Hidden in plain view: Indigenous early career researchers' experiences and perceptions of racism in Australian universities

ABSTRACT

Despite extensive impact studies over the past two decades documenting the insipid and debilitating health, social, and emotional impacts of racism on Indigenous peoples in Australia, racism remains a key factor impacting negatively on the lives of Indigenous Australians at all levels of education. Racism experienced by Indigenous early career researchers is much-neglected area of research to date: the aim of this paper is to force a conversation about the prevalence of institutional racism in the higher education sector through an examination of the impact of racism on the experiences and career trajectories of Indigenous early career researchers in Australian universities. We challenge the day-to-day perceptions of normalcy where the Whiteness of the institution goes unnoticed and make clear that claiming ignorance does not absolve the individual or the institution of accountability. Although grounded in Australian experiences of institutional racism in higher education, the study has global significance to other relationally-like colonised nations. International literature highlights racism is imbricated across the Pan-Pacific nations; this is laid bared by the recounting of Australian Indigenous experiences and perceptions.

KEYWORDS:

• Institutional racism
• indigenous
• higher education
• early career researchers
• whiteness theory

Extensive impact studies over the past two decades document the insipid and debilitating health, social, emotional, and educational impacts of racism on Indigenous peoples in Australia (Hollinsworth, 2006; Mellor, 2003; Priest et al., 2011; Walter et al., 2017; Zubric et al., 2005). Racism remains a key factor impacting negatively on the educational outcomes of Indigenous Australians, existing at all levels of education (Elias et al., 2021), and is pronounced in higher education, with 75% of Indigenous staff reporting they have experienced racism in the workplace (Frogley, 2018). It is not surprising then that racism impacts negatively on the career trajectories of Indigenous¹ early career researchers (ECRs) in Australian universities (Locke et al., 2022). In 2012, a review of access and outcomes for Indigenous Australians in higher education (Behrendt et al., 2012) highlighted the role of higher education in improving health, education and economic opportunities for Indigenous peoples, advocating for a renewed focus on increasing Indigenous staff, academic roles and Indigenous led research. Yet despite recent increases in the number of Indigenous Higher Degree by Research enrolments and completions in Australian universities, from 80 prior to 2000 to a total of 372 by 2014 (Trudgett et al., 2016), and with doctoral research completion rates growing from 33 in 2008 to 54 in 2018, (Universities Australia, 2020), there remains a disparity in the representation and retention of Indigenous Australians in research training (Australian Government, 2020). Correlatedly, Indigenous academics remain significantly under-represented. In 2019, the Indigenous share of academic staff across Australian universities was 0.98%, significantly below the population parity figure of 3.1% (Universities Australia, 2020).

With a national commitment to advance Indigenous participation in Australian higher education (Universities Australia, 2022), due consideration needs to be given to the lived experiences and challenges facing the upcoming cohort of Indigenous ECRs. Building on the significant work of Bodkin-Andrews and Carlson (2016), Seet and Paradies (2018), and Moreton-Robinson (2015), we explore institutional racism in Australian universities. The aim of this paper is to force a conversation about the prevalence of institutional racism through an examination of the impact of racism on the experiences and career trajectories of Indigenous ECRs in Australian universities. While the paper is grounded in Whiteness theory (Ladson-Billings, 2009; Rollock & Gillborn, 2011), we also acknowledge the inspirational work of Bonilla-Silva and Baiocchi (2001), Bonilla-Silva (2021), and Harper (2012) who have contributed to our understanding of how minimising racist institutional norms and practices have masked and rebranded racism, rendering it normalised and inconsequential, and undermining the substantive work of Indigenous race scholars. We challenge the day-to-day perceptions of normalcy (Gillborn, 2018), where the Whiteness of the institution goes unnoticed. In this way, we contest the normativity of the White Benchmark characterised by ‘masculinist standard dominat(ing) academy, favouring those who are Anglo-Australian, heterosexual, able-bodied, middle class, not elderly, [and] espouse a right of centre politics and a nominal mainstream religion’ (Thornton, 2013, p. 128).

The current paper is drawn from an Australian Research Council funded longitudinal study Developing Indigenous Early Career Researchers, investigated by Trudgett and Page (both Indigenous professors at an Australian university) and post-doctoral fellow Locke (an Indigenous ECR). The first author of this paper is a non-Indigenous ECR and ally, working in solidarity and standing with Indigenous colleagues for a decade. Povey acknowledges the privileged position of being from a White middle-class background, and that this that has precluded direct personal experiences of racism.

We note that ECR is a term favoured by the Australian Research Council to describe academics within five years of post-doctoral confirmation (Bazeley, 2003). However, the early career component of the term is misleading, based on the assumption that post-doctoral academics are a homogenous cohort who are commencing their academic career (Bosanquet et al., 2017). The term ECR carries connotation of hierarchical structures and a seamless career trajectory, thereby discounting those who are in casual employment, independent scholars or those who structure their career path differently in response to familial or community commitments, a point born out in our current study. The cohort of participants in this study are demographically diverse. The 28 participants represent at least 35 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nations, and are of different ages, in different stages of their career development, at different academic levels and in different roles. As detailed by Locke et al. (2021), at the commencement of the project in 2020, there was an equal number of first year ECRs across three different age brackets represented in the study sample, these being 30–39, 40–49 and 50–59 years old. As further examples of demographic diversity, 73% of the total number of participants have been employed in higher education for more than six years, and 28% are in senior roles of associate professor, directors or executive positions. This diversity is significant because it confirms the breadth and depth of institutional racism encountered by Indigenous academics across ages and experience in the sector.

A total of 28 Indigenous ECRs from 21 Australian universities participated in the study and were interviewed over three years by the fourth author Locke, between 2000 and 2022. Due to government-imposed travel restrictions in Australia, a response to the Covid 19 pandemic, all interviews were voice recorded using Zoom technology. Data was initially coded by Locke, using qualitative software that facilitates analysis of data in depth and from a variety of viewpoints (Bazeley, 2013); this was a key consideration, bearing in mind the variations in participants experience working in the sector. Locke initially coded the data according to demographic factors, and then thematically. Povey further coded the data by seeking out any crossovers between themes that might be relevant to the focus of this paper.

While we acknowledge a pervasive legacy of colonialism is to draw on national and/or global perceptions of Indigenous people as being homogenised (Bodkin-Andrews & Carlson, 2016), we also respect participants’ desire for confidentiality in a sector where Indigenous ECRs are under-represented. In the spirit of ethical research with Indigenous peoples (Povey & Trudgett, 2019) all participants have been deidentified by the use of a self-chosen pseudonym, and their confidentiality further protected by concealing individual details, such as experience, position and institution. We therefore offer snapshots of Indigenous ECR experiences and perceptions. Rather than promulgating generalisations, we shed light on Indigenous experiences and perceptions of institutional racism in the Australian higher education sector, in the belief that sharing these subjective experiences will dispel some of the opacity surrounding racism and provide a lens through which higher education institutions in relationally-like nations may reflect. We propose the ethnographic nature of the qualitative study that focusses on peoples’ actions, institutions, and the symbolic worlds between them (Punch & Oancea, 2014), brings a broader understanding and much-needed Indigenous perspectives on the impact of racism on the experiences and career development of Indigenous ECRs in Australian higher education.

The remainder of this paper is structured in three symbiotic segments: firstly in the section ‘Institutional racism: hidden in plain view’, we interrogate the concept of hidden racism by focusing on race myths and fictions. Next, in ‘Thrashing against the tides’, we home in on Indigenous ECR’s experiences and perceptions of racism shared by participants in our study and build a strong theoretical analysis of the impact of racism on Indigenous ECR’s experiences and career trajectories. The section ‘Fish don’t see water, just as men don’t see patriarchy, and white philosophers don’t see white supremacy,’ will close the paper with conclusions drawn from the study.

Institutional racism: hidden in plain view

A review of the literature makes transparent the many race fictions (Bonilla-Silva, 2010) that undermine Indigenous presence at universities, and more specifically, the impact on Australian Indigenous ECRs, demonstrating how racism is hidden in plain view. Seet and Paradies (2018) define old racism as overt, blatant and intentional, founded on perceived biological and genetic differences and delivered in plain view, whereas new racism, described as being symbolic and covert, embraces racial micro-aggressions and colour-blind racism, carrying an inherent ambiguity of intent silencing the recipient. Analysis of racism in Australia reveals the presence of covert racism, so subtle that it is denied by the general population (Elias et al., 2021; Seet & Paradies, 2018), yet keenly felt by many Indigenous peoples. It is this systemic denial of racism – racism is hidden in plain view- that is central to our thesis.

By failing to recognise racism as a structural phenomenon, racism has been regarded as an affliction affecting certain individuals that does not affect the social body and its institutions, represented as a social problem perceived in terms of ‘good and bad apples’ (Bonilla-Silva & Baiocchi, 2001, p. 118). Failing to see the collective nature of racism results in attempts to weed out the individual racist in an overgrown garden. As argued by Bodkin-Andrews et al. (2017), a focus on the individual’s negative attitude ignores the systemic nature of racism: these more subtle expressions may emerge beyond individual awareness or denial, becoming complicit with the ‘pervasive epistemological, structural, systemic and institutional elements of racism’ (p. 182). Racism at the institutional level ‘permeates social, cultural and power structures that perpetuate exclusion and racial inequality’ (Elias et al., 2021, p. 95): it is damaging (Edwards, 2017), self-sustaining (Christian, 2017) and often obscured by overt racism (Bodkin-Andrews et al., 2021; Sue et al., 2019). As three Indigenous and one non-Indigenous author, our standpoint is clear: we stand against racism and support Indigenous ECRs in their commitment to speak out against and speak back to racism in the sector.

Race fictions

Numerous race myths, described by Bonilla-Silva (2010) as race fictions, entrench the denial of racism in higher education. Bonilla-Silva (2010) explains race fictions by explaining the syllogism underpinning how Western nations conserve ‘racism without being racist’ (p. 4): if individual actors do not have racist views, then they are not involved in racial inequality; to be non-racist is to believe race is unimportant and so we should be consciously blind to race; and finally, we are all treated equally, regardless of race. A study by Hollinsworth (2016) determined that a prevalence of the denial of racism on an individual and national scale in Australia characterises our education sector. This denial is accompanied by a misperception that Australia is not a racist society, and that to focus on the past is a divisive adaptation of a colour-blind response of egalitarian discourse. Atkinson et al. (2010) argue in the context of the Australian colonial settler state, an epistemology of ignorance means White Europeans neither see nor accept the effect of racial hierarchy, a concept developed by Mills (1997) who proposed a Racial Contract exists between White peoples, of whom all are beneficiaries, but not all are signatories, agreeing on the differential privileging of Whites as a group with respect to non-Whites:

One could say then, as a general rule, that white misunderstanding, misrepresentation, evasion, and self-deception on matters related to race are among the most pervasive mental phenomena of the past few hundred years, a cognitive and moral economy psychically required for conquest, colonization, and enslavement. And these phenomena are in no way accidental, but prescribed by the terms of the Racial Contract, which requires a certain schedule of structured blindnesses and opacities in order to establish and maintain the white polity. (p. 19)

Grounded in and validated by White epistemological authority within higher education institutions, this Racial Contract that normalises power can be manipulated as a defensive posture that shields from accusations of racism.

Christian (2017) extends the argument, proposing denial of racism in the sector is compounded by the belief that educated people and higher education institutions are ‘bigger than ignorance of racist speech and action’ (p. 415). Similarly, Pilkington (2013) argues Australian senior management and academic staff may see themselves as being non-racist by virtue of being in an institution that is perceived to be a liberal environment committed to equality. The defensive posture is promulgated by epistemological racism (Scheurich & Young, 2002), a standpoint assumed by White Faculty who see themselves as not-racist individuals, even though a white epistemological bias underpins their curricula and pedagogy in an academy that positively serves White academics and students, while negatively serving People of Colour in the sector and Indigenous Faculty and students.

Anything but racism

Concealment of racism extends to the reporting and the associated discourse of denial, facilitated by language and grammar constructs. In a growing area of research, the deconstruction of racism literature uncovers how language has diluted or occluded the presence of racism, specifically through ‘racial grammar,’ a term coined by Bonilla-Silva (2012), explaining the mechanisms by which standards of White superiority are normalised in transactions and social events. As Fanon (2008) has shown, the effects of language are political, as language controls, conceals, marginalises and misrepresents. Harper (2012) identifies the many ways racism is hidden in plain view in higher education, including White scholars writing about racial inequities without consulting or collaborating with Indigenous/People of Colour scholars, or acknowledging their positionality and standpoint. Harper also critiques White scholars who only cite other White scholars, and those who fail to identify the ‘race effect’ in research as being an outcome of racism. Bonilla-Silva and Baiocchi (2001) argue demographers have failed to incorporate historical and ethnographical concerns in analysing how race effects social landscape, not accurately reporting on racial stratification, and attributing the effect of racially biased networks to the individual, thereby limiting the significance of racism in sociological studies. Also noted is a reluctance to identify institutional racism as an explanation for differing perceptions, success rates, and attrition rates, addressing the student rather than the toxic learning environment (Harper, 2012). Walter and Butler (2013) critique the field of sociology in Australian higher education arguing race and Whiteness are noticeably absent from the curricula; in this way, minimisation of racism is used to exonerate authors and universities of responsibility. Harper (2012) also cites the use of tentative descriptors in published papers to avoid naming racism, and quotes ambivalent conclusions about racism prefaced with ‘perhaps, may, might, possibly, could be, and presumably’ (p16). Harper continues by listing semantic substitutes for racist environments used by some researchers to minimise minoritised students, faculty and administrators’ experiences of racism. Antagonistic and toxic environments are described as being ‘chilly, harmful, unfriendly, unwelcoming’, and students experiences are trivialised as being ‘minor stressors and racial tension’ (p. 20). Both McGloin (2014), and Mihesuah and Wilson (2002) document requests by reviewers to soften language in manuscripts submitted to journals so as to placate guilt and shame of the White academy and supposedly better suit the sensibilities of the journal’s audience, McGloin being asked to be ‘less invasive’ (p. 156) and a paper submitted by Mihesuah and Wilson (2002) was rejected because racism was deemed to be of little interest to readers; all being strategies tailored to conceal racism in action and intent.

Encouraged by these growing concerns about the perpetuation of institutional racism in higher education, this paper will detail the realities of this institutional racism as experienced by Indigenous ECRs, hitherto hidden in plain view. In doing so, we aim to enable visibility, provoke discussion, and ultimately force long overdue reform in higher education.

Exposing hidden racism through Whiteness and critical race theory

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is underpinned by an understanding that race and race theory derive from social thought and power relations, hence the function of CRT theorists is to expose the structures and assumptions that normalise racial inequality (Rollock & Gillborn, 2011).

Rather than being constrained by static theorisation, CRT allows for evolving understandings that acknowledge its affordances and limitations (Moodie, 2018). Tribal Critical Race Theory posited by Brayboy (2005) emphasises that colonialism is endemic in society, and in the Australian context, Decolonising Race Theory centres Indigenous sovereignty (Moodie, 2018). Nevertheless, both Moodie and Brayboy contend the central tenets of CRT remain constant, despite a legacy of revision and re-visioning, thereby binding scholars in a commitment to challenge systems that subjugate People of Colour.

Therefore, this paper will focus on the key CRT tenets of White supremacy as the best fit for the purpose of analysing racism hidden in plain view and the structures that normalise racism. This focus on White supremacy also affords a stand against the centrality of racism, by privileging the voices of Indigenous peoples and People of Colour (Bell, 2009). Such privileging challenges the complacency of Whiteness by foregrounding Indigenous stories, experiences and perceptions, a core concept underpinning CRT (Moodie, 2018), and an underlying premise of our study.

Gillborn (2015) defines Whiteness as a ‘set of assumptions, beliefs and practices that place the interests of white people at the centre of what is considered normal and everyday’ (p. 278). As argued by Moreton-Robinson (2020), in this way ‘Whiteness opens up and forecloses certain ways of reading the Indigenous “Other” because racial codes are always present in whatever we do and think’ (p. 252). Particularly in relation to power constructs, Whiteness theories effectively make transparent the resilience of racism, and its inherent capacity to function at the systemic level reinforced by individual agency. Gillborn (2018) attributes such resilience to the notion that racism is often overlooked firstly in order to preserve notions of White supremacy, and secondly because neoliberal constructs of diversity and affirmative action mask racism: it is this camouflaging that is the focus of this paper. CRT scholars also highlight that racism is becoming increasingly nuanced in socio-political contexts such as higher education (Gillborn, 2005), enabling the resilience of racism through seemingly innocuous policies, practices and actions.

Additionally, within an institutional landscape of covert institutional racism, centring the voices of Indigenous and People of Colour is important to our study: the words of Ladson-Billings (2006) below ring true to the Indigenous ECR participants in the study:

CRT scholars are not making up stories – they are constructing narratives out of historical, socio-cultural and political realities of their lives and those of people of colour. (p. xi)

Thrashing against the rising tide

In this study, Australian Indigenous ECR participants share their experiences and perceptions with us to show how covert racism underpins institutional codes of conduct. Atkinson et al. (2010) argue the burial of Indigenous ways through an epistemology of ignorance means Euro-Australians live their lives in ways that masque consequences of dispossession, exclusion, and poverty. Participants confirm this tacit ignorance in the sector, aghast at the audacity of the Racial Contract facilitating structural blindness in contemporary higher education. Indigenous ECRs’ encounter these rising tides of racism as obstacles along their journey to building a meaningful and efficacious career in higher education. In particular, participants articulated experiences of hidden institutional racism, calling out these instances of opacity within their higher education institutions.

The racism of ignorance

Jungkunz and White (2013) argue ignorance is not an excuse, that even when confronted by claims of ignorance and innocence, accountability is a pursuable democratic practice. Yet, beneath the surface of Australian higher education sits a paucity of accountability that is illustrated by a lack of Indigenous cultural knowledge and understanding (Bodkin-Andrews et al., 2022; Fredericks et al., 2022); this ignorance influencing how universities perceive, position and interact with Indigenous ECRs.

Patricia, a participant in our study, shared with us the important role she fulfils in supporting her community, and of the resultant tension between Indigenous relationality and Western transactional interactions: I think that’s kind of the difference between us. In a similar vein, Wirraga argues there is a lack of understanding from the hierarchy around the relationship the university has with country, and this then impacts on how the sector engage(s) with research that doesn’t focus on tangible outcomes that are money making. Further to this point, Areau attest to the lack of cultural understanding within their workplace and the low visibility afforded to Indigeneity:

The academy don’t understand community in the same kind of way so they don’t see it as that constant teaching and learning that our community mentors, that our community engages with, that our Elders expect of us that we would pass on our knowledge. There’s no point me having done 20 years of this work if I can’t pass it on to other Aboriginal people […] I think the key challenge at the moment is being seen and understood within our space, it’s a really key challenge.

Similarly, Kimberley declares some of these people – just lack total cultural awareness. Eva affirms this epistemology of ignorance:

Yeah and on one hand they say how important it is, then they don’t realise that every single time you talk about an Indigenous aspect of something, it’s personal.

Eva then details the extent of institutional ignorance about the impact of settler colonial relations on Indigenous academics, observing the reach is beyond institution itself and stemming from nation-wide systemic racism:

It doesn’t seem to compute with other people at the university, is they want to know how much of your time is spent on Indigenous engagement and I say, well 100 per cent of the time because I’m Indigenous. They talked about a National Curriculum for a while […] but you don’t see the young people coming into the undergraduate degrees, the young non-Indigenous people, understanding their histories, their very recent histories of this country and of Aboriginal people. You don’t see them understanding the impact of genocidal and racist laws and policies that have been enacted upon us and the intergenerational impacts of that. You don’t see that understanding enough in the broader Australian population so we’re kind of thrashing against the rising tide.

The issue of racist assumptions informing how Indigenous ECRs are represented in the sector is yet another form of racial ignorance, as raised by Martha:

Yeah so I feel as though often too with I think blackademics, the university websites […] and in the research sections of that site, they all say about a whole bunch of stuff and often we read that stuff and go, yeah but what about us? Like because we don’t see ourselves in this way as some of the information that they have there.

Martha’s comment is particularly poignant, drawing our attention to the idea that racial ignorance goes beyond a lack of understanding and into the realm of whitewashing by speaking for Indigenous ECRs. Julunybarr contends this ignorance extends to misunderstanding the contribution Indigenous ECRs make to the sector. Such examples of exploitation are concealed behind a mask of ignorance:

It’s not so much the financial gain, but if you took that out of the equation, there’s a lot more wealth that the university’s getting out of me being here and the connections I have with my relatives and community.

Sarah develops this idea, proposing the racism of ignorance reaches into misperceptions of Indigenous ECRs abilities which are often perceived through a deficit colonial lens:

So they don’t know what to do with us. They don’t know what to do when we actually have an opinion now instead of just being an adviser or an advisory group that you get to or a research subject it’s like, no, I’m your colleague. That is different.

Sasha carries a similar sentiment, driving home how injurious the deficit colonial gaze can be:

I think the other biggest challenge for me - and I’ve seen this a few times now […] is assuming […] that Indigenous people don’t do research and I have to really fight my inner desire to staple my CV to the door and say actually I earned my role here, I didn’t just black it in.

Lack of understanding and knowledge extends its reach into structures of research approval wherein decisions on granting ethics approval are geared around simplistic, superficial understandings of Indigenous protocols and ethics. Eva explains:

Because I’m an Indigenous researcher, I say that everything that I research is Indigenous research because it’s through my own perspective and through my own standpoint, which is how I analyse the data and I make that quite plain. It’s almost as if I’m penalised because every single time I submit an ethics review, I call it Indigenous research and I have to show support from the Indigenous community, even if it’s not studying with the Indigenous community, working with the Indigenous community, it’s something that I’m leading or targeting, so I feel disadvantaged in that.

Rhiannon’s standpoint is unequivocal:

I’ve had more difficult conversations in the last three months than I’ve ever had my whole life. […] Those conversations have been things like about addressing the deficit in their curricula and asking them directly can I please look at it and asking can I be part of the team that does work on it, can I see the mapping of it, can I find out about the graduate attributes, what are the Indigenous graduate attributes. I’m getting blank faces about most of these things, by the way. To try and change the curricula, I’m trying to get involved in the curricula. They’re like who the hell are you? I’m like well, you hired an Aboriginal staff member and what did you expect was going to happen.

A core tenet of CRT states that utilising and honoring the experiential knowledge of Indigenous people is fundamental when discussing issues of race and racism in education (Acevedo & Solorzano, 2021). This narrative illustrates the extent of institutional racial ignorance, to the point when Rhiannon is rendered invisible in the room and silenced by colonial knowledge holders, and the Indigenous perspectives have been overwritten by Western worldviews. As a final non-sequitur, Sarah noted the irony of a decision made by the university’s ethics committee that did not have an Aboriginal representative, and rejected their application to join as an Aboriginal advisor, on the grounds of inexperience. Jungkunz and White (2013) propose racially responsible knowing means moving beyond seeing race, to intentional listening for, and hearing racism, a ‘receptive listening and silent yielding by Whites to the stories of racialised others’ (p. 437). As Christian (2017) so succinctly articulated: ‘we are not […] telling tales’ (p. 421). As we can see, claiming ignorance does not absolve the individual or the institution of accountability; in fact knowing consolidates responsibility, a necessary prerequisite for an equitable and just educational sector (Jungkunz & White, 2013).

Racism on the job

Sector-wide duplicity in institutional racism tacitly supports the subtle yet effective ways that Indigenous presence in the academy is diminished, consequently stymying the development of meaningful and culturally strong Indigenous academic careers. Yet, none of this is a new phenomenon in Indigenous and minoritised networks. For example, the suppression of critical viewpoints expressed through Indigenous Studies curricula is profiled in Indigenous based journals (McGloin, 2014; Nakata, 2006; Nakata et al., 2012). Similarly, the movement against teaching critical race theory in the public sphere, schools, and higher education stems from an uninformed, racist standpoint seeking to demonise critical studies of racism. Gillborn (2021) contends the position is provocative and treacherous, and Bond (2014) contends it is enabled by institutions’ muffled collusion with the racial vilification of teaching staff by students.

Participants have presented evidence showing that on-the-job institutional racism experienced by Indigenous ECRs is thriving within the structures and governance of the higher education sector. These epistemological power constructs of Whiteness are sustained by supporting non-Indigenous academics to research about Indigenous peoples. As we see below, Indigenous ECR’s critical personal narratives disrupt and disturb discourse by exposing the contradictions and inconsistencies that are hidden under officially endorsed practice and polity, a point developed by Abu-Saad (2008) in a discussion about critical race theory, Indigenous methodologies, and the power of narratives to critique the dominant social order: Maree suggests Indigenous ECRs are positioned to act in an advisory role only, without purview and authority:

We also need to find a way that the wider university includes us as experts other than just being the Indigenous native informant.

Julie contends non-Indigenous people have assumed the position of speaking for Indigenous people, and that the lack of acknowledgement of Indigenous expertise within the sector also reaches into the selection of researchers on grant funded projects:

I also walked into a culture of a lot of non-Indigenous researchers who have made their entire careers out of exploiting Indigenous research, in ways that they’ve become the leaders, they’re the spokespeople for Indigenous research.

Hannah contends that another dimension of institutional racism on the job occurs when Indigenous led research is ignored not only within the sector, but also by commissioning government agencies:

The government just doesn’t seem to utilise the research expertise that’s out there […] bring their own people in to actually do the work on the policy development when there’s been a lot of research that could be informing it.

Cooper also makes an unambiguous statement about institutional racism that is embedded not only in the sector but also enabled by governing bodies the like of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC):

Most importantly I think the message really needs to go through to people like the NHMRC and the ARC, because they talk this stuff, but they will not tend to fund genuine, authentic Aboriginal led research, unless there’s someone with a highfalutin professor to look over them […] a couple of years ago I was looking at an Indigenous research grant scheme and going there’s only around 10 per cent of Aboriginal researchers who were on the grants. There’s just like this conga line of non-Aboriginal researchers.

Indigenous academics are calling out the gatekeepers of knowledge and knowledge sharing across higher education: for example, written from personal experience recounting a journal’s rejection of a manuscript that challenged dominant standpoint, Abu-Saad (2008) and Acker et al. (2021) argue journals act as a gatekeeping tool, a position supported by Moreton-Robinson (2015), and Thunig and Jones (2020) who stand firm against the dominance of mainstream body of international literature that suppresses oppositional viewpoints. Acker et al. (2021), argues journals actively and selectively seek out the best fit for a predominantly White readership, with publication decisions mediated by mostly White editors and reviewers who operate in silos. Lee calls out on-the-job institutional racism experienced by Indigenous ECRs that is inherent in colonial highly competitive publications. Using an example of publishing in a specific field, Lee explains:

Trying to publish the work that I’m doing or the work that I’ve done, is just horrendous, because there’s no existing conversation about Aboriginal [content redacted] journals […] The peer review process is just basically being sent out to people who have no concept. Like peer review comments like ‘can you please include more information on why the Aborigines are so disadvantaged’? ‘ No, I can’t, that’s not what I’m going to be including’, delete, delete, delete. End processes mean that researchers are struggling to get it out there but at the same time students and business people aren’t getting value for money.

Eli identifies the key challenge as being:

You have non-Indigenous people being gatekeepers of what is knowledge, and are not willing to look beyond their White lands and find ways in which other knowledges are just as valid, probably even more valid, than what has actually been done.

Australian and international research document on-the-job racism experienced by Indigenous academics and People of Colour, recounting telling examples of being subjected to racist comments by students, receiving little support by non-Indigenous colleagues, experiencing disbelief and/or tongue-in-cheek tokenism offered by management (Barrow & Grant, 2019; Elias et al., 2021; Harris et al., 2017). For Indigenous ECRs, all of the above is compounded by behavioural racism in the classroom:

I talk about learning and teaching, the content, which is Indigenous and the fact that the units I teach, the main ones that have the most students, are core units and you don’t always get students who want to learn about Indigenous Australia and there are some, very occasionally, raise their racist heads and comment on how they don’t understand why they have to learn this, they don’t want to know this and it’s not fair that they’re made to learn about it. Sometimes you get reviews back, so the student surveys back that are very negative. (Eva)

Our paper documents Indigenous ECR participants’ experiences and perceptions of how the racialised structures and systemic architecture in higher education fulfill the role as the gatekeepers of Indigenous ECRs tenured entry into the academy, be it through disrespecting Indigenous capacity, privileging non-Indigenous leadership in Indigenous research projects, endorsing tenure criteria dependent on a publication history in White journals, reducing Indigenous Studies courses, and a tacit endorsement of racism at the site of teaching and learning. Our paper simultaneously shows the power of narratives in the pursuit of educational equity, by giving voice to Indigenous ECRs who have shared their stories in the hope of informing and educating dominant and elite groups. In this way, the truth that ‘our society is deeply structured by racism’ (Delgado, 1990, p. 98) is made visible.

On fabricated narratives

An additional weapon in the armoury of institutional racism is discrimination rendered invisible by institutional rhetoric of equity and parity. Participants attest to the fabricated narratives about the pursuit of equity in the sector, be it through diversity and affirmative action policies, faux attempts to Indigenise curricula, or institutional rhetoric of inclusivity. Masked by the virtue signalling of social activism rhetoric, higher education embraces the trickle down empathy economy (Ezell, 2021), wherein universities endorse an anti-racism discourse that permeates the institution, appearing in their public image advocating justice, equity, inclusivity and diversity on panels and committees, that then trickle down through fertilised minds, creating an ’echo chamber of little impact’ (p. 4).

Tokenism and institutional rhetoric sanction such mythmaking, ensuring power structures remain undisturbed. Julie argues that despite virtue signalling of equity-based policies, authentic engagement with tangible outcomes is missing:

Often, they don’t include Indigenous in any of their strategic plans, in their RAP.² Even in the RAP, most of the time they leave it up to us to deliver and develop; there’s no buy-in from the broader sector. RAPs, they hide behind them so much.

Teal Dhakki also challenges fabricated narratives by sharing their stories of experiences as an Indigenous ECR thereby challenging the majoritarian perspective that White privileged standpoints are natural and true:

I’m watching that space and promotion policy documents at this university are about promoting women and promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People, First Nations, and the strategic plan from 2000 to 2025 also backs that up; we are giving special consideration to women and First Nations people. But when you look at the actuality across the university, two professors and one associate professor, I don’t think so.

This is compounded by neoliberalism in the Australian sector and coupled with a trending capitalisation of diversity and affirmative actions that attract funding (Anderson et al., 2020), while still marginalising minoritised racial groups. Ahmed (2006) conflates diversity with an absence of action, claiming diversity has become an amorphous tired term representing a redistributive justice that under the banner of change merely shifts social mission discourses from one minoritised group to another. The resultant outcome for Indigenous ECRs is far from propitious, stymied at every turn and with claims for equity and parity that are diluted and lost.

Our study shows institutional racism is veiled by neoliberal politics favouring structural changes so as to enable diversity and affirmative action policies. Whilst acknowledging the potential significance of such equity-based policies, William argues awareness of and action against racism should be prioritised in such a competitive space:

Because everybody thinks that their issues are the most important. I understand that. […] a lot of my colleagues just have got no sense of the enormity of the challenge of Indigenous education and what it stands for and what it actually uncovers in terms of – it’s not just about power dynamic. It’s about how schooling and education is at the sharp end of 21st-century assimilation. It’s hard to actually get colleagues to understand that that’s the space we’re trying to work in, and I’m the only person …

The mainstreaming of Faculty, driven by sector-wide neoliberal agendas, negatively impacts on Indigenous ECRs. Lee explains how their positions have been compromised by neoliberal agendas:

They closed down our Indigenous school, mainstreamed it and we’re all left with just nothing. We’re trying to pull together conversations with each other and that sort of thing.

From a different campus, James interrogates the sector’s commitment to Indigenising the institution:

I guess the biggest challenge for me really is just believing any university’s commitment to Indigenous Studies. I guess it comes from experience, where I’ve been previously and we’ve heard in one year that the commitment is unwavering and we really value Indigenous Studies in this university, et cetera, et cetera. The next year, what you thought was an ongoing position is no longer …

Within the complex web of feigned commitment to racial equity replete with institutional rhetoric and fabricated narratives, racism on the job, race myths and an epistemology of ignorance, Areau’s summation is heart-felt and disparaging, as they describe White institutions of higher education as ‘cold-blooded academia’ exerting a ‘calm violence’. This ‘calm violence’ enacted against Indigenous ECRs is present throughout the interviews. Mica’s comment is damning of the system, and well worth heeding:

Anything related to race or racism or Black on Black violence within an institution, these universities have no idea how to deal with it. They didn’t want to deal with it and they didn’t have the skills to deal with

Two years into the project, Mica demands change:

The kind of support I want is a massive cultural shift in how these places operate, but that’s not really support. I’m sick of support and little band-aids; I want big systemic reform and I want a cultural change in terms of how these places treat women, how they treat - in our people, how they treat anyone who’s not a privileged white male, basically I don’t want a program of empathy or how to be resilient. I’m sick of all that stuff, I just want change.

Fish don’t see water, just as men don’t see patriarchy and white philosophers don’t see white supremacy³

In the midst of a culture of denial, the Indigenous ECR participants in this study have articulated their experiences and perceptions of racism in higher education, challenging the normalcy of Whiteness at an institutional level. Participants have also confirmed that the voices of Indigenous peoples are needed for an all-inclusive, thorough analysis of the educational system (Miller et al., 2020). In this study of 28 participants in 21 universities across Australia, 20 participants across 14 universities explicitly identified an unmistakeable presence of institutional racism in the sector, telling of an institutional focus on continuity rather than change through privileging White perspectives and governance structures in higher education. Our study exposes the breadth and depth of institutional racism encountered by Indigenous ECR participants across age groups and years of experience in the sector: 71% of the participants unambiguously describe the Australian higher education sector as characterised by racist policies that are hidden in plain view and enabled by race myths and fictions at the institutional level. Participants identified the sector as one bounded by institutional racism in all stages of their ECR journey, where racism is made invisible by the normalisation of assumptions, beliefs and practices that centre the interests and perspectives of White people (Gillborn, 2015). Indigenous ECRs have named epistemology of ignorance as underpinning the sector. Racism on the job is replete with fabricated narratives concealing the sectors failure to enact equity policies and practices, enabled by instructional rhetoric and neo-liberal polity of rationalisation of the sector, and concomitant devaluing of Indigenous contributions to the sector. In a stratified workplace, ECRs are constrained by white walls and a ‘calm violence’ in a sector where the White benchmark continues to thrive, albeit hidden in plain view. It is no wonder Indigenous ECRs are seeking ways to unmask and raise visibility of Indigenous inequity, debunk myths, and quash fabricated narratives of institutional equity. Although grounded in Australian experiences of institutional racism, the study has global significance for relationally-like colonised nations: international literature highlights racism is imbricated across relationally-like Pan-Pacific colonised nations, and this is laid bared by the recounting of Australian Indigenous experiences and perceptions.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Indigenous ECRs who participated in this research. We would also like to thank the Australian Research Council for funding this study (IN190100018).

Ethics approval: Western Sydney University Human Research Ethics Committee. Approval number HR13270.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The research has been funded by Australian Research Council (ARC): Grant number IN190100018.

Notes on contributors

Rhonda Povey

Rhonda Povey Dr Rhonda Povey is a non-Indigenous researcher, living and working on Dharug Country. She has extensive experience working and researching in the field of Indigenous education. Rhonda’s place-based thesis on rewriting colonial history of Aboriginal education in remote Australia was well received with a commendation for the Chancellor’s award in 2020. She currently works at Western Sydney University in collaboration with Professors Trudgett and Page, and Dr Locke on a study titled: Developing Indigenous Early Career Researchers. The focus of Rhonda’s doctoral thesis, current research and employment is working and standing with Indigenous peoples in advancing equity and parity in Indigenous education.

Michelle Trudgett

Michelle Trudgett Professor Michelle Trudgett is an Indigenous scholar from the Wiradjuri Nation in New South Wales. Michelle holds the position Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Indigenous Leadership at Western Sydney University. Prior to this appointment, she served as the Inaugural Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges at the University of Technology Sydney and was previously the Head of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University. In recognition for her contributions to higher education, Michelle has received several awards including the highly prestigious National NAIDOC Scholar of the Year Award, the Neville Bonner Award for Teaching Excellence, and the University of New England Distinguished Alumni Award

Susan Page

Susan Page Professor Susan Page is an Aboriginal academic and is currently Director of Indigenous Learning and Teaching at Western Sydney University. Prior to this appointment Susan was Associate Dean (Indigenous) and Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges, in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. Susan recently led a university-wide Indigenous graduate attribute project and was previously Head of the Department of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University (2008-2012). Susan has been the recipient of a number of competitive research grants and is well published in the area of Indigenous Higher Education. In 2018 she led the team (Page, Trudgett & Bodkin-Andrews) which was awarded a national teaching excellence award, the Neville Bonner Award for Indigenous Education.

Michelle Lea Locke

Michelle Lea Locke Dr Michelle Locke is a proud Dharug woman and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Office of Deputy Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Leadership, working on an ARC project: Developing Indigenous Early Career Researchers. Dr Locke’s thesis, Yanna Jannawi: Centering Indigenous Ways of Knowing in Early Education and Care Services was conferred in January 2021 through the Centre for Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges at the University of Technology Sydney. This thesis examines Indigenous perspectives on culturally relevant and respectful approaches to the inclusion of Indigenous Ways of Knowing in mainstream early education and care services. In 2018, she received the Australian Association for Research in Education’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduate Student Researcher award for her conference paper, Wirrawi Bubuwul – Aboriginal Women Strong.

Notes

1. A note on terminology: the term Indigenous is used throughout this paper when referring collectively to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples of Australia, Māori Peoples of Aotearoa, First Nation, Inuit and Métis Peoples of Canada, and the Native American Peoples of America. We intentionally use the term Indigenous to signify the united struggle of relationally-like Peoples against ongoing colonialism.

2. A Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) is a formal statement of commitment to reconciliation, wherein organisations develop a framework to contribute to national reconciliation with Australian Indigenous people

3. This title is adapted from the frontmatter of a text by Mills (1997).