Disembodied experts, accountability and refusal: an autoethnography of two (ab)Original women

ABSTRACT

As two Aboriginal women from the lands now known as Australia, we seek to combine our disciplinary knowledges of education and community development to offer an Indigenous autoethnographic account on the tensions involved when working for our communities, yet within systems and structures of whiteness. To do this, we draw on whiteness studies to conceptualise the ‘disembodied expert’. Expertise becomes ‘disembodied’ when it is decoupled from the knower’s standpoint, ontology, and raced and gendered corporeal form, particularly the feet that connect to Land and Mother beneath. This detachment results in a severing of accountability to community, ancestors, and Country. We propose the action of ‘refusal’ as an everyday assertion of agency within systems such as the Indigenous Affairs and human rights industries that tend to privilege ‘disembodied experts’.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous autoethnography
• disembodied expert
• refusal
• development
• education
• whiteness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We make reference to Elders, Knowledge Holders, and Old People throughout this paper as a way of showing respect to People of Knowledge, living and non-living.

2. In referring to ‘white privilege’ we draw on the work of McIntosh (1989) who articulates it as a series of ‘unearned assets’ that remain invisible yet advantageous to the individual. We also acknowledge McWhorter’s (2005) critique that anti-racist work surpasses individual acts of ‘ridding oneself of “unearned assets”’ and needs to address constructions of power.

3. We acknowledge that the terms ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Aboriginal’ are colonial constructs. Throughout this paper they are used interchangeably.

4. In referring to ‘whiteness’ we draw on the work of Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2004, 78) to describe structural and discursive practices of domination: ‘whiteness is not just about bodies and skin colour.’

5. ‘Community’ is used here in the way it is often used by Aboriginal people, to refer specifically to the Aboriginal community.

6. ‘Yarning’ is a protocol of relatedness that builds upon foundational knowledge to create a ‘yarn’ or woven conversation, used in informal settings and, also now, as a research method (see Walker et al. 2014; Lowe et al. 2014; Burchill 2004).

7. The term ‘Country’ is used in reference to land/place; purposefully capitalised to denote its specific and sacred connection to Indigenous Peoples in Australia.

8. From our Indigenous standpoint, we use ‘Lawless’ in the sense of Aboriginal Law/Lore (protocols for being). Therefore ‘Lawless ones’ are those who do not live under Aboriginal Law/Lore.

9. The term ‘mob’ is used in Aboriginal English to refer to Indigenous communities.

10. We, the authors, understand Land to be our Mother.

Additional information

Funding

Lauren Tynan is currently a PhD candidate at School of Social Sciences, UNSW SYDNEY and is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and the UNSW Scientia PhD Scholarship Scheme.

Notes on contributors

Lauren Tynan

Lauren Tynan has ancestral connections to Northern Tasmania and resides on the lands of the Dharawal. Lauren is a Scientia PhD Scholar in the School of Social Sciences at University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney where she teaches and researches in Development Studies. Lauren’s PhD focuses on decolonising development practices from an Aboriginal positionality. She holds a Master of Development Studies (UNSW) and Bachelor of International Studies (UNSW).

Michelle Bishop

Michelle Bishop is a Gamilaroi woman from Western New South Wales (NSW) and currently lives on Dharawal Country south of Sydney. She is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Education, UNSW Sydney. From a critical Indigenous perspective, Michelle’s research critiques dominant practices in education and offers counter-narratives to advocate for emancipatory change in education for Indigenous Peoples.