SAHMRI leader's role in groundbreaking Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander MJA special issue

Ahead of NAIDOC week, the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) has partnered with the Lowitja Institute, Australia’s only national Aboriginal community-controlled research institute, to launch a special journal edition at SAHMRI; the first ever issue to exclusively feature Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research.

Indigenous health researchers have traditionally been marginalised or left out altogether in health and medical publishing. This collaboration aims to highlight the injustice of this exclusion and the need for change, by ceding editorial control to Indigenous guest editors, including SAHMRI Wardliparingga Aboriginal Healthy Equity Co-Leader, Associate Professor Odette Pearson.

“It was a privilege to be invited by the Lowitja Institute to be a guest editor of the special issue with a group of strong and inspirational Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders,” A/Prof Pearson said.

“This edition includes work led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics and researchers that is grounded in principles set by communities, responsive to community aspirations and self-determination and that has resulted in direct outcomes, service improvements or policy relevance.”

The study is one of a dozen pieces of work published in the journal, which MJA Editor in Chief, Professor Virginia Barbour says is a direct response to the outcome of the Voice referendum in 2024.

“Meaningful change will only come when those in power are prepared to step aside and let Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples lead their own affairs whilst supporting where required,” Prof Barbour said.

“What was clear was that our previous ways of working, by applying Western norms of publishing, has led to exclusion of papers on Indigenous health and more crucially exclusion of Indigenous health researchers.”

A/Prof Pearson says guest editing also provided a great chance to get to know the MJA team; on a reciprocal learning journey with promising potential to inform future processes.

“Indigenous voices and knowledges belong in mainstream publishing and the opportunity for this needs to open-up across all disciplines,” A/Prof Pearson said.

The journal edition will officially launch at an invitation only event hosted by the Lowitja Institute at SAHMRI tomorrow morning.

The Centering Indigenous Knowledges special edition can be accessed here.