ArtVoice: An Indigenous-Informed Visual Arts-Based Method for Exploring Knowledges on Country in Zenadth Kes

Abstract

Climate change poses an urgent threat to Indigenous peoples globally, including the Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait) communities of Australia, whose deep ancestral, cultural, and ecological connections to Sea Country are foundational to identity and wellbeing. Despite growing attention to climate impacts, Indigenous perspectives and Traditional Knowledge remain underexplored, and few culturally grounded, place-based methods exist to engage respectfully with these sensitive issues. This article introduces ArtVoice, an arts-based, community-driven qualitative method developed and led by an Indigenous researcher from Zenadth Kes. Rooted in Indigenous epistemologies and relational ways of knowing, ArtVoice invites community members to express their experiences, hopes, and concerns about climate change through creative artworks. The research described in this protocol involves field visits guided by Elders, who oversee cultural protocols and provide direction throughout the study, ensuring relational accountability and respect for local sovereignty. This ‘method-in-place’ approach is attuned to the colonial research context, privileging Indigenous self-determination and cultural authority throughout study design, data generation, analysis, and dissemination. Ethical principles grounded in Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property rights underpin the project, ensuring community leadership in decisions about sharing stories and artworks. ArtVoice offers a decolonising, culturally responsive approach to exploring climate change impacts with Indigenous communities, advancing qualitative research methods that honour Indigenous knowledge systems and support Indigenous-led climate action.

Introduction

Acknowledging that all knowledge is situated, I ¹ am culturally obliged to first and foremost respect the Country where I come from - Saibai Island with strong ties to Badhu Island in Zenadth Kes – and the cultural ways of knowing, being and doing passed down to me through my Ama (mother) from my ancestors. This respect extends to the community who continue to guide and shape my work. Today, my homelands are known in English as the Torres Strait Islands ² , the northern most tip of Queensland, Australia. My writing begins with my own protocols, as this forms the foundations of any research I conduct in my homelands. I also acknowledge and seek to address the influence colonisation has had on my worldview, shaped in part through my western training as a Registered Nurse, Master of Public Health and my research (described here). Throughout this article, the use of first-person voice (“I”) intentionally centres the perspective of myself, the Indigenous lead author, who is deeply embedded within the community and the research process. This narrative choice is consistent with Indigenous epistemologies that emphasise relationality, accountability, and the situated nature of knowledge (Foley, 2003; Wilson, 2008). By foregrounding my voice as the Indigenous author, this paper aims to uphold decolonising principles in qualitative research, making explicit the researcher’s positionality and responsibility within the co-constructed knowledge shared here. The purpose of this article is to culturally situate the proposed research method (entitled, ArtVoice) and in doing so, to describe the value and potential of a visual qualitative method grounded in Indigenous protocols.

Indigenous peoples are already noticing changes in the environment that are impacting on traditional ways of life, and this impact is exacerbated by the high levels of disadvantage that Indigenous peoples endure (Thilagawathi et al., 2023). While Indigenous people contribute the least to the anthropogenic factors that drive climate change, they will be most affected by the impacts of climate change (Carmona et al., 2023; Perry & Sealey-Huggins, 2023). Over thousands of years, Indigenous peoples have had knowledges, connections and practices that have cared for the place-specific needs of their respective homelands or “Country” that has more recently been affected by colonialism (McCrackin et al., 2024; Redvers et al., 2022). Indigenous peoples have been asking for consequential inclusion in the discourse about climate change policies, but there is little acknowledgment of the impacts of the backgrounds of colonisation and structural discrimination against Indigenous peoples globally and the diversity of Indigenous peoples and their homelands, even in the International Panel on Climate Change recent report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2022; Pearl, 2018; Thilagawathi et al., 2023). Dominant knowledge systems do not fully recognise the importance of Indigenous Knowledges or the power disparities that are contextual to the discourse on the impacts and strategies to address climate change, only privileging western worldviews (McCrackin et al., 2024; Redvers et al., 2022; Thilagawathi et al., 2023). It is within this entrenched power discrepancy I am writing and conceiving of research as an Indigenous researcher seeking to be of service to my community within a western knowledge system.

This research takes an Indigenous epistemological approach through an Indigenous standpoint. In short, this means that knowledges are not owned by the researcher or the academy, but by the community, and this differs from traditional western notions of knowledge being held or owned by individuals within the academy (Foley, 2022). Within an Indigenous epistemology, the researcher, who must be Indigenous, ensures that the participants are owners of the knowledges, and that data are recorded in traditional language whenever possible (Foley, 2003; Wilson, 2008). Relationality is central to my epistemological and ontological standpoint. By this, I refer to a key difference between Indigenous and (majority of) non-Indigenous ways of doing research – that is, the conditions of coming to know, for me, stem from my (and my ancestors) historically enduring ties to the land and sea. Relationality – that is, being connected in these myriad of ways – is a presupposition of Indigenous research theory and paradigms (Moreton-Robinson, 2016). The centrality of relationality will become clearer, for now, I turn to broader scholarship to situate this study.

This study is situated within a community-based, participatory action research that centres Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. Being participatory in nature, this research is about enabling community to control, lead and direct the research in terms of scope, timeline, process and outputs. As the lead author I am an embedded researcher – both part of the community as well as part of the institution running the research. Weaved through this process will be Indigenous Research Methods including storytelling (“yarning”), language, metaphors, sound, imagery, dance, and ultimately, artwork (Blair, 2015; Tuck & McKenzie, 2014). Being an insider to the community and embedded within culturally appropriate ways of knowing and being, these ‘research methods’ are not mere techniques to be inserted into this research. Instead, they reflect the cultural practices of the people from the region, and being from this region means it is more possible to hold cultural sensitivity. Being based in the Zenadth Kes, a region with a long history of visual artists and storytellers, this study has chosen to foreground the visual as a means for sharing Knowledges. Initial contact through my personal connections and family ties has supported initial scoping of this being an arts-based project. Art in this cultural context, is a not merely for aesthetics, but is a way of transferring knowledge, a cultural exchange and interpretation that transforms understandings through different lived and inherited worlds.

The ‘visual turn’ in qualitative research has supported the proliferation of methods such as Photovoice, Photo-story, photo elicitation, auto-photography, photo novella, to name a few. One of the more common and widely applied methods is Photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997). As a method, Photovoice involves giving cameras to participants to document their experience of the issue of interest. Photographs are then shared by participants, with the researchers and/or community, for the purposes of supporting an in-depth exploration of the topic. Then, key aspects of the participants’ stories (and photographs) are shared in an exhibition, report or article as a way of raising awareness and supporting social change. The epistemological roots of Photovoice lie in critical consciousness raising and participatory action research, in which the purpose of the research is to ultimately benefit vulnerable and disempowered communities (Wang & Burris, 1997). The application and uptake of Photovoice since development has been wide and heterogeneous, as noted by a recent systematic review of this method in the context of Indigenous youth (e.g. Anderson et al., 2023). Rather than problematise such heterogeneity as a weakness of the method, from an Indigenous lens, I see heterogeneity as an important part of contextual, place-based research.

It is my observation that presently missing from the scholarship on visual, arts-based research methods is a clearer articulation of how to decolonise these methods, particularly from Indigenous perspectives. At face value, visual, arts-based methods, including those aforementioned as well ArtVoice, may ‘look’ similar and appear to be easily adapted to fit the context. It is my argument that in the context of decolonising such visual, arts-based methods, there is more than meets the eye, as I will explore. For example, and as an exception, Barwin and colleagues (2015) helpfully foreground communities and place as needing to guide the methods used. In their view, place-based methods are attentive to the local culture and context aiming to foster connection between researchers and communities so as to foreground community strengths and meaningful results (Barwin et al., 2015). Adding to this, I – in dialogue with my co-author – suggest time as an additional dimension of decolonising arts-based methods that needs attention. For example, the commonly adopted method Photovoice encourages participants to use photographs to express their lived experiences and local priorities. While photographs are useful in documenting what is already present in a given environment/context, it is fixed to the present, to what is visible. Put another way, with circular notions of time in Indigenous cultures (past, present and future as all ‘present’), it is important that research methods enable the past and future to be foregrounded even if they cannot be visibly ‘seen’ through a photograph. It is our suggestion that widening the possibilities for expressing experiences and allowing spiritual and non-time-bound experiences to come forward is important in decolonising arts-based research.

ArtVoice has been conceived of from a decolonial imperative, not simply to resist dominant research paradigms, but to reassert a way of knowing, being, and doing that is inherently relational. In most western methodologies, the researcher stands apart from the participants and phenomena of study; in contrast, Indigenous research paradigms begin from a place of kinship, responsibility, and relational accountability (Kovach, 2009; Wilson, 2008). I join alongside Indigenous writers attempting to language our ways within western formats, or as Cole (2002) puts it, “take[ing] up the tools of the settlers” despite the fact that the “idea of a paragraph is meaningless to my sense of oral contiguousness with the land with community with acting in the world” (p. 448). Hence, I developed a method where the ‘vessel’ of translation sits outside the colonial frame and tools, enabling a communion and expression across time and space, as our oral and artistic traditions have always done. Ultimately, ArtVoice is about reallocating power to Indigenous communities, honouring the inherited and living knowledges that have sustained Zenadth Kes communities for thousands of years and that deserve to be heard and translated (with proper permissions) to western audiences. The challenge therefore lies in upholding the decolonial roots of this work, while simultaneously articulating its story and usefulness to (largely) western audiences in a written format.

To further support a conceptual grounding that locates ArtVoice as a distinctly decolonial visual arts-based method, I offer an articulation of how relationships precede any research. Within Indigenous worldviews, relationality is not a metaphor but a law: a protocol, a lore, and a lived epistemology that binds us to ancestors, Country, kin, and those yet to be born (Martin, 2003; Moreton-Robinson, 2016). It shapes not only what we know, but how we come to know, and with whom. Relationality comes alive in how we articulate our ways of knowing, our metaphors for thinking with and through colonised spaces that may obstruct, reduce or codify our knowledge systems (Blaire, 2022). In this way, ArtVoice is not simply situated in a community context, it emerges through it. ArtVoice enacts this: it connects the spiritual and the political, the past and the emergent, in ways that cannot be reduced to research constructs. In using art, itself an intergenerational language, the method holds open space for what cannot always be spoken or seen (Archibald et al., 2022). Hence, art as a method foregrounds the researcher’s relational accountability not only to community, but to Country, culture, and collective futures. ArtVoice acknowledges that knowledge, in Indigenous systems, is inherited, carried, and enacted — not extracted or owned (Smith, 2021). The method itself is relational: shaped by an Indigenous worldview of interconnectedness, and that knowledge becomes meaningful only when held in relation.

From a decolonising perspective there is an irony – and indeed a risk – in writing a protocol paper for a participatory action research project. I would liken this process to having an outrigger boat running parallel to a canoe. In the canoe, I am subject to the forces of the weather, tides and capacity of those on board who take lead with timing, direction, pace and final destination. The canoe is guided by the principles of Tagai, a constellation of stars that underpin identity, order, cyclical changes and connection for people of the Zenadth Kes. The canoe is built by community, with local resources. By comparison, the outrigger represents an outsider perspective attempting to document what is ultimately an unknown process. With the sails erected, the outrigger can race ahead of the canoe and attempt to predict and plan for what might lie in unknown waters. In this project, the outrigger includes the institution we are affiliated with, my own western education and training, and my co-author’s cultural locatedness. As a non-Indigenous scholar, my co-author has worked alongside me to support this work’s articulation for a western academic audience — not steering the canoe, but stabilising the process through editorial guidance, critical friendship, and institutional co-navigation. This co-authorship has been approached as a dialogical, respectful, and relational process, grounded in the cultural authority of the community and led by me as an Indigenous researcher. Her prior experience with Elders and community, as well as decolonising methodologies and critical reflexive qualitative research support her to work alongside me in the articulation of this method, to hear between the lines.

Attempting to define the canoe, which I am calling ArtVoice, through a western format of research protocols is the purpose of this article and our co-authorship. In this instance, the outrigger is the method protocol genre that I am navigating, all the while attempting to protect the canoe from being taken apart, inspected and judged for its merit by eyes that are conditioned to see/read differently. A decolonising approach invites in effect a dual lens: that I/we attend to both the canoe and the outrigger, and enable them to co-exist. The risk, which I named earlier, is that the very process of writing this method into being (as we are doing here) is or becomes colonising. The knowledge production process in contemporary colonial contexts is governed by certain ‘experts’ who govern institutional processes through peer-review, ethics clearance, and other forms of gatekeeping that while important, carry often unacknowledged power and worldviews. Like the weather, these colonial forces may re-direct the journey of the canoe.

In what follows, we describe this place-based study through a relational (co-authored) approach. We make clear my Indigenous Research Methodology and how it foregrounds Indigenous-led research practices and ethics. Ultimately, the purpose of ArtVoice is to explore the perspectives, Knowledges and insights of Indigenous people from Zenadth Kes on community wellbeing, connection to Country and Indigenous-led responses to address climate change in the region. Seeking to foreground Indigenous-led knowledge, with a uniquely Indigenous method can inform policy-makers in culturally appropriate, inclusive and strength-based policies that are inclusive of Indigenous voices, we briefly outline some context. While we necessarily adopt academic structures and language, we do so with the awareness that these forms cannot fully hold the depth, relationality, and spiritual dimensions of Indigenous ways of knowing. Nevertheless, this articulation, with dual voice, and cross-cultural authorship, is offered as one contribution to growing the visibility and respect for Indigenous-led methodologies: one way to imagine re-existing in colonial spaces.

ArtVoice in Practice: Method-In-Place

Taking a participatory approach that privileges Indigenous community voices regarding climate change, this study proposes to use ArtVoice – a culturally relevant and appropriate arts-based qualitative method grounded in Indigenous protocols – for/with the people of Zenadth Kes. Following Barwin et al. (2015), I adopt a ‘method-in-place’ approach that is sensitive to local cultures, communities, and the colonial context of research. ArtVoice honours the spiritual worldviews and symbolic meanings of Country, identity, and culture.

Study Design

This study is embedded within a community-based participatory research project that foregrounds Traditional Knowledges and cultural protocols. Enabling the community to lead the research foregrounding cultural protocols is consistent with participatory methods and Indigenous protocols of self-determination (Anderson et al., 2023; Castleden et al., 2008). Utilising a community-based participatory research framework, where the community are active participants and not just the “subjects” of research, will support in decolonising the research and giving autonomy and voice to the communities, and giving an opportunity for dialogue that ensures that their voices are accurately reflected in the research process and outcomes (Anderson et al., 2023; Blair, 2015; Castleden et al., 2008; Fredericks et al., 2011; Wilson, 2008). This study also adheres to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies (COREQ) guidelines (Tong et al., 2007) to ensure comprehensive and transparent reporting of qualitative research.

Study Setting

Zenadth Kes is located at the top end of Queensland, between the tip of Cape York and the southern end of Papua New Guinea in what is now called Australia. The region is made up of an area of around 48,000 square kilometres of open sea, with over ninety percent of the Torres Strait area being ocean (Torres Strait Regional Authority, 2023). Sea Country plays a critical role in Torres Strait Islander cultures, as it provides hunting and fishing resources for a subsistence-based livelihood, and is also an integral part of Islander identity, contributing to our spiritual and physical well-being (Green, 2006, 2008, 2010; Johnson & Welch, 2015; Passi, 1986).

Despite contributing the least to greenhouse gas emissions, communities across the islands are speaking out about the devastating impacts of climate change (Wellauer & Ruddick, 2024). Indeed, in the world first legal case, Daniel Billy and other vs Australian Government, eight Traditional Owners from different islands recently took the Australian Government to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and won, over the Government’s failure to protect the human rights of Islanders (as per the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People) (“Daniel Billy and others v Australia,” 2019). More recently, two Elders of the Zenadth Kes took the Australian government to Federal court on the grounds of failing to prevent climate harm, however, their case was dismissed (Pabai Pabai and Kabai v Commonwealth, 2025). Despite these challenges, the people of the Zenadth Kes, through cultural languages, lore, and connections, have maintained their identity and this has enabled ongoing protection of their homeland. It is within this broader movement of reclaiming sovereignty and determination for culture, communities and homelands that this protocol is situated.

With a long history of art and storytelling as means of preserving and sharing knowledges, there is a strong presence of art centres across the islands. One particular art centre, on an island that I have family connections to, will be approached (in line with cultural protocols) to partner in this research. This art centre will form the nucleus of this research, the place in which the research will be held and supported. It has strong connections within the region as an Indigenous corporation operating for 16 years and exhibiting work from local artists. Artists from this art centre engage with a wide variety of creative mediums, including printmaking, etching, textiles, jewellery, and carving. While the art centre is the chosen setting for this arts-based project, recruitment will not be exclusive to established artists.

Study Procedures

The study will involve at least two field visits. In the first visit, I will prioritise spending time yarning with local Elders and community to finalise the cultural protocols or ‘proper way’ of introductions and situating the research within the place, people and time. It is essential that the community lead and run the work in their own way, on their own terms, and for their benefit – this is the primary purpose of the first visit. As primary researcher, I will sit with the Elders and community members on Country and listen to their yarns. In yarning about this research, I will explain that the focus is on the contribution of Indigenous Knowledges in building climate change responses so that People can stay living on Country while also protecting their health.

In short, the first visit will be both obtaining a blessing for the research from Elders, and a necessary listening exercise as it aims to set the scope of the research study and refine the method itself – i.e. how ArtVoice will be taken up and led by Elders and communities. While broadly this research is intended to be about exploring Indigenous Knowledges so that people can stay living on Country in a changing climate, the precise direction or focus is ultimately for the community to define – it is after all, their canoe. Any art materials to facilitate the process will be provided through the art centre and made available after the first visit (or delivered over the course of the project, when necessary). There will also be remuneration for Elders sitting time in yarning up the project. Remuneration for participants will be negotiated with Elders and the art Centre. For example, there may be the option to auction the Art through an exhibition at the end of the project so as to directly support local community members.

The second visit will involve both myself and my co-author listening and learning from communities from their stories, created art and experiences of the participatory process. This visit is a vital listening exercise, with the aim of learning about how ArtVoice has been enacted in-place, and what emerged through both the art and the experiences of community. The yarning with community participants about their stories and the meanings of the art will include the necessary elements of respectful, reciprocal and responsible decolonising practices (Kennedy et al., 2022; Wilson, 2008).

A third visit will be discussed as optional, depending on the priorities and wishes of community in terms of further disseminating the art and stories of this project. There will be discussions in the initial and second visit about how the community wishes to share (if at all) their art and experiences. For example, given there are many art centres across the islands there may be interest in sharing as a Zenadth Kes specific exhibition, or perhaps exhibiting the work on the mainland of Australia as part of raising awareness of climate change impacts for the Torres Strait. As part of an ongoing process of negotiating and power-sharing, consistent with community-based participatory research, the community will define and shape the research outputs and translation. This also includes the community defining what stories and Artworks make it into academic outputs (e.g. publications) and non-academic audiences (e.g. exhibitions).

Participants and Data Collection

In terms of anticipating sample size, this is difficult in a participatory action research project. However, for the purposes of offering some parameters, I will aim to recruit around 10 participants. The participants will be recruited through yarning with the Elders, community consultation and community art centres. Participants will be provided with an overview of the study aims, purpose of the study and timeframe – both orally, and in language and a primarily visual format. Verbal consent will be sought from each participant, followed by one written consent (signed participant and consent form). The emphasis is on verbal consent given the strong use of a storytelling processes consistent with Indigenous ways of working. As noted, the study is ultimately for community to define in terms of its parameters and outcomes, so Elders and participants will be central shaping their scope and intentions for the research. It is not expected that participants are already established artists in the region. We require that participants are over 18 years of age, but otherwise they do not need to have existing affiliations with the art centre as an artist. Any community member is welcome to participate and define their medium of choice to express themselves (e.g. painting, printmaking, etching, textiles, jewellery, carving, etc.).

Debunking the ‘expert artist’ is mostly relevant to non-Indigenous communities, whereas for many Indigenous communities, art is seen as merely one form of expression and not something reserved for ‘experts’ (Ferrara, 2004). In addition, participants will receive remuneration for being part of the research project, as an appreciation of their time and cultural knowledge.

Interested participants will engage initially through the art centre, or directly with me during the field visit, and once consent is given they will be free to begin producing their art. While some artists may have existing works they wish to submit as part of the study, others may be creating new art precisely for the project. I will remain the point of contact throughout the study, with the art centre supporting the recruitment and data collection process. Participants may communicate as a group and form their own intentions around the project, or may work individually. Ultimately, there are no set rules or constraints, it is for participants to lead and decide on what is best for community. In terms of the second visit where the research team will be listening to participants’ stories, Art and experiences, our yarns will be guided by the following aims:

• To explore the stories tied to the artworks from participants’ perspective

• To explore visioning and imaginings of the future of Zenadth Kes in a changing climate

• To explore the experiences participants have already had of climate change and how this has impacted their health and wellbeing

The key outputs of this study will be community-led and centred. For example, art and stories may be shared with communities across the Zenadth Kes or on the mainland of Australia through a public exhibition, where artworks will be displayed, with a short explanation of their meanings from the person who took the photo or made the artwork. If this avenue is chosen by community, then after the exhibition, participants will keep their own artwork or photographs, as well as the intellectual and cultural property rights connected to the artworks (Janke, 2009). Second, a report or visual collection of all artworks and photographs, their story and meanings may also be chosen to be printed and shared with art centres across the region as well as all participants – as an appreciation of their time and contributions and fitting the reciprocity underpinning the Indigenous Research Method (Michel & Bassinder, 2013), but privileging the voices of the community (Blair, 2015; Fredericks et al., 2011; Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003).

Data Analysis

In this participatory project, ‘analysis’ is not a distinct phase, but a collaborative and ongoing process of reflection, story-sharing, and meaning-making that unfolds throughout the life of the research. Consistent with a decolonising participatory action research framework, the ‘analysis’ is not a formal, discrete and expert-led process. Rather, the community will be leading the nuanced, culturally situated meaning-making process of the ArtVoice project, as well as the various contributions of artworks from community. Elders and key community members will be involved throughout to ensure the analysis reflects community perspectives and lived realities. This approach not only honours Indigenous values of reciprocity and relational accountability (Michel & Bassinder, 2013), but also supports the privileging of community voices in the representation and consolidation of knowledge (Blair, 2015; Fredericks et al., 2011; Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003). These community leaders will be integral to interpreting the process and outcomes of the project, ensuring that meaning making is situated in cultural protocols and relationships.

Decolonising the research process also requires careful reflection on what ‘analysis’ means, and the power dynamics it can reproduce. One of the more significant challenges here relates not to interpretation, but to translation—across languages, worldviews, and epistemological frames. As lead researcher, I speak multiple regional languages and will take responsibility for translating findings for diverse audiences, including western academic readers. However, I acknowledge that some concepts do not translate cleanly into English and risk losing or distorting meaning. In other instances, translating certain insights may breach cultural protocols or expose knowledge that is not meant for public sharing. These dilemmas will be guided by the wisdom of Elders and community members, who hold final authority over what can and should be shared. In such cases, the decision not to translate or publish is itself an act of cultural sovereignty and a decolonising ethic.

Rigour

In this research, rigour is not measured by objectivity or replicability, but by relational accountability, cultural congruence, and ethical responsibility, principles that are central to Indigenous research methodologies (Blair, 2015; Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003; Wilson, 2008). Rather than applying conventional western criteria of validity and reliability, rigour is demonstrated through ongoing engagement with Elders and community members, adherence to cultural protocols, and the co-creation of knowledge that centres Zenadth Kes voices and perspectives. The participatory and iterative nature of this research ensures that the methods and outcomes remain culturally appropriate, contextually grounded, and meaningful to the community. This is consistent with a ‘method-in-place’ approach (Barwin et al., 2015), which emphasises responsiveness to local cultural contexts and decolonising frameworks.

ArtVoice, as a culturally relevant arts-based method, provides a valid means for community members to express complex connections to Country, identity, and climate change impacts in a way that honours Indigenous worldviews and storytelling traditions. Trustworthiness is further enhanced by the use of yarning as a dialogic method that fosters reciprocal relationships, transparent dialogue, and participant-led meaning-making (Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010). The research process incorporates a form of member checking through ongoing discussions with participants and Elders, ensuring their agency in interpreting, validating, and guiding the use of their stories and artworks.

The positionality of the primary researcher as an Indigenous person from Zenadth Kes, fluent in local languages and embedded within kinship networks, strengthens cultural rigour and interpretive depth. This insider knowledge fosters trust and supports culturally safe practices, aligning with Indigenous research principles of relationality and accountability (Foley, 2003; Kovach, 2009).

Finally, rigour is maintained through careful attention to ethical considerations around knowledge ownership, translation, and dissemination. Community leadership in decisions regarding what knowledge and artworks are shared beyond Zenadth Kes ensures respect for cultural sovereignty and knowledge protection, thereby supporting valid and respectful knowledge production consistent with Indigenous cultural protocols (AIATSIS, 2020; Janke, 2009).

Ethics and Dissemination

Ethical approval has been received from a university Ethics Committee (reference 2022/HE002188) as part of a wider project examining the health impacts on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples from climate change. The work is governed by the NHMRC’s Ethical Conduct in research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Communities (NHMRC, 2018) and the AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research (AIATSIS, 2020). To ensure these principles are upheld, an overarching advisory group consisting of Elders and community members will be formed to provide ongoing guidance.

Potential ethical issues in this project relate particularly to the existing relationships between the primary researcher and community participants, and the use and ownership of artworks, photographs, and cultural knowledge. Unlike traditional positivist paradigms, Indigenous methodologies recognise that close personal ties between researchers and community can be a strength and a source of accountability (Blair, 2015; Wilson, 2008). My insider knowledge of kinship structures, community dynamics, and cultural protocols enables culturally safe and respectful research practices. More importantly, my embeddedness also strengthens my ethical responsibility to conduct this work in ways that honour local authority, relationships, and Country.

To support genuine and equitable collaboration, the principles of the AIATSIS Code (AIATSIS, 2020) and the Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (Janke, 2009) will be embedded throughout the research process. Community self-determination, power-sharing, and ownership over knowledge and outputs will remain central. Participants will retain the rights to all artworks and materials developed through this project, and no outputs will be published or disseminated without clear, informed, and ongoing consent. The community will guide how findings are shared, and research outputs will be co-framed to reflect local cultural authority and aspirations. This includes the right to determine what stories and artworks, if any, are included in academic publications, exhibitions, or other public forms of dissemination.