Dr Myrna Tonkinson is an honourary research fellow in anthropology in the School of Social and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia who has done research among Aboriginal people in the Western Desert of WA since 1974. She and is currently writing up results of a project, undertaken with two colleagues, examining some of the effects of social trauma on identity, worldview, risk- taking and other aspects of the lives of Indigenous people in two regions of Australia.