Guidelines and principles for pre-ethical approaches to Indigenous Australian research

In concert with AIATSIS’ Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies 2012, these guidelines articulate the need for the researcher to position their own research from the outset, before any research takes place. The rationale of these guidelines are to protect the rights for Indigenous peoples whilst building a strong relational connection with participants of the research. Pre-‐ethic guidelines are necessary in order to bring to the foreground Indigenous knowledges and relationships premised on the needs, rights and aspirations of Indigenous peoples, communities and entities.

Towards a southern theory of higher education

Crudely, social inclusion in Australian higher education is a numbers game. While the student recruitment departments of universities focus on ‘bums on seats’, equity advocates draw attention to ‘which bums’, in ‘what proportions’, and, more to the point, ‘which seats’, ‘where’. But if the counting of bums is crude, so is the differentiation of seats. Just distinguishing between courses and universities and scrutinizing the distribution of groups, is a limited view of equity. The most prestigious seats of learning give students access primarily to dominant forms of knowledge and ways of thinking. In terms of access, it is to a diminished higher education, for all. Further, undergraduates – particularly in their first year – are rarely credited with having much to contribute. Higher education is the poorer for it. In this paper I propose an expanded conception for social inclusion and an enlarged regard for what is being accessed by students who gain entry to university. Drawing on Connell’s conception of ‘Southern Theory’, I highlight power/knowledge relations in higher education and particularly ‘southerners’: those under‐represented in universities – often located south of ENTER (Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank) cut‐offs – and whose cultural capital is similarly marginalised and discounted. While increasing regard for the importance of Indigenous knowledges is beginning to challenge the norms of higher education, we are yet to generalise such reconceptions of epistemology to include knowledges particular to people from regional and rural areas, with disabilities, and from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Nor have we really engaged with different ways of thinking about the physical and social worlds that are particular to these groups. To take account of marginalized forms of knowledge and of thinking will mean thinking differently about what higher education is and how it gets done.

De-colonizing amnesia: refusing false consciousness

When considering research discourses that pertain to Indigenous knowledges there is a constant reference to the positioning of the researcher in terms of their own cultural background and cultural understandings. This, of course, is related to the empowerment and importance of Indigenous research by Indigenous voices. This is particularly important within the context of Australia in relation Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research. My analysis identifies and defines how the notion of ideology contributes to an amnesiac condition in Australia, one that underlines understandings of culture. It is vital to elaborate that the premise of amnesia is predicated on ideology itself. This has wider implications for the many cultures that have experienced the act of colonisation. The aim of this paper is to propose and elaborate a way of thinking about amnesia as premised on ideology. In order to do so, it is necessary to unravel and critique western notions of ideology especially those based on Louis Althusser’s elaboration of ideology as being based on an imaginary condition of existence (Althusser 1971). I have selected an Althusserian ideology in order to conduct a comparative analysis within an Indigenous framework. In this context, Althusserian ideology is an exemplar of representationalist thinking that continues to be dominant and endemic in western representationalist thinking. By identifying this gap, I provide an alternative framework of ideology based on the “real” and integrated conditions of existence that operate in an Indigenous ideology and culture and its ritualised practices. It is this alternative framework that can provide a new way of looking and thinking about how ideology can be reconfigured in their relationship with culture. It is here that relationality prevails. My argument operates within this space. It is within this space that I emphasise the importance of Land (“Country”) in order to demonstrate a “real” alternative ideology that is not based on the imaginary.

Promoting "critical awareness" and critiquing "cultural competence" : towards disrupting received professional knowledges

There is a compelling argument that universities should be committed to advancing the Indigenous agenda. With respect to social work, as well as to nursing, psychology, and allied health, this commitment is often translated into a single goal: that graduates should be ‘‘culturally competent’’. While acknowledging that there can be tactical advantages in pursuing this goal the current paper develops a practical critique of the expectation that cultural competence is an unproblematic ‘‘add on’’ to professional education. Using a single case study as an example*how the subject ‘‘individual development’’ is transmitted as a monocultural and unproblematic formation*we argue that it is impossible to learn to work cross-culturally without developing a capacity for reflective self-scrutiny. Less likely to be a flag of convenience than ‘‘cultural competence’’, an allegiance to ‘‘critical awareness’’ prompts the interrogation of received knowledge, for example how human development and personhood is understood, as well stimulating an engagement in the lifelong process of reflecting on one’s own ideological and cultural location.

Poetry and prose as pedagogical tools for addressing difficult knowledges: translocational positionality and issues of collective political agency

In this paper the focus is on the possibilities that poetry and prose offer as pedagogical tools that can both accommodate and address difficult and painful knowledges. The paper presents and analyses poems and prose written by students at a non-traditional secondary school for disadvantaged girls (many of whom identify as Indigenous Australian). Through stories of grief and pain, but also hope and possibility, the poetry/prose book signifies a sense of collective political agency against oppressive relations towards the girls creating new moulds of existence. Contra to dominant approaches to recognising and valuing Indigeneity in schools, these writings represent Indigenous culture as a complex, dynamic and contingent social practice. While it is contended that a valuing of marginalised cultures is an important aspect of cultural recognition, the paper argues that a broader and more critical focus is required in beginning to address Indigenous oppressions.

Australian democracy and indigenous self-determination, 1901-2001

Eight major essays by leading social scientists on key elements of Australian institutional life.

Indigenous peoples, self-determination and international law

The article examines the re-emergence of indigenous rights in contemporary international law in the context of worldwide agitation by indigenous peoples for the adoption by the United Nations of a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Two approaches to the protection of indigenous rights are considered: a minimal one that relies on existing human rights conventions, and an inspirational one that seeks a Declaration negotiated in partnership with states willing to recognise indigenous autonomy. Attention is given to judicial recognition of the right to self-determination as a right of free choice, and to the distinction between minority rights and indigenous autonomy. The importance of defining indigenous self-determination in a positive way is emphasised, and prospects for a new UN permanent indigenous forum overcoming the stalemate about indigenous rights are reviewed in terms of the need for greater dialogue.

Performance and narrative, bodies and movement in the construction of places and objects, spaces and knowledges: The case of the Maltese megaliths

The article explores the ways knowledge and space are co-produced performatively through bodily movement in an examination of the Maltese megaliths the first complex stone structures in the world. It is argued that knowledge is best seen as spatialized narratives of human actions and objects as materialized forms of those spatial narratives. Rewriting our social and historical narratives so that the performativity of place, space and knowledge is restored opens new possibilities for rethinking the social and material order.

`This was a great project!`: reflections on a `successful` mental health promotion project in a remote Indigenous school

Issue addressed: The complexities encountered in an Indigenous community when a white project support team assisted a school (Bwgcolman on Palm Island, Queensland) to implement MindMatters, a centralised, national project aiming to promote the psychosocial health of young Australians through the development of a comprehensive, school- based mental health promotion program. Approach: The MindMatters consortium offered pilot schools curriculum materials, professional development for staff, funding and ongoing support at a local level in return for their participation in the project. The support team flew to the island on two occasions to provide support. Conclusion: Whether or not MindMatters constituted a community project at Bwgcolman is debatable. Nevertheless, the project at Bwgcolman was considered a 'success' by key players since initial aims identified by the school were tangible (eg, professional development, curriculum development) and met in a way that the school could take ownership of. Additionally, behavioural management policy was implemented in a manner that was cognisant of a history of coercive relations with Indigenous communities. So what?: It is important in the telling of the success story at Bwgcolman that even though MindMatters endeavoured to be culturally sensitive, it was nevertheless a centralist mental health promotion program. Future mental health promotion initiatives need to be aware that the approach of the support team in attempting to hand back some community control at the local level may have played a role in the school succeeding.

After three strikes-the continued discriminatory impact of the sentencing system against indigenous Australians: suggested reform

Three strikes laws are discriminatory but not for previously advanced reasons. The three strikes laws are merely an acute example of a fundamentally flawed sentencing system that discriminates against economically and socially disadvantaged people, particularly the group that is the focus of this article – Indigenous Australians. The repeal of the Northern Territory's mandatory sentencing laws has not remedied the unfair manner in which sentencing law and practice operate against Aboriginals; either in the Northern Territory or generally. Criminal punishment systems around the world punish a disproportionate number of socially deprived people. In Australia, Indigenous Australians were grossly over-represented in Australian jails prior to the three strikes laws and will remain so unless steps are taken to address their disadvantage. The obvious solution to redress the over-representation by Indigenous Australians is to provide them with the same social opportunities and resources as the rest of the community. This is overly ambitious – at least in the short term. This article suggests a more attainable change in sentencing law to remedy some of the disadvantages experienced by Aboriginals. It suggests that far less weight should be accorded to prior convictions in the sentencing calculus.

The Archaeology of No man's land: Indigenous camps at Corindi Beach, mid-north coast New South Wales

At Corindi Beach on the mid-north coast of New South Wales are five twentieth century campsites located on the fringes of the township, beside the town racecourse, an area called by local Aboriginal people 'No man's land'. These campsites are important symbols of the self-sufficient lifestyle followed by the Corindi Beach Indigenous community in the twentieth century and are a physical reminder of cross-cultural relationships between local people over the last hundred years. In a collaborative research project with Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation, these places are being documented through studying oral history, the cultural landscape and the material culture left behind at these places.