The Indigenous Imaginary and Tertiary Institutions

• In Event: Criticalness Within, Through, and Between Southern Epistemologies, Literacies, and Philosophies for Socio-Environmental Justice and Planetary Sustainability

Abstract

The privileged position of Western epistemologies is deeply embedded within a number of western universities and are supported by a number of internal and external support systems that block, mute or fuse change in ways that ensure the reproduction of western domination and Indigenous oppression. Using a case study of developments at an Australian university, the paper details the manner with which western hegemony is perpetuated against a wider discussion of the need for transformative and systemic changes of the positioning of Indigenous aspirations within and across tertiary institutions.
For Indigenous communities in colonized countries, education has been used as a weapon to silence their cultural practices, eradicate their ways of knowing, and forge their assimilation and subservience. Under the guise of protection, Indigenous children have been extracted from their communities, and Indigenous education has been supplanted with western curricula, teaching practices, learning outcomes and pathways. In her discussion of Indigenous education prior to colonization, Joanne Archibald (1995), from the Stó:lō Nation and Professor Emerita at the University of British Columbia, commented that the western dismissal and mischaracterization of First Nations education has been used to justify assimilation, including residential schools. In contrast to such false and disparaging accounts, she recounts how Indigenous education was based upon principles (spiritual, physical, emotional, and economic) and methods that are holistic and experiential; individualized; and carefully sequential and systematic—with the support of the family and community, especially elders. Similar colonizing forces were enlisted in other countries and perpetuated by a false deficit view of Indigenous culture and ways of knowing.
Comparisons afforded by international benchmarking have exposed the shameful disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. Governments have been forced to reconsider their Indigenous engagements—instigating policies that have provided incentives and sometimes mandates for change. These initiatives have led to quite mixed and often questionable results, as many seem to remain tethered to a colonial, assimilative sensibility rather than aligned with Indigenous tenets of respect, recognition, reciprocity and relevancy. (Indeed, governments seem to be states of upheaval, as social movements including Black Lives Matter and the Uluru Statement, along with commitments to Reconciliation, have drawn attention to systems and practices that perpetuate racism and inequities.) The 2021 Australia Day comments offered by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison that seemed to commiserate with the British convicts arriving with the First Fleet—without acknowledging the genocide and continuing dismissive, assimilative practices against Aborigines—represent the lag in progress on addressing these matters. They portend the reluctance of current political leadership to reconcile with past genocide and pursue a different course with respect to Aboriginal rights, freedoms and equality.

As a means of illustration, consider the circumstances of Indigenous developments in Australia at the tertiary level for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders beginning with some historic background and then focused upon recent developments using one of Australia’s premier and first university as a case study.

Authors

• Robert J. Tierney, University of British Columbia
  Presenting Author

• Bob Morgan, University of Newcastle
  Presenting Author