title: 'Marking' the white terrain in indigenous health research: literature review.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This paper is a report of a literature review of the concept of whiteness in relation to research partnerships with indigenous Australian healthcare professionals, participants and community members.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  As researchers, we were confronted with the visibility of our whiteness and the oppressive, discriminating history on our indigenous partners wrought by the colour of our skin. This personal discord began an intensely provocative, reflective journey accompanied by a search of the literature on 'whiteness'.
  
  
  METHODS
  The EBSCOhost, InfoTrac, Blackwell Synergy, ScienceDirect, SAGE Full-Text Collections and CINAHL databases were searched in 2004. The primary keywords were 'whiteness', 'white studies' and 'white privilege'. Secondary keywords: 'culture', 'race', 'racism', 'indigenous', 'indigenous communities', 'race relations' and 'colonialism'. No date restrictions were imposed, but most of the literature dated from the 1990s.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Exposure to the literature on 'whiteness' and the experience of working with indigenous Australians challenged us to recognize and address the privilege and power historically and contemporaneously conferred on us as white women. Largely invisible to white people is the structural advantage conferred by the 'white' standpoint and the set of 'unmarked' cultural practices that are usually set as the default positioning.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To achieve useful research outcomes that influence the well-being of indigenous populations necessitates that non-indigenous researchers and healthcare providers stringently examine their own racial and social positioning. Without doing this we, consciously or otherwise, uphold white hegemony and racialist inequality.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. kristine.martin-mcdonald@deakin.edu.au
authors.forename: Kristine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Martin-McDonald
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: McCarthy
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001315:Australia; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011287:Prejudice; D012108:Research Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*