Negotiating university ‘equity’ from Indigenous standpoints: a shaky bridge

Abstract

Indigenous presence in the Australian university is a relatively recent phenomenon, initially framed by policies of equity that were, and continue to be, problematic in their assumptions – what they say and don’t say – about cultural difference, justice, sovereignty and more. From the lead author’s Aboriginal standpoint, the paper analyses the repercussions of ‘equity’ thinking that have intersected with Indigenous experiences of higher education activity in Australia, covering the range of aspects of university life and work: staffing, teaching, curriculum, governance, research and community engagement. The paper critiques how dominant notions of ‘equity’ subordinate or cannibalise possibilities for what higher education could mean for Indigenous peoples; and it gestures towards what might emerge from a standpoint of Indigenous agency to re-imagine the university.

Keywords:

• Indigenous Australian education
• higher education
• decolonising universities
• educational equity
• Indigenous standpoint

Notes

In this paper, we refer to Indigenous ‘aspirations’. We therefore want to clarify that we mean not simply ‘wishes’ but what Appadurai (2006) calls ‘capacity to aspire’: that is, ‘social and cultural capacity to plan, hope, desire and achieve socially valuable goals’ (Appadurai 2006, 176). This sense of social capacity, or agency, to imagine and pursue more desirable futures also distinguishes our meaning of ‘aspiration’ from that mobilised in recent equity policy discourses, such as in the Bradley Review (Bradley et al. 2008), which signifies ‘aspirations’ for increased participation in higher education in more limited terms, as desires that ‘all individuals’ presumably have for further education, gainful jobs, family, etc.

‘Welcome to country’ is a ceremonial practice by which Indigenous Australian nations greet strangers coming onto their land. It has been adapted and adopted in a number of institutions to recognise Indigenous owners of the land.

In our discussion of the labours of Indigenous centres within universities, we assume centres mostly staffed by Indigenous people. This is not always the case; and when not, further complications arise.

We must here remind that the first author of this paper is Indigenous, while the second and third co-authors are not. In undertaking this co-labour to re-imagine the university, we thus work across Indigenous and non-Indigenous standpoints, but led by the first author’s Indigenous visioning.

We thank a group of Indigenous friends – Jenny Baker, Simone Tur, Faye Blanch and Ali Baker – for an illuminating conversation in which this point was raised and elaborated, particularly by Associate Professor Jenny Baker.