Why Visual Ethnography Should Be Used to Incorporate Traditional Knowledge Into Health Promotion in Remote Aboriginal Communities

Abstract

Health promotion within Aboriginal communities has typically come from a top-down approach with government-funded health research directing the nature in which health information is disseminated. Previous literature has argued for two-way interaction that requires an equivalent bottom-up approach to integrate community beliefs and perceptions. Good hygiene has been the focus of many health promotion campaigns to reduce the presence of a wide variety of pathogens, but to date, there have been few attempts to incorporate traditional knowledge into such campaigns. This article proposes that visual ethnography, specifically community video, provides a good method for understanding community beliefs while simultaneously creating health promotion materials within the local culture.