McCoy, Brian, Holding Men: Kanyirninpa and the health of Aboriginal Men, Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS, RRP $34.95. ISBN: 978 0 85575 658 1
In Holding Men, McCoy explores issues central to the Indigenous men of the Western Desert region. Issues of masculinity, of grief, of illness, and how these relate to kanyirninpa (holding, nurturing, teaching, growing-up, respect). Though specifically about that region, Holding Men has crucial implications for the whole of Australia.
For nearly forty years Brian McCoy has lived and worked with Indigenous communities, mostly in the Western Desert and from this depth of experience and from his PhD research into the health and well-being of Aboriginal men, comes this extraordinary book.
It is a book about an ancient culture and its people, trying in their own way, to survive in 21st century Australia. Rigorously researched yet simply written, it challenges us with human stories of heart-breaking enormity whilst reflecting a quiet hope in resilience and healing of kanyirninpa.
There are many profound insights in this book, which come from years of respectful relationships and deep reflection. Kanyirninpa points a way forward, a way out of the nightmarish day-to-day tragedies of disease and ill-health among Indigenous Australians, because it involves 'a proper looking after'.
The Indigenous artwork adds to these insights. It is riveting, confronting and evocative, with many paintings graphically illustrating the stories of young Aboriginal men and the spaces they find themselves in.
Three chapters in particular, situate serious current issues for Indigenous communities, particularly men, within the embrace of kanyirninpa: 'Petrol sniffing: More than a risk'; 'Football: More than a game'; 'Prison: more than a holiday'. As McCoy puts it: 'From the perspective of kanyirninpa these socially significant spaces (petrol sniffing, Australian Rules and prison) can offer men both healthy outcomes and unhealthy risks'. My own meaning making around those 'spaces' was deeply challenged and enriched with constructive alternatives.
The key Puntu (Aboriginal) values, of ngarra (land), walytja (family) and tjukurrpa (ancestoral dreaming) are represented as 'continually dynamic and inter-relating' and kanyirninpa provides the balance for creative tension between relatedness and autonomy on the one hand and nurturance and authority on the other. McCoy manages to maintain a similar balance in his book.
Juxtaposed with his deeply sensitive, respectful, inculturated research—in the tradition of de Nobili or Matteo Ricci—are McCoy's empathy and compassion for those affected by the personal tragedies associated with petrol sniffing, alcohol abuse, a prison sentence or premature death.
McCoy's insights are