I share with you two events I attended that highlight the role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in academia, journalism, business, law and social policy.
Hosted by Yawuru woman Shannan Dodson from the NAIDOC Committee and Kara Hinesley from Twitter Australia, this event began with some tips for how to use Twitter more effectively, as well as highlighting how Indigenous people have shaped national conversations and social action, such as through #IndigenousX, #IndigenousDads and #IndigenousMums, to counter racist narratives and overcome a focus on deficits, and instead focus on community strengths.
The evening then led into a truly wonderful panel of highly accomplished women across law, academia, media and business.
Teela Reid is a Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman and solicitor who started the panel by discussing the diverse views of Indigenous people. Twitter has helped non-Indigenous Australians understand different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s voices. Reid gave advice to young Aboriginal women on Twitter, saying, ‘Make sure what you say, you can back it up.’
Shelley Reys AO is an Indigenous woman of the Djiribul people, CEO of Arrilla Consulting and partner at professional consultancy giant KPMG. Reys said: ‘There’s a lot of pressure on young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people be a certain type of person.’ Due to forced removal, young Indigenous people have different experiences that may not fit in with non-Indigenous people’s ideas of what it means to be Indigenous.
Bridget Brennan is of Dja Dja Wurrung and Yorta Yorta heritage on her father’s side, and works as the National Indigenous Affairs Correspondent for the ABC. She said that social media created new opportunities for Indigenous people who are rediscovering their heritage and communities. ‘There are other spaces to connect with Aboriginal people.’
Professor Bronwyn Carlson is an Aboriginal woman who was born on and lives on Dharawal Country on the South Coast of NSW. She is a sociologist and Head of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University. Prof Carlson has done extensive research on Indigenous people’s online experiences. She notes that nearly every Indigenous person in her studies have experienced online racism. Yet Aboriginal people are also caring for one another using multiple technologies. Aboriginal people support others in need, including for suicide prevention. She shared amusing anecdotes from her research on online dating, which included one person being matched with a cousin (Aboriginal kinship ties are extensive). Sexual racism impacts negatively on Indigenous people using dating apps.
Prof Carlson discussed the mandate in academia to disseminate research findings, and how Twitter has helped her tremendously in making contacts here and overseas, as people read her op eds shared on Twitter. Twitter is also a useful way for her to share her work with Indigenous people without the pay-wall that otherwise restricts academic journals. Prof Carlson shows that Twitter is ‘monumental’ to academics. It acts like ‘an open database.’ She notes that we need more academics online. Some of her colleagues are scared to open themselves up to critique or online abuse. At the same time, Prof Carlson sees that many non-Indigenous academics are surprised to learn Aboriginal people are so prolific online. Prof Carlson says there are many excellent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics are doing amazing work online, such as Professor Bronwyn Fredericks, Dr Chelsea Bond and others who have co-hosted and published on Indigenous X.
Prof Carlson’s research shows that Aboriginal public servants tone down their opinions, or they are otherwise afraid to speak up on Indigenous issues, when using social media. Public servants ‘keep it beige,’ she says, if they speak up at all. As an academic, Prof Carlson doesn’t feel this same restriction. She speaks openly and even critiques her university. In late 2017, Prof Carlson made waves in the media, when she raised the colonialism embedded in the name of her institution, Macquarie, named after one of Australia’s early colonists who targeted Aboriginal people for genocide.
Reys talked about common misconceptions about Aboriginal people in the business world (and in other areas). The fact is, what they look like and their connection to culture varies greatly. Non-Indigenous views are usually incorrect. These often-negative stereotypes limit opportunities for Indigenous people.
‘Corporations like to call it unconscious bias. I think I’d rather call it racism.’
In her consultancy, Reys has run many cultural competency workshops for CEOs and other executives. Most of them will rate their understanding of Indigenous issues as seven out of 10. By the end of the workshop, they rate themselves much lower, recognising they overestimated their knowledge. Reys is the first Indigenous partner at the elite KPMG agency. She says: ‘This is surprising, given the tremendous talent out there.’ She challenges corporations to rethink ‘who they consider a talented person to be.’
Prof Carlson is currently studying the mental health outcomes of online racism. She was asked how Indigenous girls and women might manage the online racism they encounter. She says: ‘It’s nice to know you’re part of a bigger community. Don’t internalise this rubbish – speak to other people.’
The panel humourously discussed the American hashtag #WhiteNonsenseRoundUp, which is used on Facebook to encourage White people to respond to racism rather than leaving Black people to do all the work. Online abuse makes it tough for Indigenous people to feel safe online. ‘They drain you – you want to engage, educate and defend yourself.’
An audience member talks about some backlash she’s seen about this year’s NAIDOC theme, Because of Her We Can, which some men say alienates them. Shannan Dodson, who is a committee member with NAIDOC, says that the theme reflects the reality that, when most people think of prominent Aboriginal people, they largely think of men. This year, the focus was on providing women a platform.
Lorena Allam is from the Gamilarai-Yawalaraay peoples of north west New South Wales (NSW). She is the Indigenous Affairs Editor at Guardian Australia. Allam talked about how Indigenous women’s leadership is rarely recognised even though they lead in multiple ways. ‘Indigenous women lead from behind,’ she said, including through support for their families, community organisations, doing emotional labour for many others, and coordinating social and political action.
Reys adds:
‘Indigenous women are overqualified but not recognised.’
Brennan notes that Indigenous women have a tough time at work because they carry a high cultural load. They deal with multiple responsibilities and issues. They need better support and recognition.
Finally, the panel is asked if they could use Twitter to poll the Australian public on any question, what would it be? One panellist jokes she can only think in swear words and declines to answer; two women refer to the outcome of last year’s national consultations with Aboriginal communities around the country (summarised under the Uluru Statement from the Heart); and two panellists would similarly ask non-Indigenous Australians to face the truth about our national history. Their collective questions were:
The event ended with Reid reading the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which was on display in the room. It was an honour to see it up close.
The other event I wanted to briefly share with you is a panel held at Tranby College (the National Indigenous Adult Education and Training centre). Our MC was young social policy officer Hayley McIntosh. The panel began with Kristy Masella, a Murri woman from Rockhampton, Dharumbal country in Central Queensland. She worked in Aboriginal Affairs for 25 years in New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory. She previously led a review of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Act. She now works as CEO of a national Indigenous recruitment agency and she is the Chair of Tranby.
Masella shared personal stories about the women in her life who helped her thrive. She spoke about the need to remain focused on structural inequalities that shape the lives of Aboriginal women, including domestic and family violence. Her key message was about not judging Aboriginal women through stereotypes and instead taking the time to hear their stories. She also spoke with reverence for Lynn Riley and co-panellist Sonja Stewart. Stewart was a trailblazer in the New South Wales state government. With hardly any Indigenous women before her, Masella said Stewart encouraged other Aboriginal women to learn from her, despite her busy schedule. She kept them safe in the bask of her shadow and modelled empathy as a leader.
Michael O’Loughlin is a Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri man and a champion Aussie Rules footballer. He was a star player with the Sydney Swans when they clawed to victory. He has been inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame, but he says that pales in comparison to the feeling of accomplishment when he was able to buy a house for his mum. He co-founded ARA Indigenous services, a business that finds viable employment for Indigenous people.
O’Loughlin paid homage to his mum and gran, who encouraged him to keep going as a 17-year-old who left his impoverished home in Salisbury, South Australia, to move to Sydney to play professionally. His mother taught him the value of hard work and giving back to his community once he found success. O’Loughlin also paid his respects to Stewart, who has been an encouraging colleague to him and many others across multiple fields.
Finally, Sonja Stewart, a senior executive in the NSW public service, spoke beautifully about the central role of her Great Aunt, who helped her mother raise her and her siblings. Stewart noted the limitations that non-Indigenous society places on family. We do not listen to the importance of kinship and have narrow labels for important family relationships that are formative for Aboriginal people’s wellbeing and success. Stewart also spoke with admiration for NSW politician and Wiradjuri woman Linda Burnley.
The panel told the crowd to always take the time to walk in other people’s shoes, and to take special care with Indigenous people, who have a history of not being properly heard and empowered.
The day ended with a tour of the historic Tranby College, including its beautiful library, the first and largest of its kind (after AIATSIS).
Click to view slideshow. ]]>To redress the problematic racial dynamics of sociological theory and practice, Associate Professor Butler convened the first Indigenous Sociology for Social Impact Workshop at the University of Newcastle, Ourimbah campus, on Darkinjung land. Held on 27-28 October 2016, Professor Butler invited Indigenous and non-Indigenous sociologists from different parts of Australia to consider gaps and opportunities in addressing the ongoing impact of colonialism in our theories, methods and practice.
Today’s post places the workshop in historic context and summarises the discussion. I also include reflections by Associate Professor Butler about the outcomes from the workshop. I end with a set of questions that emerged from the workshop that we should now face as a discipline in order to centre Indigenous knowledges and methods in sociology.
https://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/791441601570627585
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been engaged in work to address social and political inequality from the moment of invasion in 1788. From the Frontier Wars; to Walter George Arthur’s petition for justice to the Queen; to the work of William Cooper and the Aborigines Progressive Association who, amongst other things, fought against celebrations of colonialism on the Day of Mourning on 26 January 1938; to the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, beginning in 1963, where Yolngu elders raised ecological concerns against mining on sacred land; to the Aboriginal Tent Embassay in 1972 which protested land rights; to the Mabo court case win in 1992, which established land rights for Torres Strait Islanders on the Murray Islands of Queensland; and many other acts of resistance in between and since.
While sociology has a strong social justice focus, our discipline does not draw on the activism and knowledge of Aboriginal human rights campaigns and research methods in a significant and centralised manner.
Similarly, while Australian sociology has a strong focus on gender perspectives, our work is firmly concerned with Western gender relations, without adequately addressing racial justice.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics, community workers, service providers and justice advocates have a holistic approach to gender, race human rights, and all other sociological issues. Aboriginal women such as Joyce Clague, Dulcie Flower, Harriet Ellis and others led resistance against assimilation in the 1930s. The Grandmothers Against Removals continue to fight the state practice of placing Aboriginal children into White foster care at alarming rates. At the local, state and federal levels, Jenny Munro leads health and housing rights initiatives. Then there’s the scholarship of Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson who revolutionised mainstream feminism by examining the inequity between White and Aboriginal women. See also anthropologist and geographer Professor Marcia Langton AM, who has contributed to various government and not-for-profit organisations, including serving on the 1989 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Pat Anderson AO, chair of the Lowitja Institute and human rights campaigner, heads the Referendum Council that has published national consultation on Indigenous sovereignty and constitutional reform. Professor Megan Davis is a law professor and the University of New South Wales’ first Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous; she dedicates research and leadership to Indigenous scholarship and policy, as well as being a member of the Referendum Council, supporting the Uluru Statement, which seeks political reform through an Aboriginal Voice to Parliament. These and many other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have shaped community, social policies and national action, showing the intractable connection between racial justice, gender inequality and other forms of social oppression.
From this long-standing tradition, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers such as Associate Professor Butler have long worked to rectify the colonial gaze in sociology. Associate Professor Butler’s research has documented the groundwork for how the discipline of sociology might begin what she terms Indigenising sociology. While sociology largely ignores Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, Associate Professor Butler shows that the way in which we teach, research and discuss Indigenous experiences are framed through a White Western perspective that undervalues the complex cultures, spiritualities and social realities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Non-Aboriginal sociologists focus on written texts that exclude Indigenous people, ignoring oral traditions and seeking to mediate Indigenous experiences through White authority.
Using the Aboriginal method of a “talking circle” (or yarning circle), where any person can contribute to unstructured dialogue, Professor Butler began two-day discussions considering how Indigenous-led practices, knowledges and lived experiences can enhance Australian sociology. Participants included senior academics, casual teaching staff, applied researchers, refugee advocates and academics who have shaped social policy (see the list of attendees at the end).
The first day of the workshop, began with a thoughtful presentation by former social worker and researcher Karen Menzies on how intergenerational trauma of forced removal of Aboriginal children continues to impact the health and life outcomes of Indigenous people. She drew on her work as a practitioner, including her research for the historic Bringing Them Home report published in 1997, as well as her ongoing studies. She showed how this cultural trauma goes beyond anxiety and post-traumatic stress, as it also affects immunity, bodily practices and emotional wellbeing. She argued the damage of forced removal and assimilation should be central to all research, service delivery and health practices. The group then discussed how sociological approaches have historically and to the present-day centred on socio-economics, specifically class analyses, but ignore race dynamics and Indigenous perspectives.
The second day of the workshop began with Associate Professor Butler reflecting on her evolving research on sociological teaching and resources. She has analysed the topics covered in higher education sociology courses around Australia, and finds that there is almost no focus on Indigenous scholarship, and that there is little attention to race in central sociology teaching. She argued this is one of the ways in which we see how sociology actively participates in an exclusively Western framing of social issues.
We discussed that sociology as a discipline actively perpetuates colonialism in the citing conventions, theories and methods we continue to pass on to students. For example, Associate Professor Butler talked about Durkheim’s racist conceptualisation of Aboriginal culture and spirituality in a foundational sociological text, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. (A 2008 Oxford edition above even uses what appears to be an uncredited Aboriginal artwork on the cover.) We continue to teach and use Durkheim as an example of the sociological imagination, but we fail to engage with a critical race reading of his colonial understanding of Aboriginal kinship and religiosity.
Workshop participants discussed other instances they have experienced or participated in as students, educators and practitioners where Indigenous knowledges are silenced in sociology. Western colonial practices are embedded into the way in which we learn, research and reflect on what it means to do sociology. We discussed how scholars who are Aboriginal will acknowledge their Aboriginal culture in their theses, research papers and other works. We noted this is also common amongst race scholars who are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Race is central to the way in which Indigenous and other people of colour reflect on our standpoint as sociologists. Reflexivity is a central tenet of postmodern sociology, popularised by White French male sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Yet White sociologists never think to critically reflect on, and directly acknowledge, how Whiteness informs the knowledge they produce. How might sociology be transformed through this exercise in reflexivity?
Another question we discussed at length was: how do we account for the fact that the majority of people who are trained as sociologists are not Indigenous? We discussed how Aboriginal sociologists are on the fringes of our discipline, either underemployed or precariously employed as casual staff. We noted a major investment in the training, mentorship, sponsorship, promotion and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sociologists needs to be prioritised in sociology.
In the scant instances where Indigenous issues are given any central limelight, Aboriginal scholars are not invited as keynote speakers. It is White sociologists’ textbooks and research that gain attention for decades of work undertaken primarily by Aboriginal scholars. These White scholars do not address their White privilege in a meaningful manner, but scholars who are Aboriginal must always contend with and challenge whiteness in their work.
In effect, sociology continues to colonise Aboriginal experiences, by focusing on a deficit lens: “Aboriginal issues” are only discussed as examples of disadvantage and anomie. (Anomie is the sense of normlessness or despair that arises when social norms shift as a result of industrialisation, colonialism or other rapid social change.) Sociologists do not actively reflect on the role of colonialisation in the present-day, such as racial discrimination that benefits non-indigenous people, including sociologists. Positive stories of Indigenous resilience are not part of our central sociological toolbox.
The workshop participants agreed that Australian sociology remains a colonial enterprise that privileges White Western academics.
https://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/791788345592471556
We discussed what a decolonised sociological imagination would look like, with critiques of foundational Western sociological texts at the centre. Australian sociology has rebuilt itself before – using a White feminist framework in the 1970s and 1980s – we can do this again using Indigenous knowledges and intersectionality. Associate Professor Butler argued that the work of Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson (a Geonpul woman) is our starting point for decolonising sociology, especially in Australia.
Sociology is also influenced by Western understandings of individualism, rather than by collectivist concepts of self, place and time, as they exist for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. How do we bring these collectivist ways of knowing into mainstream sociology?
We heard examples of how Indigenous scholars have been devalued and demoralised by academia, and how attempts by Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers to bring Indigenous theories and methods into the classroom have been met with disengagement. One example is The Kinship Online Module, presented to the Indigenous Sociology for Social Impact workshop by non-Aboriginal sociologist Dr Deirdre Howard-Wagner. The resource was developed by a group of Sydney University researchers to promote a free, easily accessible learning resource. Dr Howard-Wagner personally encouraged sociologists in her networks to use the resource in their sociology courses, but all sociologists declined. They said they could not think about how to weave in the material into their existing courses. We discussed how this is a tacit assumption of most non-Indigenous sociologists: that Aboriginal knowledge is only applicable to “Aboriginal issues.” This results in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people only being invited to guest lecture, or to be cited in, special one-off talks, such as for Mabo Day. It is important to have Indigenous people leading such discussions, however, we must go beyond tokenism.
Aboriginal perspectives should be placed as a running thread informing all sociological endeavours. We talk about gender and class as central organising concepts in sociology; why not do the same with Indigenous sociology?
Participants shared various problems with existing ethics committee processes, including the meaning of informed consent, and the documentation, process and questions asked of Aboriginal and Torres Strait people in their research about Indigenous communities. University ethics committees are led by non-Indigenous people, predominantly White Anglo-Australians. They perpetuate Whiteness in the way they conceive of ethical policies and oversight. They do not understand Indigenous research methods and practices, therefore acting as gatekeepers of Whiteness in academia.
We discussed logistical and material resources in supporting Indigenous-led research in remote communities. A revision of existing ethics protocols by Indigenous-controlled ethics committees would best oversee research about Indigenous communities.
We returned to the theme of trauma-informed research practices. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do not ever have space to “switch off” from intergenerational trauma in their personal and professional lives. How does sociology take this into ethical consideration in the way in which we teach and approach research?
https://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/791790071087149057
The workshop delved into issues of intersectionality and diversity amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We discussed the pressure to present Aboriginal voices as a unified perspective, when in fact, there is as much dialogue and disagreement within and across Indigenous groups. Non-Indigenous sociologists accept that critical thinking involves critiques and disagreement but we do not afford Aboriginal scholars and practitioners the same intellectual respect. Instead, disagreement in thought and diversity of perspectives amongst Aboriginal people is ignored.
For example, we discussed how Aboriginal sistergirls and brotherboys work to educate White-led LGBTQIA organisations as well Aboriginal community leaders to support transgender Aboriginal people. How do we transform gender and sexuality studies through an Indigenous transgender standpoint, to better address the nexus of race, class, connection to land and place, spirituality, gender and sexuality?
For further detail about the Indigenous Sociology for Social Impact workshop discussion, you can read an archive of my live-tweets in the “Learn More” section. For now, let’s explore the outcomes of the workshop, six months down the track, and the questions that we face collectively in sociology.
In June 2017, Associate Professor Butler chatted with me on the aims and outcomes of the workshop. Her insights are captured in the video below. She discusses her idea for the workshop emerged from observing how non-Indigenous educators and students engage with Aboriginal knowledge. She shows why a trauma-informed perspective is important to sociology. She also discusses why the talking circle methodology was integral to the workshop, given the need for safe, open-ended dialogue amongst a diverse group of attendees.
“It’s one thing to go in with a set of questions, but you’re already setting the parameters of the answers. When you go in a talking circle, you’re actually discovering what it is that people find interesting… You never know where the discussion is going to go.”
Associate Professor Butler says that the biggest lesson of the workshop was the impact of casualisation on how Indigenous sociology develops. The majority of people who lead discussions on Indigenous issues are predominantly casual staff, who work as tutors (that is, teaching assistants who run classrooms on behalf of lecturers). She says most of these people are teaching about social justice as a personal passion, without adequate remuneration and institutional recognition. She says that she was excited by workshop participants’ desire to collaborate in order to grow Indigenous sociology. Associate Professor Butler commended how the workshop participants valued social theory as a “scaffolding” to build a better world.
Here are some questions that emerged from the workshop discussions, which I hope my readers and our sociological community in general can begin to unpack. These are the challenges that the sociological community needs to face moving forward if we are to begin to decolonise sociology:
Associate Professor Butler encouraged me to live tweet of the workshop to promote the event and diffuse ideas emerging from the discussion. As agreed by all workshop participants, I did not tweet when speakers asked certain topics to be kept out of social media. Below is a live stream of our discussion as it happened.
https://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/791419063872303104
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Below is a brief bio for the Indigenous Sociology for Social Impact workshop participants, reflecting their positions at the time, in November 2016.
My live tweets of the workshop were first published on Storify in November 2016.
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