Encountering disregard in Australian academe: the subjective perspective of a disaffiliated racial ‘other’

Abstract

This article proposes that progressive frameworks underpinned by diversity are contradictory to the inclusion of the ‘other’ in Australian higher education. I integrate the critical race theory constructs of disregard and convergence with white privilege and indigenous lacking to claim that objective processes underpinned by merit embed the marginalising of the ‘other’. I draw on storytelling to enunciate my subjective experience of disregard as a Maori woman scholar to shed light on institutional culture in the maintaining of insider privilege.

Keywords:

• disregard
• lacking
• diversity
• race
• higher education

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to express appreciation to the referees for their encouraging reviews and helpful recommendations for grounding her arguments.

Notes

1. Fanon (1968, 17) in Black skin, white masks (London, Pluto) uses the term ‘other’ to signal the colonised as the ‘other’. Similarly, I incorporate the ‘other’ into this paper to signpost the racial ‘other’.

2. I do not cite names or details that could lead to the identification of an institute, which would be a breach of privacy.

3. Martin Nakata was the first Torres Strait Islander to receive a PhD in an Australian university.

4. Discovery projects: funding rules for funding commencing in 2008 (Australian Research Council 2007, 22).