Medical pluralism and kincentric care in Indigenous Australia: Yanyuwa experiences of illness and the importance of keeping company

For over four decades we have collaborated as a team of anthropologists and Indigenous Elders of the Yanyuwa language group. The Yanyuwa are the Indigenous owners of lands and waters in Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria. While medicalized healthcare has not been our specific research focus, wellness and ill health have been recurring themes. Death has been tragically prevalent. So too has been a sense of liveliness among households in the remote township of Borroloola. This paper explores ethnographic moments that speak to how Yanyuwa experience illness, as a bodily, relational, and communal possibility. Building out from these, we reflect on how people in this community seek to survive, in part, through kincentric relationality: the art of keeping company. Reflecting on culturally nuanced responses to illness supports anthropological engagements with connections that heal and those that pose a threat, offering some insights to progress efforts in medical pluralism and kincentric care.