Connecting with Cultural Foods, with Tina Gingell

Tina Gingell talks about her PhD which uses participatory action methods to involve people with lived refugee experiences and those who are newly arrived to Australia to investigate ways of improving their community's food security through better access to cultural foods. Tina also provides insight into her learnings of working collboratively with culturally diverse communties and the potential of collaborative research in this space. 

Find out more about the Connecting with Cultural Foods project here where you can also connect with Tina.   

CONTACT US 

Send us your thoughts or questions about the episode or the podcast in general 

Via Instagram @fromfoodiesinthefield

Via Twitter @foodies_field

Via email foodiesinthefield@outlook.com 

And we’d love it if you left a review of the podcast

CREDITS

Host: Sophie Wright-Pedersen

With thanks to Tina Gingell for her time and thoughts

The Foodies in the Field podcast would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was made, the Turrbal and Yuggera people, which are also the lands from where Tina was speaking. This podcast would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land where you may be listening from today. We pay respects to elders both past and present and acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were the first foodies of this nation.  

Transcript

Sophie: [00:00:00] Hi, welcome to Public Health Nutrition from Foodies in the Field, a podcast showcasing stories from passionate foodies about who they are and what they do. I'm Sophie Wright-Pedersen, your podcast host. And on today's show we have Tina Gingell, who is a Dietitian and current PhD candidate at the Queensland University of Technology.

Tina's PhD uses pedestrian action methods to involve people with a lived refugee experience and those who have newly arrived to Australia in her research to investigate ways, looking at improving their community's food security through better access to cultural foods. Hi Tina. Welcome to the show. 

Tina: Thank you, Sophie. It's my pleasure. 

Sophie: What led you to the nutrition field? Because you came from a background of accounting and finance, and then you transitioned into nutrition. 

Tina: I was an accountant for over 20 years, and I was really quite progressed in my career. I'd really worked hard. My focus had always been about my career up until that point.

I moved down to Newcastle for a role down there that was really challenging, which was to essentially get a business ready for sale, and it was hard. Lots of hours. And I came out the end of it feeling a bit flat because although I'd achieved this amazing outcome of getting the business sold. It meant that my role was no longer there, and so the only option for me was to resign.

I'd actually been thinking for a while though about moving into the nutrition area. I had done a number of challenges over the years with my career and never really felt satisfied with it, and I think that I realized what I was missing out of it was that helping community and helping people, apart from myself in accounting, we tend to focus just on the numbers and the computer, and so I was really looking for something more than just a way to earn money.

So, I enrolled in the nutrition science degree at Q U T and I did quite well in the first 12 months. So, I then applied to move across to the dietetics degree cause I had actually applied for the dietetics, but I didn't get in initially. So, I used sort of the nutrition science as a pathway to get into dietetics.

and then at the end of the dietetics degree, that's where you do your placements and things. So that kind of gives you an idea of where you want to be best placed for your future career. 

Sophie: It went in the direction of community and public health nutrition. What sparked that element of you wanting to go down that path rather than maybe the clinical stream?

Tina: I always felt like at Uni the goal was to get into hospital, and I think that although they try and explore some of the other career paths, I was very confused at the end of my third year with what I wanted to do because I just didn't feel like hospital was what I wanted to do. But I wasn't really sure what I did wanna do, cause I didn't really understand what the options were out there.

The first placement that I did was in Bourke, which is a really remote town in New South Wales. It has a really high indigenous population. And the placement that I did there was working with local organizations to develop some resources that community workers could use with, um, the local communities there that would spark conversations around healthy food and what we should be doing to try and improve our diets.

And I just loved it. I thought to myself, this is what I wanna do. I had some really interesting conversations around food. I started to learn things about the local culture there, which was really different to my culture and it started making me realize there's so much more to food. And I found that really, really interesting. And I came out of that placement thinking. I love that. I think that's what I wanna do. When I did the rest of my placements, which was working in hospitals doing food service as well, that just really fortified for me that that wasn't what I wanted to do, and the community stuff was where I wanted to be.

Sophie: I think that's a really big asset of our dietetics programs that we go through. So, for those people who might not know the dietetic program. For the fourth years, where all those placements aren't, at least in that last year, we do get exposure to the different realms of dietetics. 

Tina: Yeah, I also have a whole other career that I had done for 20 years.

So, I had the safety net of if this didn't work out, I could always go back to that career so I could really explore what I wanted to do. I didn't need to go into the hospital because I needed a job. I could really go, [00:05:00] let me just, take a step back and actually think about what I wanna do, because that was the whole point of me changing careers.

If I'm gonna step into something else I don't wanna do, I may as well go back to accounting and do that. 

Sophie: I think that's, that's actually such a good reflection because I wish that everyone going into their university degrees could have that flexibility and, and choice. And you've built that choice up.

You've worked for that choice. But I think it is a really good idea to critically reflect on what is it you wanna do and what you find meaningful and, and what would you enjoy doing? And it's so nice to hear that you, you could do that. And so you'd done this placement, you graduated, where did you go from that point?

Tina: So I had a lot of conversations with lots of friends and family and I really thought quite hard on what it was about the community placement that I liked and the aspects that really drew me to it was working with the Aboriginal people and learning about that culture and having epiphanies about, oh, now I'm starting to understand their viewpoint, and I really liked learning that.

I found it quite fascinating. So I really kind of reflected, well, if I was to go down that route, what pathways can I take to get there? So I actually approached one of my lecturers at QUT with a PhD idea, which was to work with people from refugee backgrounds and maybe look at nutritional status when they arrive and how that changes over time.

And said, we had a chat about it and we kind of developed to this idea so that it wasn't actually about nutritional status, but more about food security. And so looking at food security and people from refugee backgrounds around the Southeast Queensland region. So I applied for that in September and then heard back from that just before I graduated, to say that as long as I got the grades, I was confirmed into that PhD, which was really exciting.

Sophie: Also, in some sense, like validated, you've had this experience and you've gone out and you've looked at the world and you've gone, oh, maybe there's something here that I could do with this, this new kind of knowledge, but also I guess like curiousness about this concept and feeling validated in like, yeah, this is actually a really interesting thing that we should be looking more at, which is really cool.

What is the PhD, because you've had these pats with your new supervisor, what did it actually transition into? 

Tina: So I started in March 2020, so I've been doing it for just under two years now. The project has evolved so much over those two years. So initially I was really just looking at food insecurity and people from refugee backgrounds, but I really wanted to do it.

So it's not about researcher coming in and researching the community but working with the community to research together. That type of methodology is called participatory action research, and so I have really embraced that through the project. So, because of that, I never really knew what the project itself was going to be on.

We just had this strategic idea that it was around food insecurity. And the couple of the things that have really come out over the two years of working together with communities across Brisbane is that food insecurity is really, very represented by people's access to their cultural food. So it's not just about accessing food, but the types of food and those foods that like is about those connections that we have with community and with family.

The connections you have with your home country having belonging here in Australia. And so food kind of bridges all those different aspects of time and place and people. And so it's a great way of bringing together communities is through food. So my project is now around how do people access their cultural foods? And how does the community support that access? And what are the assets and resources through the community that we can embrace to help people access their cultural foods when they first arrive? 

Sophie: And I'm just gonna take it back one step. How would you, in, you know, a few sentences describe what food security means?

Tina: Yeah, so there's a very clear definition that has been put out by the United Nations FAO, but it really encompasses all aspects of accessing food that is safe and nutritious that can help you lead a healthy life. So there's different domains. For example, it's about having enough food available, being able to use that food, so utilization of having access to storage facilities and cooking pots and pans and stoves and working fridges and those sorts of things.

It's about economic means to be able to access it as well as physical means of accessing it and any other [00:10:00] access issues that you might have. And it's also about the food system. So, Is the food system sustainable? And do you have agency over that food system? But I think one of the really key things for my project is really that it's not just about accessing food, but it's about food preferences and cultural foods.

And that if you can't access your cultural foods, you aren't food secure. And so food insecure is where any of those aspects are missing. So if you can't access your cultural foods, that by definition means that you are food insecure. 

Sophie: And I really like when you were describing your project before, it sounds like you've taken a really strength based approach, like you're talking about assets and how can we leverage those within the community.

But I do wanna ask, when you've been working with these communities, you're working with new migrants and refugees, but have you come across within your research what the rates of food insecurity are within those communities? 

Tina: So there's not a lot of research in Australia that really tells us what the rates are.

There is a bit of research around the world. There was a study that was done quite a long time ago now in Western Australia that showed rates that were upwards of 70%, and then some of the rates overseas have been as high as 70 or 80%. A lot of the studies really focus on access to foods, not cultural foods.

So that cultural side of it isn't really taken into account very well in the studies. So I think if we took that into account, then we've got rates that are even higher. Because if you think about people that have come to Australia on a humanitarian visa, which is the visa that we give, when people have been recognized as refugee status, they've really come from a place of, they've been persecuted.

They've been forced out of their home. They've fled. Sometimes they've lived in a refugee camp for 20, 30 years. They arrive in Australia and there's this sense of finally safe. Then all these other sorts of issues start bubbling up under the surface, and food and access to food can just add to all that trauma and stress that they're already experiencing when they arrive. I think that we have to remember as well that people don't come to Australia by choice. They come here because they can't go home. Yeah. And that's where people wanna be, but they've had to flee their homes. And it's about bringing that sense of belonging to Australia.

Australia is often a very, very different country from where they have come from. And so you arrive here and it's just so foreign and you walk into a grocery store in Australia and it could be bright white lights and lots of packaged food. And if you've come from a place like Africa where you are buying live chickens at the local market, like the stock difference is just incredible.

Yeah. And so that's really daunting and, and I can imagine, could be quite, terrifying. And it's just a real culture shock.

Sophie: And it's something that's unavoidable too, like you have to eat. It's something you have to go through on a regular occurrence. So you're working with this community, and like you said, it's this participatory action research design where you don't really know what's gonna be coming next.

Where did you start with this project in trying to work out where this would go and where you should be looking and working with this very diverse group of people? 

Tina: Yeah, so that was a really scary part of the process for me. I'd never really worked with people from refugee backgrounds, and so I'll be up front. I was a bit intimidated by it and I didn't really know what to do, but I had really great supervisors that guided me through. So my first thing that I did was to start to build those relationships in the communities. So we put together a steering committee that could drive the project. I strategically tried to get representatives from different regions around the world, so I wanted someone from the Africa region because it's a lot of different cultures, a lot of different countries. 

Middle Eastern region as well is another really important region where we have people from places like Afghanistan that are probably more newly arrived. And then I was also looking for someone from that Asia region. Places like Burma as well, have a really big representation in Australia of people from refugee backgrounds.

So, I approach those steering committee members, really on the basis that, I dunno anything and I need help to be guided through. So I probably spent a good like six months just developing those relationships. Yeah. And learning about the different cultures. Learning that people from refugee backgrounds are not the same.

There is no standard person. They all have such vastly different experiences and they come from low socioeconomic countries, high socioeconomic countries. I really learned that you can't make assumptions about people, and so it's about being open. Through [00:15:00] that approach, I really built up some great relationships, and then we tried to then go out and start to understand what was happening within the community around accessing food.

We held some focus groups with some of the organizations that service the communities, so places like Multicultural Australia, Islamic Women's Association of Australia, some of the neighbourhood centres, community services as well. And when I did those focus groups, I co-facilitated them with my steering committee. So their involvement was really important to make sure that we are doing this in a really collaborative way to make sure that the project is community based and it's not just being driven by the researcher doing it.

Sophie: Was there anything that helped you do that co-facilitation? 

Tina: Some of the first conversations that we had was, how is this project going to benefit the community? What are we trying to achieve in this project? What's the point? Yeah. Because it's not just research. It's actually designed in a way that we plan to have outcomes that benefit the community.

So I think by taking that approach, people could really see that, okay. There's been lots of instances in the past where researchers have come in, they've done their research and they leave and nothing changes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so by approaching it in, okay, well what can we do for the community and then let's build a project around that, that is a really different way than standing back and saying, this is the problem. I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna fix that problem. 

Sophie: I think it's so interesting cause I can pretty much see your project literally being taken out of a university setting and just being placed in a community setting. And I think it's so great to see that being done in the research world because yeah, like you say, sometimes there isn't a lot of impact that happens for communities through research.

So you've co-facilitate these focus groups with your steering committee, with those service organizations. What was the next step after that? 

Tina: We're probably in the next step after that at the moment. So off the back of that, we are currently co-authoring research papers. Mm-hmm. Wow. With the steering committee members, and again, this is really about making sure that everybody has their say and their representation in the project.

So it's not just about me. Doing the research and then creating a paper. But their perspectives on the focus groups and what they understand about what is being said is really different from what I understand. And so by including them within that analysis and that research, you get much richer data around what's actually really going on.

So we are trying to use their knowledge and skills just as much as my learnt skills around research. Their skills and their expertise on the community can play a really important part in all of the research process. 

Sophie: Definitely. How did you go about discussing that? Cause at the same time we have to be aware that we don't wanna burden community members to be doing what can be quite a lot of work.

Tina: I think that's a really great question and I leave it completely up to them. So every time an opportunity comes up to do something, I send it out to the steering committee and I say, we have this opportunity, and then they decide whether or not they wanna get involved in it. So I have some steering committee members that have so far been involved in every single thing that I've done.

Mm-hmm. And then I've got other steering committee members that really just meet with me once a month and we have a chat about the project and make sure it's moving in the direction that they want it to move. So we went along to a, um, symposium that was held at the end of last year, and myself and three other steering committee members actually presented the project together and we all did our own perspective on what our project looks like.

And we got really good feedback from that because it wasn't just the researcher that got up and gave their perspective. It really allows people to understand what it's like from the other side when you're part of the community that's involved in research. So these opportunities, I think we really need to throw it out there to community members and they can decide what they wanna do and what they don't wanna do. But I think the other really important part of that is, and this is where I've really struggled, is making sure that we have reciprocity within the project. 

We hope to create these really great outcomes for the community. I'm hoping to improve the skills of my steering committee in research, and I'm giving them lots of opportunities to do co-authoring, co-facilitating, co-presenting, but also to recognize that I'm paid through the PhD through my scholarship, and so it's only fair if we offer the same to the steering committee members as well. Where I've really struggled with that is finding the funding to be able to do that. 

My steering committee has been really great because they've really kind of gone. It's okay, you know, and we're happy to work on it and do [00:20:00] what we need to do on it. And they volunteer a lot of the time, but I really wanna make sure that I'm paying them for the hours that they put into the project. 

Sophie: Yeah. And as you're talking, I'm just thinking, gosh, you've gone on this huge journey of learning so many things that I'm guessing you really didn't even think about, at the start, like if you think about where you were two years ago, but how has that journey been of going through that? 

Tina: It's a rollercoaster. It's been surprising. It's been scary. It's been exhausting. And it's been everything in between I think. I'm constantly surprised by the investment that communities have put into the project.

I've made these offers to our steering committee to co-present, and I fully expected no responses at all. And I had the three steering committee members come back and say, yeah, I'd love to do that with you. And then the challenge is like, oh my gosh, how we, how do we co-present with four people in 15 minutes?

Sophie: Yeah. Um, and have you had much feedback from those steering committee members on the fact that you have been very proactive in involving them in pretty much every aspect of the research that you're doing?

Tina: I haven't specifically asked them that, but I have had little bits of feedback here and there. For example, I had an email just the other day about the offer to co-author the paper, and one of my steering committee members wrote back and said, thank you so much for believing in us.

And it's such a little thing, but it's so nice. Yeah. It's just. It makes me feel a little bit sad as well because I feel like, well, it's sad that other people haven't believed in you. Yeah, because you have so much knowledge and skills and it's really improving the project to use those skills. 

Sophie: That's so nice. And I think they're the really important things to record, like any kind of interaction like that because it really gives weight to why it is so important when you are researching with them and within their communities. Why it's so important to include them as part of the process, because it does have an impact further than just what your research outcomes are gonna be.

It has an impact on them and their self-efficacy. And also, I think the other really big thing is that if someone else were to come in and do research with them again, and it might, it might be yourself, it might be QUT, but it might be a completely different organization. They can say, this is what we expect and we're confident to do this.

And these are the skills that we can give, but they're also more likely to engage within that research because I think one of the biggest things within the community sector when it comes to research is there's this phenomenon of like over research population groups and they're just sick of people coming in and doing research with them and never seeing kind of the outcomes of it or the impact of it. Yeah. And they haven't really been involved. So their their own personal skills and then the sustainability of that impact isn't really flowed through cause they were never part of the process. They don't even know what the outcomes are. 

Tina: Yeah. And I think that this can be a little typical of the research arena, is that we get our outcomes because we get our PhD, we get our papers published, but the communities are still sitting there going, well, what was the point of me investing my time to fill in that survey or to do that interview? Because it hasn't changed. We look exactly the same.

Sophie: I absolutely love this project for not just that reason, but particularly that reason of having your steering committee so engaged within the process. It's such a good representation of how we can work with communities in the research space. And even like from the start, you've said, this is kind of the area that I wanna work in, but what are the priorities and what are the big things that are meaningful to that community about how we can work in this space? And they've really guided that process as well. 

Tina: Mm-hmm. I had a little bit of an advantage there because my project hadn't been funded there was no anybody else coming in to say, this is what the project needs to look like. Yeah. So I could really kind of design that project myself. Whereas a lot of PhDs funded through specific grants and there's a strategic directional that the PhD is set up to achieve. And so you don't have that flexibility. Whereas with me, I have that flexibility. But then on the other side of it, I don't have the funding, and so that can be really restrictive. 

Sophie: Yeah. Yeah. Even that in itself, that gives an insight into, well, maybe we do need more flexible funding for research. Like sure, we can say like, this is a priority, but we want you to go to the community and, and talk to them about what are the assets and maybe what are some of those barriers, but actually having funding that is really about making that participatory action research happen. Yeah. And then allowing it to evolve from there. And part of that funding could be having stuff in there about you have to engage with the community and they're part of the research process that whole way. 

Tina: Because if we really think about it, communities are [00:25:00] strong. They are self-sufficient. They're independent, they survive through extreme situations, and covid is a really good example of some of the constraints that are put on communities. But they do continue to survive and they do continue to put food on the table for their families. I think that we tend to think of some of these, some of the subgroups of our population as being vulnerable and have no agency. But actually if we flip that around and say, well look at all the things that they're still achieving with the limited resources that they've been provided, it's actually really amazing. Yeah. And we need to go, let's highlight that and build on it.

Sophie: And get them to kind of give us that insight into how that can be built upon and we can support that cause we do come in with certain power structures and access to different tools and resources and structural elements, but we can leverage that power based upon what they're wanting or what they're telling us that they need so that we can do it appropriately. You've talked about culture a lot, and I wanted to ask, how would you describe culture and what's been your understanding of that concept and, and what you've learned from being immersed within very different cultures to your own?

Tina: I think that, we throw out the word culture as though it's this tangible aspect of a person, but it's not because I have a culture just as much as my mom has a culture. I think culture is really a representation of your thoughts and your ideas and your concepts and your perspectives. Mm. And they're really born through the experiences that you've journeyed through in your life.

And so everybody has a different perspective on something because they have brought with them the experiences up to that point, but also how they're experiencing that aspect as well. I've heard people say lots of times, oh, in Australia we have no culture. Well, I just so disagree with that. We've got so much culture within Australia and we all bring our own culture and we all bring our own thoughts and ideas and perspectives on things, and we represent our culture through our language, through the foods that we eat, the way that we dress.

And those things are all part of our culture. They're not separate from it. They're all encompass and intertwined together. But I think that food can play a really key role in that. And that's why I love being a dietitian in this area because food's always a happy thing. It brings everybody together.

It makes people really feel proud of their culture and they wanna share that with you. And food is a way of sharing culture. When I eat the food of somebody that's prepared lovingly from Afghanistan, I'm not just eating a nutritional item. I'm, I'm sharing in their culture with them and connecting with them on that fundamental level.

So I think culture, it is so complex. It's, it's fascinating. I, I really like learning about it. Yeah. Yeah. 

Sophie: And I think it's one of those concepts that as the more you know, the less you know, the more you try to understand it, the less you feel like you understand. You've done these focus groups with the organizations and your steering committee members had co-facilitate those. Have you done anything else since then? 

Tina: So the project has sort of evolved into the area of looking at the strengths of the community. So we're planning on doing what's called a social network analysis, which is where we identify, um, networks in the communities and the relationships in the communities.

And then off the back of that, we will identify key roles within the community that facilitate access to cultural foods. So that may be people like a shop owner because he provides a place where people go to access their cultural foods. Or it might be a farmer because he grows the food that then gets sold in the retail shop that also in turn facilitates access to cultural food. Or it might be a leader in the community because that person has all the knowledge around how to prepare a traditional meal, and that person is called upon during big celebrations. And so that's another strength because they're facilitating cultural food by the knowledge around the preparation and how to prepare it and actually preparing it during those sort of celebration or very traditional cultural significant events.

So what we are doing is we're planning then, based on all those roles, is we'd like to go out and actually interview them about how do you perform this role? What, what's the key aspects of it that you think help people, and why do you do it? 

Sophie: That's so interesting. And so from that social network analysis, what do you see as kind of the [00:30:00] outcomes of doing this work?

Tina: Directly this project has a couple of outcomes that our steering committee would really like to achieve. Probably the core thing is produce a map of where to find cultural foods in Brisbane so that when people first arrive, they know exactly where to go to find their cultural foods. We've talked about a few other things as well.

Things like having a seed exchange where people go to access seeds of cultural foods so that they can grow it themselves in the backyard. Again, though it is very difficult at the moment cause these are some ideas that we've had, but until we actually get out there into the community and talk to them and find out what are the assets that you have and what do you need to support those assets, we're not really going to know what the project is actually going to produce until then.

I think as well it can really be used as a case study, or I'm hoping it can be really used as a case study on how to undertake research with communities, uh, right around Australia. We've used some really great techniques around co-design workshops and participatory action research, and there's not a huge amount of projects that do research in this way.

Sophie: Yeah, I think for researchers definitely, but even for anyone in, you know, a non-research space that's working with communities, taking these processes of, you know, we wanna do some programs, we wanna make sure we're doing things that are tailored and specific to the community that we're working with, and how do we go about doing that in, you know, a really appropriate and, and a co-designed way where the community's a central part of it as well.

I wanted to ask as well, from what you have done so far, what are some of the biggest assets of the communities that you've worked with in terms of accessing and having the availability and affordability of culturally appropriate food? 

Tina: I think the biggest asset that they have is the connections that they have with their communities. It's about helping each other and supporting each other. When we talk about collectivist versus individualist societies, those collectivist societies are really designed to support each other and work together. That community aspect is just such a strength. What I've really recognized within the communities that I've been working with is their knowledge of our food environment.

They know so much more than I do. They go to multiple shops. They travel long distances. People who live on the north side travel all the way down to the south side to access specific spice because that's where it comes from. It's amazing how much effort and time and energy is put into their food, into accessing foods within the food environment.

When I think about my journey to access food, I go to Coles and then I come home. That's it. 

Sophie: Yeah. And do you think that that, like, do you think that that kind of effort that goes into accessing those foods, is it because like it is something that's so critical or is it more around like this ingrained like thing where people really want to go and get those really diverse and different and interesting foods because that's just a part of the process. 

Tina: I think it's a necessity from the point of view of it's your cultural and spiritual health. And I guess this comes back to what is the meaning of food. And food is more than just macro and micronutrients and the energy that it holds. Yeah, it represents so much more.

So if food represents your connection to your home and your sense of belonging, and it represents your connection to your loved ones. And it reminds you of times where life was amazing and you have all these fond memories. It becomes a necessity to continue to consume those foods because if you don't, it can affect your mental health. It can mean that you can't practice your culture and your identity. And so yeah, people do put a lot of effort into being able to access those foods that represent those things to them. 

Sophie: Definitely. What have been some of the biggest learnings that you've had along the way? 

Tina: Specifically in the PhD. I think there have been some really massive learnings for me.

I really have recognized that you have to be flexible if you want a project like this to work, and work with people because what you expect is gonna happen very rarely actually happens.

And I think I learnt that on day one when I first started meeting with my steering committee. And my idea was that we would have a steering committee once a month and it would be a meeting and we'd all come along and meet face to face and we might eat some yummy food and talk about the project. And I was very quickly learnt that that's not the case at all when you're working with, uh, a diverse range of cultures and communities, that what I expect will happen and will, [00:35:00] what, what works for me will probably not work for everybody else. And so you've gotta be flexible to be able to work with that. Because, just because it's your priority doesn't mean it's everybody else's priority.

And I think that you find out what their priorities are when you invite them along to things. Yeah. And if they engage in it, then you know that you are on the right track. If they don't engage, you're doing something wrong. 

Sophie: Is there anything you would've done differently if you were to do it again?

Tina: There's been lots of self reflections on myself and potentially how I've dealt with matters in the past. And I think that they're the things that I'd probably like to go back and change, maybe not necessarily specific to this project, but just how I've dealt with particular circumstances in the past because I've learned so much now and I realize that I may not have come across as being particularly inclusive.

Sophie: Interesting. 

Tina: And that's a really hard thing to learn about yourself.

Sophie: But also a really important one because think of all the people that haven't got to that point yet. And I'm not saying that I'm at that point, but it's through reflection that you can maybe understand that and if you don't reflect, then you're just gonna keep making that exact same mistake.

Tina: Absolutely. And I think that you've also got to approach it from the point of view to be open and to be willing to accept that you may be wrong. Yeah. And talk to people and say, I'm learning and I want you to tell me things that I do wrong and things that are inappropriate and not inclusive. Because you don't pick up on it yourself sometimes.

Yeah. And you have to be told, and I've been told different things and it's been hard to hear, but it's necessary. I think if we really want to be a multicultural society and be inclusive of everybody, then that's the types of thing that we have to really learn about ourselves. 

Sophie: And on top of that as well, like seeking out information sources. And once you recognize that you yourself have a culture and you've gotten that from somewhere, and yours might be a dominant culture and you've never really had to question that, but exposing yourself to different cultures, whether that's through eating different foods and, and going to different restaurants, but also listening to different content and, and listening to people's stories, reading books, reading articles written by people from multicultural backgrounds or, or different TV shows. And that's where we understand other people's perspectives and where they've come from. 

Tina: A hundred percent agree with that. I think some of the places where I've learned stuff have just been reading SPS articles. Yeah. And it, and it might talk about Australian slang, but it starts to talk about what it's like to come to Australia and hear the way we talk and where we are.

So informal, it can be really uncomfortable. Yeah. And recognizing that when you work with people is important because you gotta make them feel comfortable as much as you need to feel comfortable. Like co-design workshops that we had recently, one of the community members talked about how important it is in her culture, that when we are speaking to cultural community leaders, that we make sure that we speak to them in a way that is respectful.

So it may be that shake their hand, or it's important to use their titles and not use their first name, but use their last name. And in Australia we just so naturally call people by their first names and we naturally move to this informal space because that's, that's just how our culture works. But it can actually be really quite uncomfortable for other cultures.

And so it was a really interesting point cause I hadn't really thought about that. Mm-hmm. And I am quite an informal person and I like to make people feel relaxed, but actually people can feel quite uncomfortable and not relaxed when you don't refer to them in the correct way. So just keeping that stuff in mind I think is really important when you're dealing with people from other cultures that it's not right or wrong, it's just different.

Sophie: It is, yeah. And asking the questions for people just saying, what would you prefer? Like it's, it's quite a simple question, like when you don't know, and you probably will have to ask that in lots of times. And I think, I think the biggest thing that I've learned. Through working with lots of different cultural groups, not just multicultural groups, is the way we traditionally think about them.

But as we've talked about, culture with, everyone's got a different culture. The idea of you are going into someone else's space or you are asking them to come into your space. We really do have to be very respectful of what makes them feel comfortable. Cause it might already feel a little bit uncomfortable if we are there.

Tina: Yeah, and I think as well, if you think about what we're trying to achieve, and that is to generate rich data about people's experiences. You're not going to get that in a person that is feeling uncomfortable about talking to you. 

Sophie: Yeah, and in saying that, I would encourage anyone to immerse yourself in this space and to work with communities, even if it does feel uncomfortable, because you'll slowly start to feel more comfortable.

What have been some highlight moments that you look back on and it might bring a smile to your face or you laugh about or anything? [00:40:00] 

Tina: Co-presenting with my steering committee. That was definitely a highlight for me. Yeah, I had an absolute ball. It was a bit chaotic and all over the place and it was really awesome. It did not flow at all, but it was really, it was just perfect. 

Sophie: Where would you like to see the future of this space working with, you know, people from new migrant and refugee backgrounds, or even more broadly in the space of Public Health Nutrition? 

Tina: I'd like to see people within the community that are represented much, much more within the projects themselves, within the project design, co-designing how the projects going to be run, co-designing what the data collection tools look like, what the outcomes are going to look like, because I really think that research needs to be done to benefit people.

We do it by working with communities to find out what they need. I think that those projects are much more represented within the community sectors now within community organizations, but within research, not so much. We still tend to do the traditional scientific approach when it comes to research. So I'd like to see the aspect of research change and to really recognize that you don't have to have a formal education to be involved within the research process. 

Sophie: I definitely see your point, and I would very much support that. And my question is, can you see the two coming together? 

Tina: We're moving towards it more and more now. There's lots of funding that one of the underlying conditions is that you work with the community and I think that the types of projects that are starting to happen, we need to keep going with it. There's a really long way to go. Even researchers working alongside of organizations that potentially are the access into the community.

Let's keep going with that. We need to bring ethics committees along that journey as well of how do we do research in communities. Because it is often looked at by ethics from a very scientific point of view, and that scientific lens doesn't always fit. Yeah. When it comes to doing work with communities.

So we need to not just be educating the research institutes, but also the ethics committees and, and the governments that are funding it. The more we can publish about the ethics process when we're working with communities. That's the stuff that's going to help the ethics committees understand. Some of the key papers that helped me get my ethics approved was a paper that's the ethics of consent within communities. 

And it was a great paper because it really went through all the different arguments around ethics and what needs to be considered and how to consider it when you're doing it within that community space. Yeah. I think the more of those sorts of papers that we can get published the better because it opens up the conversation and allows you to really sort of think about all the considerations that you need to think about and to include and, and risk mitigate when it comes to designing your project.

Cause at the end of the day, the ethics committees are there to make sure that we're conducting research in an ethical way. 

Sophie: Absolutely. What would you say has been your favourite food experience? 

Tina: My favourite food experience really centers around my family because one of the things that I've probably learned over the last couple of years is food is not just the food that we put in our mouth.

It has so much meaning towards it, and I've really started to appreciate that. So my favourite food experience is celebrating Christmas with my family. My father was British, so my culture is very, Anglo Saxon. So we have the traditional ham and the traditional turkey, all the salads and trimmings to go with it.

Even though we're in summer here in Australia, it's hot. And then we tend to bring in a bit of Australianism, I guess, with the prawns and the seafood as well. 

Sophie: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Tina. It's been so lovely to hear all about your project and your work and also your journey from a very different field into nutrition and where you've ended up within that.

I'm gonna speak for a lot of people here and say we're all quite interested and excited about where this project is gonna end up and, and what the outcomes of the research, from your perspective, but also from the community perspective are gonna be as well. So good luck with it all. 

Tina: Thank you so much. It's been really interesting chat. I appreciate the invitation to come along as well. 

Sophie: We'll put the link to Tina's PhD webpage in the show notes if you're interested in anything that was talked about on the show today. Thanks for listening. And remember, we are on Instagram and Twitter if you'd like to get in touch or ask any questions.

And if you do get the chance, please leave us overview to help spread the word all about Public Health Nutrition.