Fiona Fowler

Thesis Title

HTLV-1 in Central Australia: An ethnography of the lived experience of Aboriginal women

About the project

Recognising that the neglect of HTLV-1 relates to the long-standing exclusion of marginalised populations from health services and health knowledge production, Fiona’s PhD is an ethnographic endeavour exploring the lived experience of HTLV-1 among Aboriginal women in Central Australia. Knowledge co-production will be central to this exercise, through which culturally safe responses to the sexual and breastmilk transmission of HTLV-1 will be explored.

About Fiona Fowler

Fiona is a social worker and graduate researcher based in Mparntwe, Alice Springs, where she gladly lives, studies, mothers and works on Arrernte land. Fiona’s published works critically report on the obfuscation and neglect of the human retrovirus HTLV-1, which is endemic to the Aboriginal population in this setting and in wider Central Australia.

Principal supervisor: A/Prof Kristen Smith