Review: Yatdjuligin

Title: Yatdjuligin, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nursing and Midwifery Care
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Editors: Odette Best & Bronwyn Fredericks
Release date: October 2021

Yatdjuligin (which in English means ‘talking in a good way’) first came to my attention on Twitter, when I read that its third edition was complete and primed for release. I got in touch with the publisher who kindly agreed to send me a copy to use in my research for Hard To Bear, but also to review.

Yatdjuligin is a text book, complete with exercises and thought provoking case studies, aimed at nursing and midwifery students. But really, this should be essential reading for anyone working with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Peoples in any medical, therapeutic or even community service role.

You can probably tell how engaged I was with the book from the number of page notations visible in the image in this post!

I think the aspect of the book that has most resonated with me and keeps playing over and over in my head is the idea that whether or not a service is culturally safe must be defined by the client/patient. In Chapter 3, Professor Odette Best describes herself as a “cultural safety purist as defined by Māori Registered Nurse Irihapeti Ramsden”, which of course led me to Ramsden’s PhD thesis “Cultural Safety and Nursing Education in Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu“, which should also be compulsory reading for anyone operating in the medical/care provision space.

While it would seem that clients/patients/staff define whether or not they feel culturally safe, I have worked for a number of organisations that repeatedly present themselves as culturally safe, but don’t ask for any input or rating or feedback from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples before making this declaration.

This is how you end up with situations like the one I observed at Australian Red Cross, with Indigenous staff and other people of colour being subjected to discriminatory and violent behaviour and forced to work in an unsafe and culturally violent environment, despite the organisation itself declaring itself to be culturally safe.

There is discussion and advice in Yatdjuligin around why white practitioners (or you might argue any white person living on stolen land) must be analysing themselves, their own contexts and colonial history before they can even hope to grasp how their behaviour or even presence can affect Aboriginal clients or patients.

Yatdjuligin includes important background and history regarding colonisation, its effect on Aboriginal people and the medical system and the development of community controlled health organisations. This is the crucial context that provides the backdrop for self-determination in care provision for Indigenous communities, irrespective of geographic location.

There are case studies throughout, giving real-world examples of the sorts of issues detailed in the book. The thing that’s amazing about this book is that it’s simple, clear and easy to understand for someone like me, who has no academic background or indeed students that are early on in their studies or careers.

The list of contributors feels like a who’s who of Aboriginal nursing and midwifery excellence, supplementing the extraordinary expertise of Odette Best, a Professor of Nursing at University of Southern Queensland, and Professor Bronwyn Fredericks, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Indigenous Engagement at University of Queensland.

While I will be led in my writing about care provision in miscarriage for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples by the brilliant Cherisse Buzzacott, it’s really important that I do my homework and Yatdjuligin was an incredibly valuable first step in that ongoing and critical journey.