Georgia Birch PhD student @ Deakin University
[email protected]
Research question
How does previous physical
activity and motherhood
influence activity levels in later
life for older Somali women living
in Melbourne, Australia?
Participant’s (photography)
Ageing in Victoria 2010-2020
 The State Government of Victoria (2010) has released a
future guide to co-ordinate whole of government
planning and investment for an aging population over the
next 10 years until 2020.
 One of the three key priority outcomes in this guide is the
development of good health and wellbeing. It is intended
that ‘health promotion strategies that encourage healthy
lifestyles will help address the increasing prevalence of
chronic disease, one of our greatest health challenges’
(State Government of Victoria 2010, p 5).
Research project
 Where: the project will be situated at the Flemington
Housing estate.
 Who: a group of older Somali women who are part of
an existing mental health group that meets on a
weekly basis
 Stakeholders: Doutta Galla Community Health
Service (DGCHS) and the United Somali Women’s
Organisation (USWO).
So what have I done?
 Mentoring for a Somali project called ‘Care Connection’.
 Did rounds with the mental health and refugee nurses at
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DGCHS as a participant observer
Attended festivals, weddings and community gatherings
Established links with the community by volunteering to
help out at DGCHS and USWO.
Collected all data through the arts based activities in 2010
Completed data collection with an exhibition
The context
Anzaldua (1987) Borderland theory
 Anzaldua considers how people move between
cultures, cross borders and create new “lands’ – how
they “survive the cross roads” (p.103)
 Older Somali women live on the border of, and
between , two cultures, in a ‘third’ space where they
have the unique ability to see different worlds
 Discovering the unusual, the multiple, the merging
identities of border dwellers.
Participants
Who's on the border?
Valadez & Elsbree (2005) ‘coyote
theory
 Coyotes operate “in secreto”, they are trust worthy and
“protect those they are smuggling”
 Coyotes are “skilled at knowing” the codes, “los codigos”.
They are able to “school their border crossers”
 Coyotes are “la facultad”, they can read situations quickly
and understand the context
 Coyotes express “sincere compromiso commitment”
Committed to seeing that they have a voice.
Informant – Fadumo
The ‘coyote’
Research project - ART
 The women are being asked to participate in a series of
art workshops run on the Flemington estate by a trained
artist while the researcher discusses themes around
physical activity and motherhood in informal groups.
 Eakin (2003) suggests that when using art and art
workshops, artists are creating an environment where
participants were unlocking, interpreting and playing back
local people’s feelings about themselves and their health.
Art work is an effective medium for carrying ideas
(Matarosso, 1997)
Artists
Methodology Dilemmas
 Prolonged immersion in “the field”
 Research fatigue in minority groups
 Power relationship between cultures
 Power relationships between stakeholders
 Power relationships between
researcher and those being
researched
‘Helicopter
research’ vs Trust
and relationships in
research!
Methodology Dilemmas
 Ethics: issues around informed consent with women who
have a mental health problem.
 Working with government agencies- everything works
very slowly and they are actually gatekeepers to the
USWO. Then you must get past the next lot of
gatekeepers!
 Funding: art materials, artists, food, childcare, bilingual
worker, transcribers, translators.
 Essential to have an ‘informant’ on the ground.
The effects of being researched
Value of Physical Activity
 Often other priorities take precedence over health
concerns especially with refugees such as housing,
employment and education
 African communities see fat as being beautiful, a sign of
wealth and the ‘good life’
 Issues surrounding safety, discrimination, access,
bilingual fitness leaders, culturally appropriate exercise
options, cost, time, care giving duties, fate
 Weather is a major barrier
Preliminary results:
 Methodological dilemmas already highlighted
 Barriers to physical activity include; language, difficulties
in transferring lifecourse physical activity, discrimination –
living conditions, time, cost, caregiving duties, fate and
‘Inshall Allah’, ongoing trauma and mental health issues,
‘mental fatigue’, access to fresh food/organic, culturally
appropriate exercise, isolation/social exclusion.
 Motherhood and previous physical activity experiences
do not encourage physical activity in later life.
Preliminary results continued:
 We must not adopt a ‘one size fits all approach’ to
engaging women from ethnic backgrounds in PA
 Aging is a time for rest after a hard life of work and
turmoil. A time to ‘let it go’
 Exercise without purpose is associated with a mental
illness
 The Salat is a form of regular physical activity
Prologue
 Established an Italian/Somali group in the Flemington
area, meets once a term
 Establishing a connection with other faiths
 Dilemma: the distance between collecting the data and
the participants seeing any results. Understanding the
process of research
 Maintaining connection with participants