciously utilise misinformation to get the result they want.

Discouraging the development and use of Local Languages

Mechanism:Government and NGOs working in Aboriginal remote communities, refuse to require or adequately support the training of staff in local Indigenous languages.  Everyone believes that it is too hard.  If they ensured staff developed local language skills this would make the interaction between Indigenous people and the DC an exchange of information between equal parties, rather then all the effort to overcome the language gap being forced on the Indigenous people. Furthermore, DC departments and NGOs do not encourage the production of resources, training, or even dictionaries in Indigenous languages. Their excuse for this is the that people need to just learn English. Only English cannot be learnt well (to a professional level) without utilising Indigenous languages to teach new complex ideas or without access to cross language dictionaries for professional reference. It takes many many years of effective exchange of information between two cultures to effectively chart complex terminology within each language – so that rich meanings can be exchanged. The DC refuses to start this journey in a serious way.

Advantage: The advantage for the system in doing nothing, is that Government and organisations don’t have to put in the money or the effort to change the way they do things. The short term financial gains on sticking with English only win over long term empowerment of Indigenous people.  A case in point is the NT Government’s recent introduction of an English only policy for remote community schools (2009-2010), which strips resources for local language training and utilisation out of remote schools. They did this because of a poorly researched belief that ignoring local languages will some how teach English more effectively. The international evidence shows that ESL kids who learn how to read and write in their own language first are more easily able to learn English, and learn it better than English only speakers.   But for the NT Education department system the savings in money and organisational complexity is clear, they can discard the hippy language experts and even the local Indigenous Teachers, who now have little purpose for being there. In this way the system favours the status quo, English language deficiency in Indigenous communities.

Lack of understanding about Dominant culture systems and knowledge.

Low expectations for engaging with Indigenous knowledge and systems

Mechanism: The imposition of Western culture and ways keeps Dominant Culture (DC) workers comfortable while dis-empowering local Indigenous people, because Indigenous people in remote communities have very little knowledge of how the Western world works (and vice versa). DC workers are not required to truly participate in or learn Indigenous ways of doing things. So they do not learn the difficulties Indigenous people face nor how to use local knowledge to help the people learn DC knowledge.  And the lack of engagement in understanding Indigneous systems prevents DC systems such as policing and education from fitting in with Indigenous systems that would give people more control.

Advantage: Low expectations in this area makes it easier for Government and other organisation to recruit workers even though they are less effective. By ignoring cultural issues, Indigenous understandings, and local Aboriginal systems, short term targets are sometimes met (ie you can get things done quickly), but long term achievements are undermined.

Instability of Personnel and Relationships with the non-indigenous world.

Accepting short term personnel turn over.

Mechanism: There is constant replacement and change in DC personnel in Remote Aboriginal Communities. Most stay 6 months to 2 years. Short term contracts are the accepted norm and there are few services to support personnel to stay in communities long term.  The constant change of personnel in communities undermines stability, relationships, and the creation of useful corporate knowledge/history.  The result is that organisations never learn from their mistakes and continue to push ideas that are based on old assumptions and continue to have negative impacts.

Advantage: This at first glance would not seem to benefit the Australian system because it is costly and ineffective. But it does allow feel good benefits to the Australian mainstream and the Individuals invoved.  I believe this is significant enough to maintain this kind of inefficiency. Going and working in Arnhem Land or other remote communities for a short stint, alleviates our sense of guilt about the Indigenous “problem” in Australia. This is a hard thing to say, but most if not all people (including ourselves at times) tend to feel a sense of “well I’ve done something to help the Indigenous people.” This helps us in the mainstream individually and collectively to feel good about our efforts for Indigenous people and even justifies a subtle blaming of the people themselves. The Australian Mainstream can still effectively say, “Look we are trying to help Indigenous people but its not working, they are not doing enough themselves.” So this “Instability Shark” works in this way; the DC gets the benefits of feeling like it is doing something, without the very difficult task of creating, and supporting long term stability in the remote work force (See our article on Supporting Dominant Culture Personnel to explore how this might be overcome).

Lack of dependence on local workforce.

Mechanism: Indigenous communities are driven by a false economy. Government grants, funds and welfare are the main sources of income, both personal and for businesses, in remote towns.  And alot of this money actually goes to pay income for DC personnel who have come from outside the community.  This situation never improves because the availability of  Government monies, and the tight DC time frames, make it more convenient to simply import new DC personnel when a job needs to be done, rather than train Indigenous people.  Training of local personnel is a lower priority than getting program outcomes.  This is partly because most Government departments consider it someone elses job to do the training.  But the simple fact is the DC simply does not need the local people. In a sense the locals get in the way of building infrastructure, acculturating (…oops, I mean educating), developing industries and running shire council services. This is the despite the fact that these things are suppose to be of benefit to the locals.  Contrast this with 40 years ago when the Christian missions in North East Arnhem had to run everything without masses of funding and access to fly in personnel. They, by simple need, were dependent on training Yolŋu (as there was no one else to do the work that needed to be done) and as a result by 1978 the local people were doing almost everything in the community, including teams of locals building houses, and local bookkeepers.

Advantage: There is of course a huge financial benefit for most personnel who take positions in remote Aboriginal communities, that may play some role in perpetuating the situation.  Like mine workers it is often convenient to stay a while, save your dough and take your cash back south to buy a house.  Plus it is simply easier, and it has become part of the DC way in the “Indigenous Industry”, to rely on enticing contractors and ready trained personnel, with big pay packets, than to deal with the challenges of training Indigenous people.  But the primarily benefit is that the DC (and the Government is a big part of this) is more focused on outcomes than people.  They get more done, much quicker,  if they are not dependent on local labour.  Importing workers ensures jobs get done quickly, statistics get filled, grants get acquitted, and politicians get re-elected.  The alternative, relying on the local workforce is the more difficult and slower path.  The time spent training, upskilling, and letting the people gain experience, slows progress in measurable outcomes – at first.  The hump of getting the first set of locals trained and then relying on them in their inexperience in the next round of work, with the inevitable media outrage at things undone (eg. houses un-built)  is just too much for the DC to take.

Difficulty communicating to Dominant Culture systems.

Systematic favouring of short term outcomes over effective communication.

Mechanism: The Indigenous “Industry” in the NT is a money spinner for the NT government and economy. Solving the problems through better communication might actually reduce the amount of money spent by the Federal Government on communities. While I doubt most in the NT Government actually plan to negate outcomes (some in the private sector definitely take advantage), the drive to be truly cost effective and therefore locally effective in the long term is just not there. Rather the focus seems to be on short term outcomes, or band aid measures.

Advantage: This benefits bureaucrat portfolios, while giving only lip service to long term goals. We all know of the shonky tradesmen in the private sector that will do a dodgy job to save money, well government funding budgets work the other way around. Do a job inefficiently and spend more of your budget may just get you a bigger budget next time round, resulting in more jobs for inefficient buddies (Again I’m not saying this is intentional – but correct me if I am wrong).

Reporting of false positives.

Mechanism: It is easy to create false positives by using poor communication. Even if you genuinely want to be honest, it is all too easy to use good processes and investigate clearly positive comments and communications, while paying limited attention to negative comments and results. Additionally, emphasising the outcomes one is looking for, results in a failure to communicate problems and allow reflection on how people are not being served.

Advantage: False positives (saying something had fantastic outcomes when it really did not)  when reporting on outcomes in Indigenous communities help governments, NGOS and privates businesses working in the “Indigenous industry” presents a good picture to their funders and their voters (who are usually not Indigenous).

Normally we all take for granted the cultural spaces that we move around in, where we understand what is going on and why. It is therefore hard to imagine that someone from another culture stepping into our cultural environment could not see what is happening and why.  It is thus also hard to recognise that their lack of knowledge and experience in our cultural space severely limits their ability to operate to their full human capacity, to make their own choices, or express themselves.  In a foreign  cultural space we cannot feel in control until we come to understand that space.

Often the people helping me to navigate the new cultural environment of Yolngu ceremony, underestimate just how ignorant I am. I sometimes feel like they need to be reminded that I am a Dhunga Balanda (one who does not know, aka stupid ‘white fella’). Often what they do convey seems like surface information, yet they seem to expect that it is sufficient – they might tell me how to move or where to go, but often this does not convey what the underlying story is about, or what is really going on. Such information might enable me to participate like a child in the ceremony, but it would never get me to a place where I would be capable of running one myself, or playing a significant role.

We in the Dominant Culture can forget that schools, hospitals, clinics, councils and boards, are foreign environments to most Yolngu.  We too often only give people surface stories – what they need to do or where they need to go – but leave people feeling confused about the underlying story of what is going on in these places, knowledge that is taken for granted knowledge within ones own culture.  If we do not acknowledge this we cannot create a safe space where people can ask their questions about how Dominant Culture systems operate. If we do recognise this, we might begin to take the time to listen and discover how to answer their questions deeply. If we do not understand this we might not see that we can’t expect them to get up and run the place, while they still need to know why.. why?…Why are we doing that?.

By reflecting on my experience in Yolngu spaces I have come to realise that this provides a picture of one of the limit conditions facing Indigenous Australian, one of the limitations that underlie their disadvantage.  (We discussed limit conditions as a way of understanding Indigenous ‘poverty’ in the previous article.) Many Indigenous people (particularly those from remote areas) are limited in functioning in their full human capacity in ‘westernised’ Cultural spaces.  Unlike my temporary experiences in Yolngu spaces, their  involvement in the Dominant Cultures space is permanent.  They are daily experiencing similar (or worse) limitations in their capacity to what I experienced in participating in Yolngu ceremony.  The strangeness of the Dominant Culture is a daily limitation in their ability to make informed choices, and participate on an equal footing with Dominant culture English speaking personnel, who have been learning how to succeed in Dominant Culture schools, councils, clinics, boards since they were babes. The very normal fact that Indigenous people are new to ‘western’ culture, and that the Dominant Culture often fails to understand that they need more than surface information, becomes possibly the most significant cause of their disadvantage and a major limitation to their success in life.

When he arrived to talk with this leader, he found him just sitting on a mat on his verandah. He looked for chairs, and then corrected himself as he realised that he needed to respect the Elder, in ‘his way of doing this’, and so joined him on the mat. It turned out that the location they were sitting in was not conducive to discussion, as there were a lot of children running around and a lot of noise. The Elder got up and indicated that they would move to a quieter location. He then moved some distance away from the house and sat on the ground there, in the dirt. The visitor was quite shocked that this leader was sitting in the dirt. Again he did not want to offend him, so he sat down beside him there, but he was very disturbed by the fact that they were sitting in the dirt. As the visitor retold this story, he pointed to the dirt beside the road and expressed with great animation “It was just like this dirt here beside the road”.

What this visitor already knew about this Elder prior to their meeting, created an expectation, a picture for him about how he thought this man should behave. We all do this. Based on our world view, we get a picture in our head about how we think something should look, according to our culture. We do it without even realising it, as we are so used to the way our culture does things, that we sometimes think that that is the only way something can be done. We may try and be respectful and go along with things, but inside we are thinking that this different way of doing things is not right or is deficient.

When we are looking in on another culture, we have to be careful that we are not mis-interpreting the situation based on our cultural world view. It could be easy to look at some people in Indigenous communities, and see them sitting in the dirt, and label this as a sign of “poverty”, “inadequacy”or “hopelessness”, because that is what it might mean in our culture. But the earth is considered something more than dirty to many Indigenous people. It is part of something precious. They may even describe it as their mother;

“The Land is my mother. Like a human mother, the land gives us protection, enjoyment, and provides for our needs – economic, social and religious. We have a human relationship with the land: Mother – daughter, son. When the land is taken from us or destroyed, we feel hurt because we belong to the land and we are part of it.”( Djiniyini Gondarra 1980 in Yule Ian R. (Ed.) My Mother the Land, Galiwin’ku, UCA)

When the visitor heard this, his perspective changed. He realised that the act of sitting in the earth could be something more than an act which made you dirty, or a sign of poor status. Many Indigenous people happily sit outside on the ground or even in the dirt, and some even prefer it to inside on a chair. This is not always the result of poverty or lack of furniture, but is a different way of life.

When we see something that does not make sense to us, or makes us feel sorry for someone or feel that there is some injustice, let us remember that we wear cultural glasses, and not make assumptions from a distance. Lets be willing to go and sit beside other people, where ever it may be that they sit, and try and understand their world, their perspectives, their hopes and their true needs. Otherwise we are at risk of judging things from appearances and just from our cultural perspective. We also have to be careful that we are not the ones deciding what the problems are and how they should be fixed. Otherwise we are at risk of making people believe that they should have a problem with things that are a natural part of their culture and something that they are free to choose to do. We are also likely to only come up with solutions that fit into our world view of how something should look.

What is poverty?

In a recent interview with Andrew Denton on the ABC TV show Elders, Muhammad Yunis, founder of the worlds first micro-credit bank, the Grameen Bank, shared his thoughts about what poverty is:

“Poverty, is almost, you can describe is a living in a box, all with the thick wall, no window, no door, no light, so you don’t know what’s coming next, you have no idea of new day starting in different way, you repeat the same thing over and over again. No hope, basically. So you try to survive the day in very uncertain conditions. So that’s poverty, you have no control over your life, that’s total, that’s it.”(Muhammad Yunis, Elders Episode 7 December 2009, transcript of interview with Andrew Denton http://www.abc.net.au/tv/elders/transcripts/s2757468.htm)

This description makes no reference to poverty being a lack of money, but refers to an experience of oppression and the deeper issue of a lack of control over your life.

This next description comes from a senior Yolŋu Elder from north east Arnhem Land. It highlights the similar experience faced by Yolŋu – a lack of control.

“What has happened to us is like riding a horse. I am on this horse and the horse is galloping. It is galloping through the forest, it has these blinkers on, it cannot see exactly where it is going, but the horse is swerving. The problem is that I do not have control of the reins; someone else is controlling it. That is what my life is like. Sometimes I am terrified that the horse is going to run into a tree and I will be knocked off by a bough but I have no control of where I am going or what I am doing.” (quoted by John Greatorex during the ‘Senate Select Committee on Indigenous and remote Communities’, 22/05/09, transcript http://culturalsurvival.org.au/mapuru.html) 

Muhammad Yunis began his work in Bangladesh, where the concept of micro credit was radical and powerful in alleviating poverty, because it gave people back control in their lives. It has now been applied more broadly in many third world countries overseas. Is it possible that a tool like micro-credit could be applied in Arnhem Land to alleviate “poverty”? I know many people who believe that approaches that work in 3rd world countries overseas can be applied in Australian Indigenous situations also, and forms of micro-credit have been attempted on several occasions. I think we need to take a bit of a closer look at why micro-credit works in the 3rd world.

When Muhammad Yunis first set out in Bangladesh to help alleviate poverty, he looked for someone in need;

“So I see a woman very poor wearing torn clothes and things and sitting in front of a terrible house, doesn’t look like a house, it’s just a shed with the broken pieces of things and she’s making bamboo stool. She has beautiful bamboo stool in front of her, so suddenly it comes to my mind, what kind of contrast between her house and her clothes and her face and this beautiful newly made bamboo stools. And she explains to me that she makes very little, she makes only two penny a day. I couldn’t believe why anybody would make two penny a day making this, and the reason she gave me because she didn’t have the money to buy the bamboo that goes into the bamboo stool. She had to borrow from the trader to buy the bamboo. So I said, “How much is the bamboo? It must be very expensive if you can’t afford to buy the bamboo”, she said, “It cost about 25 cents and I didn’t have the 25 cents so I have to borrow from the trader”. And under the terms of the loan she has to sell the products to him exclusively and accept the price that he offers, she can not compare with anybody else. So I said, my god, she has become a slave labour for him, for such a small amount of money she had to sacrifice everything.” (Muhammad Yunis, Elders Episode 7 December 2009)

So Muhammad went and talked with some of those in “poverty” and was able to identify what was the limitation to them breaking free from their “poverty”. The underlying problem was a lack of access to credit, which made people prey to “loan sharks” who were able to impose incredibly unjust terms on their loans, keeping their income so low that people were trapped, and never able to break out of this cycle. And thus the concept of micro-credit was born. By providing very small sums of money to people, with just terms, people were given the opportunity to break free from the debt cycle and have control over their income.

Does such a solution fit in Arnhem Land? I believe not. The same issue of lack of control exists in Arnhem Land, but there are no signs of predatory money lenders here that people become dependent on. While some Indigenous people can be taken advantage of in financial areas, a lack of access to credit is not a major limitation. Grants, loans and standard credit options are available. We have to look a bit deeper into the peoples real situations to determine the limitations that cause injustice in these communities.  Who/what are the “loan sharks” here that prevents people from being able to break out of cycles of “poverty”. I believe the situations for Indigenous communities are very different, but the  principals are the same … the solutions must be custom made.

The principals that I believe apply here in Arnhem Land also;

• “Poor” people have worth and ability- when Muhammad Yunis looked at that woman with her bamboo stool, he saw the conditions that she lived in, but he also saw her skills in craftsmanship. She was thus not a poor person to be pitied and rescued with handouts, she was someone with ability, who was facing specific barriers that needed to be overcome for her to succeed and achieve independence and control.
• You should not blame a poor person for their plight; “Poverty is not created by the poor people. It is not their fault that they are poor. Poverty is created by the system, imposed on good blooded human beings and we can peel it off.” (Muhammad Yunis, Elders Episode 7 December 2009)
• Limitations or Limit conditions. There are underlying conditions or sets of situations that cause or initiate the cycle of “poverty”, oppression or dependency. In the above example, a lack of income combined with a lack of availability of loans, made people prey to dodgy dealers. For Indigenous communities the limit situations they face are different. By addressing these limits we can enable people to overcome them.
• The existence of “Sharks”. The fact that people are stuck in a cycle of “poverty” means that there are “sharks” or systems that are perpetuating the oppression cycle. These systems need to be identified and negated to free people from the cycle.

If access to small loans with just terms is not the problem for remote Indigenous Australians, then micro credit is not going to overcome the causes of “poverty” in Arnhem Land. Australia is a very different country to Bangladesh. We have a welfare system providing basic income to those without work as well as grants and small business loans.

When we use the word “poverty” in relation to Indigenous people, often what people hear, is ‘lack of money’, and therefore assume the solution is to give money. Also people look at how well micro-credit works in developing nations and they consider that the money is what solved the problem. I believe what actually solved the problem, is that the specific cause of injustice in the system was targeted, and overcome in a way that gave people control back. Particularly in Indigenous communities a lack of money is not the cause of poverty, and therefore money is not the solution. We need to look more deeply to identify the limit conditions and predatory systems operating in specific regions to identify what is preventing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people from gaining control over their particular circumstances, rather than trying to import solutions from elsewhere.

Culture shock is a very real psychological phenomenon that people experience when they enter a culture they are unfamiliar with for a significant amount of time. In a new culture, or  in a space where an unfamiliar culture controls the social environment, there is a lot that  we will not understand, we will not naturally know how we should act, we encounter awkward situations and experience a loss of control over our own circumstance. Our mind and body copes well with these stresses for a time, but after an extended period of dealing with a different language, manners, lifestyle and expectations, these stresses accumulate and the mental and emotional cultural machinery eventually packs it in and goes through an adjustment phase.   This adjustment is experienced as CS and often resembles an emotional break down, but with some rather unique characteristics.  Most Dominant culture people, Indigneous or Non-Indigenous, who come into an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community for more than a few weeks are likely to encounter Culture Shock (CS) and need to understand it to overcome its effects.

What Causes Culture Shock.

The process of adjusting to a new cultural environment often begins with a ‘honey moon’ phase (often about 3 months), where everything new can seem exciting, and differences in culture are a source of fascination and interest. But in this  time we are actually dealing with high levels of physiological stress.  We are coping with a lack of control, because we are not sure what will happen next, and we are forced to maintain constant conscious effort in most social interactions.  Our attempts to understand what is going on and to respond appropriately can be overstimulating and exhausting. Thus the mind and body is on sustained high alert as we try to fit in and find our way through new environments, new experiences and strange social responses.  CS occurs because of the cumulative effect of  this sustained high alert and the many stressful event that we encounter along the way.

Our mind and body can only cope with these strange stressors for a time.  The onset of CS can vary enormously (anything from a few weeks to 6 months), mainly depending on the degree of immersion in the community and new culture. My wife had a stint in South Africa many years ago where she was living with families in a poor rural township. She had been given little preparation, had little support, and experienced severe cultural shock within 2 weeks (the tipping point being when she asked if she could go to the toilet and was handed a bucket) . In my own experience of full immersion, living with a Yolŋu family (who always spoke in the local Indigneous language, as I was suppose to be learning), I experienced severe CS from the 4th week.  In our most recent experience together, moving to an Aboriginal Community permanently, we started in our own house and already had significant cultural experience and language skills.   Having this space that we controlled culturally and lots of preparation meant that we did not experience CS until after 4 months.

The Symptoms of Culture Shock

I can only describe CS as a feeling of deep sadness, lethargy and sometimes hopelessness. It is very much like depression, quashing any desire for positive action and engagement with the community.  It is characterised by a powerful desire to give up and leave the community.  So strong is this desire that some people literally up and leave. The feeling is understandable because the body and mind wants desperately to escape the foreign cultural space.  But this should be an indicator to us to recognise that our feelings are the symptoms of CS and this will help us to work through the emotions we will be feeling.  As well as the strong desire to leave, there are several other characteristics (from my experience) that will help you recognise culture shock:

• No real reasons for underlying sadness.  While there may be many things that you could be sad about on reflection you might find that these things are not what is underlying your feelings.  The sadness may seem to come from nowhere, even though it may have initially started because of a stressful event.
• An increase tendency to think badly of the local people/culture, and blame the local people/culture for problems you encounter (even though this might be out of character for you).
• An aversion to social interaction, particularly with those of the foriegn culture.
• The sense of stress and depression improves in a familar cultural space.

You should also be aware and prepared for these possible symptons of culture shock:

• The  desire to leave and give up can be overwhelming, and in some  may even encourage suicidal thoughts and feelings.
• A strong desire to indulge, which can encourage very unhealthly behaviour.
• The tendency to be short tempered and feel tired.
• Unreasonably strong feelings of anger, sadness, depression and hopelessness may arise in response to the smallest and silliest of things.

The symptoms of CS only last for about 2 -3 weeks at a time. They may reappear several times at different intervals over your first year in the new culture.

How to manage its effects

To manage culture shock we need to be on the look out for the symptoms I have mentioned.  When you begin to feel such things you should stop and consciously recognise “I am probably experiencing Culture Shock.” Once you have identified CS take the following steps

1. Recognise that what you are experiencing will pass.  You can leave if you still wish in a few weeks when you are feeling less emotional.
2. Take time out, your body is telling you it needs an escape, so take some space where ever you can get it and rest.  I feel that employers should recognise the need for short stress leave at these times.  However, taking short respite outside the community at this time may not be benificial as you may find the symptons reoccur very soon after your return.
3. Indulge a little in harmless familar cultural activities and if you can spend a little time with people of your home culture. This will give you some relief and remind you that you are still sane.  Find little things like music, some food items or some movies that connect you to your first culture.  This is an opportunity for your cultural machinery to relax in an environment it knows.
4. Get plenty of sleep and try to maintain healthy behaviours such as exercise.
5. Remember you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, you have chosen to be where you are.
6. Between breaks,  push your self just a little to get back out in the unfamiliar. Don’t go more that a couple of days without engaging in the local culture a little… you might visit some locals, go to a cultural event, just go for a walk in the community.  Increase the difficulty of these activities as you start to feel better.  The better you balance taking a break and engaging with the new culture the more complete your recovery will be.

Remember CS symptoms may reoccur over the beginning months or year of your stay, so don’t be disillusioned if the feelings come back from time to time.  Remember each time you experience CS this is your body acclimatising to the new culture and with each adjustment you will be more comfortable and effective working with the local Indigenous people.

If you are aware and prepared for Culture Shock when moving to an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community, this will help you to survive the difficult adjustment period, where many personnel lose their way. Be kind to yourself- experiencing CS is not a sign that you are not suited to cross-cultural work, nor that you disrespect the other culture or don’t care for the people. It is just a normal part of the process that needs to be worked through, in order to be able to truly engage with the other culture. This experience can also be enriching, as it shows us what cultural beings we are, and opens our eyes to many of the complexities of cross cultural interactions.