Introducing “Visual bibliographies” as a novel tool for communicating complexity: a knowledge translation case study from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care research

Effective knowledge translation ensures health care research has desired impacts – this is particularly important for Indigenous communities who have historically not benefited from research about and on them. Yet much knowledge translation in Indigenous contexts continues without community partnerships and disregards Indigenous values, languages and knowledge-sharing practices. Visual approaches can be engaging knowledge translation strategies that align with Indigenous knowledge translation traditions and amplify Indigenous perspectives. In this paper, we introduce a new tool we have coined a “Visual Bibliography” for knowledge generation and translation, developed within a large-scale, participatory research collaboration in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services. This case study explores the collaborative invention and development of the Visual Bibliography. Through a participatory process with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous members of the research collaboration, we synthesized and analyzed 92 research outputs – e.g., academic publications, reports, policy briefs – published by our collaboration focused on quality improvement in Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander primary health care. Findings informed conceptual metaphors, infographics and other imagery that we combined into a single document that serves as a reference to all research outputs and communicates the values and history underpinning our collaboration. Analysis and artistic experimentation with deep consideration of representation were combined to create the Visual Bibliography. Our process carefully balanced scientific accuracy with engaging depictions to convey complex, intersecting ideas which both communicate knowledge and generate new insights into health services research. The process itself fostered integrative knowledge translation and enabled participants to locate their contributions within a broader system of knowledge production. We believe the Visual Bibliography has broad potential within and beyond Indigenous knowledge translation contexts. It provides a tool for participatory co-creation, especially as part of an overarching embedded program of knowledge translation that can be responsive to Indigenous (and non-Indigenous) communities’ preferences for knowledge mobilization. By communicating complexity meaningfully and engagingly, it helps address a significant gap in knowledge translation.