Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T17:07:32.210Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Queer(y)ing Indigenous Australian higher education student spaces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2019

Corrinne Sullivan*
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Parramatta Campus, Rydalmere, New South Wales 2116, Australia
Madi Day
Affiliation:
Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia
*
Author for correspondence: Corrinne Sullivan, E-mail: corrinne.sullivan@westernsydney.edu.au
Get access

Abstract

For many Queer and Gender Diverse (QGD) Indigenous Australian people, there is little to no separation between our queer or gender identity, and our cultural identity. We are increasingly calling upon institutions to consider and cater to our identities and the needs which correlate with such identities. This paper discusses the findings of a project that investigated the ways in which QGD Indigenous Australian students are included, or not, in the Australian higher education space. Our findings suggest QGD Indigenous Australians are often overlooked in these spaces. We explore the consequences for university access, retention and personal impact for this cohort of students.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project (2015) Sexuality and Gender Diverse Populations (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer and IntersexLGBTQI) Roundtable Report. Retrieved from The Healing Foundation, Canberra: http://www.atsispep.sis.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/2857539/LGBTQI-Roundtable-Report-.pdf.Google Scholar
Ahmed, S (2012) On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham and London: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Andersen, C, Bunda, T and Walter, M (2008) Indigenous higher education: the role of universities in releasing the potential. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 37, 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016) National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, 2014–15, population contexts. Retrieved March 25, 2019 from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4714.0~2014-15~Main%20Features~Population%20context~2.Google Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2017) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population: 2016 Census Data Summary. 28 June 2017. Retrieved from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0~2016~Main%20Features~Aboriginal%20and%20Torres%20Strait%20Islander%20Population%20Data%20Summary~10.Google Scholar
Badanami Centre for Indigenous Education (2010) Badanami Centre for Indigenous Education. Retrieved from https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/badanami/badanami_centre_for_indigenous_education.Google Scholar
Behrendt, L, Larkin, S, Griew, R and Kelly, P (2012) Review of higher education access and outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: Final report. Canberra: Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education.Google Scholar
Bodkin-Andrews, G and Carlson, B (2016) The legacy of racism and Indigenous Australian identity within education. Race Ethnicity and Education 19, 784807.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, B (2016) Politics of Identity: Who counts as Aboriginal today? Canberra, ACT: Aboriginal Studies Press.Google Scholar
Clark, M (2014) Against authenticity CAL-connections: Queer Indigenous identities. Overland, No. 215, Winter, 3036.Google Scholar
Clark, M (2015) Are we Queer? Reflections on ‘Peopling the Empty Mirror’ twenty years on. In D, Hodge (ed.), Colouring the Rainbow: Blak Queer and Trans Perspectives–Life Stories and Essays by First Nations People of Australia. Adelaide: Wakefield Press, pp. 238252.Google Scholar
Crowhurst, M and Emslie, M (2014) Counting queers on campus: collecting data on queerly identifying students. Journal of LGBT Youth 11, 276288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Department of Education and Training (2015) 2015 Award Course Completions, 23 August 2016, Selected Higher Education Statistics –2015 Student data. Canberra. Retrieved January 3, 2019 from https://docs.education.gov.au/node/41786.Google Scholar
Dodson, M (2011) Chapter 3: Cultural safety and security: Tools to address lateral violence. In Social Justice Report 2011. Canberra: Australian Human Rights Commission.Google Scholar
Dodson, M (1994) The wentworth lecture the end in the beginning: re (de) finding aboriginality. Australian Aboriginal Studies 1, 213.Google Scholar
Eckermann, A-K, Dowd, T, Chong, E, Nixon, L and Gray, R (2010) Binan Goonj: Bridging Cultures in Aboriginal Health By 3rd. Chatswood, NSW: Elsevier Australia.Google Scholar
Farrell, A (2015) Can you see me? Queer margins in aboriginal communities. Journal of Global Indigeneity 1, 3.Google Scholar
Farrell, A (2016) Lipstick clapsticks: a yarn and a Kiki with an Aboriginal drag queen. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 12, 574585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Githens, RP (2012) Approaches to diversity in educating for LGBTQ-friendly changes in a university. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education 5, 207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorman-Murray, A and Nash, CJ (2014) Mobile places, relational spaces: conceptualizing change in Sydney's LGBTQ neighborhoods. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32, 622641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorrie, N (2017) Being blak and queer in Australia right now. NITV, August 12.Google Scholar
Harrison, N and Greenfield, M (2011) Relationship to place: positioning Aboriginal knowledge and perspectives in classroom pedagogies. Critical Studies in Education 52, 6576.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hickling-Hudson, A and Ahlquist, R (2003) Contesting the curriculum in the schooling of Indigenous children in Australia and the United States: from eurocentrism to culturally powerful pedagogies. Comparative Education Review 47, 6489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollander, JD (2018) Current students: Deakin LGBTIQ+ community. Retrieved from http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/health-and-wellbeing/lgbtiq-community.Google Scholar
Hooks, B (1990) Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston, MA: South End Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, C (2015) Napanangka: the true power of being proud. In D, Hodge (ed.), Colouring the Rainbow: Blak Queer and Trans Perspectives. Adelaide: Wakefield Press, pp. 2134.Google Scholar
Jumbunna (2018) Future students: Indigenous students. Retrieved from https://www.uts.edu.au/future-students/indigenous-australians.Google Scholar
Kerry, SC (2014) Sistergirls/brotherboys: the status of indigenous transgender Australians. International Journal of Transgenderism 15, 173186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monoghan, O (2015) Dual imperatives: decolonising the queer and queering the decolonial. In D, Hodge (ed.), Colouring the Rainbow: Blak Queer and Trans Perspectives. Mile End: Wakefield Press, pp. 2134.Google Scholar
Moreton-Robinson, A (2000) Talkin'up to the white woman: Aboriginal women and feminism. St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press.Google Scholar
Moreton-Robinson, A (2013) Towards an Australian Indigenous women's standpoint theory: a methodological tool. Australian Feminist Studies 28, 331347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreton-Robinson, A, Walter, M, Singh, D and Kimber, M (2011) On stony ground: governance and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in Australian universities. Retrieved from UTas & QUT.Google Scholar
Nakata, MN (2007) Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.Google Scholar
New South Wales Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (2018) Australian LGBTI Uni Guide. Retrieved on 16th October from https://lgbtiuniguide.org.au/Google Scholar
New South Wales Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby & Star Observer (2015) Australian LGBTI University Guide. Retrieved from https://lgbtiuniguide.org.au/.Google Scholar
Nicol, E (2017). Blackfullas for Marriage Equality: campaign aims to empower Indigenous LGBTQI community. NITV, August 27.Google Scholar
Nicolazzo, Z (2016) ‘Just go in looking good’: the resilience, resistance, and kinship-building of trans* college students. Journal of College Student Development 57, 538556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicolazzo, Z (2017) Imagining a trans* epistemology: what liberation thinks like in postsecondary education. Urban Education, 126.Google Scholar
Page, S, Trudgett, M and Sullivan, C (2017) Past, present and future: acknowledging indigenous achievement and aspiration in higher education. HERDSA Review of Higher Education 4, 2951.Google Scholar
Paradies, YC (2006) Beyond black and white: essentialism, hybridity and indigeneity. Journal of Sociology 42, 355367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, S (2017) Indigenous and LGBTI: who's looking after you? SBS, March 31.Google Scholar
Poynter, KJ and Tubbs, NJ (2008) Safe zones: creating LGBT safe space ally programs. Journal of LGBT Youth 5, 121132.Google Scholar
Ramsden, IM (2002) Cultural Safety and Nursing Education in Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu (PhD thesis). Victoria University.Google Scholar
Rice, ES, Haynes, E, Royce, P and Thompson, SC (2016) Social media and digital technology use among Indigenous young people in Australia: a literature review. International Journal for Equity in Health 15, 81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosenstreich, G and Goldner, S (2010) Inclusion and exclusion: Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, trans and intersex voices at the health in difference conference 2010. Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology Review 6, 139.Google Scholar
Samudzi, Z (2016) We need a decolonized, not a ‘diverse’, education. Harlot Magazine.Google Scholar
SBS (2017) ‘Vote No’ message appears above Sydney. SBS News, September 17.Google Scholar
Shotton, H, Yellowfish, S and Cintrón, R (2010) Island of sanctuary: the role of an American Indian culture center. In Patton, LD (ed.), Culture Centers in Higher Education: Perspectives on Identity, Theory, and Practice. Herndon, VA: Stylus Publishing, pp. 105116.Google Scholar
Sullivan, CT (2018) Indigenous Australian women's colonial sexual intimacies: positioning indigenous women's agency. Culture, Health & Sexuality 20, 397410.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sullivan, CT (2019) Majesty in the city: experiences of an Aboriginal transgender sex worker in Sydney, Australia. Gender, Place & Culture 25, 16811702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trudgett, M and Franklin, C (2011) Not in my backyard: the impact of culture shock on Indigenous Australians in higher education. Paper Presented at the Proceedings of the 1st International Australasian Conference on Enabling Access to Higher Education.Google Scholar
Universities Australia (2011) National best practice framework for Indigenous cultural competency in Australian universities. Canberra, ACT: Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR).Google Scholar
Universities Australia (2017) Indigenous strategy 2017–2020. Canberra: ACT, Universities Australia.Google Scholar
Walanga Muru (2017) Walanga Muru—Macquarie University. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/walangamuru/.Google Scholar
Whittaker, A (2015) The border made of mirrors: Indigenous queerness, deep colonisation and (De)fining Indigenousness in settler law. In Hodge, D (ed.), Colouring the Rainbow: Blak Queer and Trans Perspectives. Adelaide: Wakefield Press, pp. 2134.Google Scholar
Whittaker, A (2017) Queerness and Indigenous cultures: one world, many lives. Archer Magazine, #6, January 26.Google Scholar
Wilks, J and Wilson, K (2015) A profile of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander higher education student population. Australian Universities’ Review 57, 1730.Google Scholar
Williams, R (1999) Cultural safety—what does it mean for our work practice? Australian And New Zealand Journal Of Public Health 23, 213214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar