I decided to write this thesis many years ago and in the process of ‘becoming’ a Palawa man I finally understood the global agenda between black and white Australians and the direct actions required to attain a traditional form of Aboriginal democracy. I share in this understanding in this thesis. Mind you I share with trepidation because the options are very existential to the prevailing discourse. However a doctoral thesis will add to the body of knowledge not simply to confirm existing theoretical discourse or to leave this discourse un-challenged. Therefore this thesis is about the critical mass of cultural variables pertaining to teaching of Australian Indigenous peoples and the conduct of meaningful research. Its primary intent is to offer an alternative to the inappropriate methodologies that currently apply in the generic areas of pedagogy and research (in their broadest sense). In my opinion at present both these areas are pathologically dominated by Western thought. The idea of change and alternative paradigms is addressed in the introduction and this thesis is not intended to achieve anything more than a hearing of these options. This is why the discourse of this knowledge terrain in this thesis is so diverse and so demanding of the reader. The core notion of this discourse is the Japanangka Teaching and Research Paradigm.The Japanangka Teaching and Research Paradigm has as its core the articulation of eight dimensions or sub-paradigms. These are the quality of life dimensions: Cultural, Spiritual, Secular, and the other five: Intellectual, Political, Practical, Personal and Public dimensions. These eight constitute the sum of human experience relevant to the daily lives of Aborigines and as such are key categories to the unravelling of the seemingly imponderable mystery of “learning journey paths” so critical to the success of our students in formal Western education activities.

The best interest test is the legal mechanism which governs decision making on behalf of adults who lack the capacity to make their own health care treatment decisions. The test has attracted considerable criticism from health professionals, academics, judges and lawyers for being ill-defined and non-specific. The question of what is meant by 'best interests' remains largely unanswered. As a consequence, the test gives medical and legal decision makers considerable discretion to apply their personal value judgements within supposedly value-free philosophical frameworks - unreasoned and opaque decision making processes are the inevitable result. Because of the dominance of supposedly value-free philosophical frameworks, the place of values in decision making is not always fully understood. Reasoning is not possible without values, which stem from our emotions and passions, our upbringing, our religion, our cultures, our processes of socialisation and from our life experiences. Values help us make sense of our daily lives. I argue that law - like any other social institution - is essentially a human, values based construct. I put forward a theory of values-based law which argues for the recognition that laws, rules and conventions are based on, and contain, individual values. Currently, medical and legal decision makers justify grave decisions on behalf of society's most vulnerable citizens without revealing, or even acknowledging the values which drive and inform their decisions. Any opportunities to scrutinise or debate the values driving decisions are lost. Ultimately, values-based law argues that values underlying best interest determinations must be exposed to facilitate honest, transparent and fulsome decision making on behalf of adults who lack capacity. By applying the theory of values-based law, supposedly value-free decision making processes are exposed as insufficient to facilitate fulsome, honest and transparent legal reasoning.

This thesis uncovers the rational and Romantic assumptions about the relationship between objects and identity that are embedded in occupational therapy, and critiques current practice from that perspective. It is based on an initial assumption that there is in fact a relationship between people's identity and the objects they make, have, use and are associated with. This assumption is explored through an interpretive examination of the fields of literature that are commonly identified as informing occupational therapy, supplemented by selected popular literature. The exploration takes a philosophical approach, guided by notions from philosophical hermeneutics, including pre-understandings, the hermeneutic circle and fusion of horizons. The conclusion reached is that people informed by Western philosophies interpret the identity meanings of objects in both rational and Romantic ways. To inform the study, the nature of rationalism and Romanticism are then explained, and the implications of these philosophical traditions in relation to objects and identity are teased out. This interpretation is guided by a history of ideas methodology, which entails approaching historical texts from a new perspective, in this case the identity meanings of objects. Thus informed, occupational therapy literature, primarily that published in Britain between 1938 and 1962 is examined from the perspective of objects and identity. What is revealed is that rational and Romantic understandings of objects, and of patients' and their own identity are clearly discernible. Such understandings afforded early occupational therapists both ways to organise their growing knowledge of the therapeutic application of crafts and the transformative outcomes of occupational therapy intervention. Gradually however, factors both internal and external to the profession served to undermine therapists' Romanticism. Primary amongst these were World War II, which saw a redeployment of occupational therapists from mental health to physical rehabilitation settings; advances in rehabilitative medicine, which brought a reduction in secondary complications and the adoption of teamwork; and the development of new practice areas including domestic rehabilitation using gadgets to enhance function and pre-vocational rehabilitation. As a result, tensions between rational and Romantic understandings crystallised around two long-standing controversies. These were whether or not craft equipment such as weaving looms should be adapted to serve specific remedial purposes, and whether it was the process of making a crafted object or the quality of the finished product that was more important. In the event, these contested ideologies became largely irrelevant as craftwork was sidelined from mainstream practice. With it, occupational therapists' Romantic vision of transforming people's lives through creative activity also slipped away. Several reasons for this loss of one of the profession's founding philosophies are proposed. They include the substantial absence of the professions' philosophical foundations from its education, and the paucity of theory and research methodologies that might have informed the nature and process of transformative change that earlier occupational therapists had observed and reported. The thesis concludes by arguing for the importance of recovering a balance between rationalism and Romanticism. A call to action is issued, addressing change in educational practice, concerted research effort to identify and articulate transformative processes within occupational therapy, and political action focusing on the inclusion of Romantic perspectives within policy and strategic documents.

I decided to write this thesis many years ago and in the process of ‘becoming’ a Palawa man I finally understood the global agenda between black and white Australians and the direct actions required to attain a traditional form of Aboriginal democracy. I share in this understanding in this thesis. Mind you I share with trepidation because the options are very existential to the prevailing discourse. However a doctoral thesis will add to the body of knowledge not simply to confirm existing theoretical discourse or to leave this discourse un-challenged. Therefore this thesis is about the critical mass of cultural variables pertaining to teaching of Australian Indigenous peoples and the conduct of meaningful research. Its primary intent is to offer an alternative to the inappropriate methodologies that currently apply in the generic areas of pedagogy and research (in their broadest sense). In my opinion at present both these areas are pathologically dominated by Western thought. The idea of change and alternative paradigms is addressed in the introduction and this thesis is not intended to achieve anything more than a hearing of these options. This is why the discourse of this knowledge terrain in this thesis is so diverse and so demanding of the reader. The core notion of this discourse is the Japanangka Teaching and Research Paradigm.The Japanangka Teaching and Research Paradigm has as its core the articulation of eight dimensions or sub-paradigms. These are the quality of life dimensions: Cultural, Spiritual, Secular, and the other five: Intellectual, Political, Practical, Personal and Public dimensions. These eight constitute the sum of human experience relevant to the daily lives of Aborigines and as such are key categories to the unravelling of the seemingly imponderable mystery of “learning journey paths” so critical to the success of our students in formal Western education activities.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007. / Title from title screen (site viewed Feb. 19, 2008). PDF text: 217 p. ; 443 K. UMI publication number: AAT 3271923. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2001. / Adviser: Julio Garcia. Submitted to the Dept. of Experimental Psychology. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-61). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- McMaster University, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-258). Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Niva Piran.

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1982. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-125).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: Elaine B. Safer, Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references.