First In Family, First For Family: Indigenous academic women's legacy motivation

Amy Thunig

doi:10.55146/ajie.2022.49

Authors

Amy Thunig Macquarie University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.55146/ajie.2022.49

Keywords:

Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, women, academic, legacy, higher education

Abstract

Indigenous academics are a minority within the academy, with the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics, staffing, and student numbers well established. A growing body of literature examines the motivations of Indigenous peoples who enroll and complete University degrees, however a dearth of literature examines the journeys and motivations of those who choose to be academics. A review of papers largely produced by Indigenous academics highlights that though a paucity of literature directly centers their motivation in undertaking their initial studies or joining the academy; legacy, family and community motivations appear regularly, though often mentioned in incidental, backgrounded or de-centered ways. Drawing upon existing literature, interviews with 17 Indigenous academic women, and Indigenous Research Methodologies, this article foregrounds and centers consideration of legacy motivations for academic women’s professional work, and initial journey into higher education study. It argues the implications of academic engagement for Indigenous women, in so-called Australia, include wider influences, impacts and outcomes for their immediate familial, extended kinship and broader Indigenous community groups. It posits that these are not secondary or incidental, but primary motivations and shaping influences on Indigenous women's academics careers and how they should be understood, valued and supported by institutions.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Amy Thunig, Macquarie University

Amy Thunig is an academic in the School of Education at Macquarie University. A Gomeroi woman, Amy has a Bachelor of Arts, a Masters degree in Teaching (Primary) and recently submitted her PhD in education with a focus on Indigenous women in academia. In 2019 Amy was invited to give her TEDx talk “Disruption is not a dirty word” and was named Emerging Leader in the Public Sector. Amy has a forthcoming book of personal essays titled Tell Me Again due for publication with UQP in 2022 and hosts the podcast Blacademia: Yarns with First Nations/Indigenous academics.

References

All Together Now. (2021). When inclusion means exclusion: Social commentary and Indigenous agency. https://alltogethernow.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/When-inclusion-means-exclusion-report-2021.pdf

Asmar, C., & Page, S. (2008). Beneath the teaching iceberg: Exposing the hidden support dimensions of Indigenous academic work. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 37(1), 109–117.

Asmar, C., Page, S., & Radloff, A. (2015). Exploring anomalies in Indigenous student engagement: Findings from a national Australian survey of undergraduates. Higher Education Research & Development, 34(1), 15–29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2014.934334

Behrendt, L. (2019). Indigenous storytelling. In J.-A. Archibald Q'um Q'um Xiiem, J. Lee-Morgan, & J. De Santolo, Decolonizing research: Indigenous storywork as methodology. Zed Books.

Behrendt, L., Larkin, S., Griew, R., & Kelly, P. (2012). Review of higher education access and outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: Final report. Australian Government, Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education.

Bin-Sallik, M. A. (2000). Aboriginal women by degrees. University of Queensland Press.

Bodkin-Andrews, G., Page, S., & Trudgett, M. (2022). Shaming the silences: Indigenous graduate attributes and the privileging of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices. Critical Studies in Education, 63(1), 96–113. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2018.1553795

Bullen , J., & Flavell, H. (2017). Measuring the “gift”: Epistemological and ontological differences between the academy and Indigenous Australia. Higher Education Research & Development, 36(3), 583–596. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1290588

Bunda, T., Zipin, L., & Brennan, M. (2011). Negotiating university “equity” from Indigenous standpoints: A shaky bridge. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 19(6), 941–957.

Coates, S. K., Trudgett, M., & Page, S. (2021). Islands in the stream: Indigenous academic perceptions of Indigenous senior leadership role. Higher Education Research & Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021.1920894 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021.1920894

DiGregorio, K., Farrington, S., & Page, S. (2000). Listening to our students: Understanding the factors that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ academic success. Higher Education Research & Development, 19(3), 297–309. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/758484344

Dudgeon, P., Herbert, J., Milroy, J., & Oxenham, D. (2017). Us women, our ways, our world. Griffith Press.

Evans, M., & Sinclair, A. (2016). Containing, contesting, creating spaces: Leadership and cultural identity work among Australian Indigenous arts leaders. Leadership, 12(3), 270–292. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715015620463

Frawley, J., Smith, J. A., & Larkin, S. (2015). Beyond Bradley and Behrendt: Building a stronger evidence-base about Indigenous pathways and transitions into higher education. Learning Communities (Special Issue: Indigenous Pathways and Transitions into Higher Education), 17, 8–11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2015.17.01

Fredericks, B. (2009a). Look before you leap: The epistemic violence which sometimes hides behind the word “inclusion”. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 38(1), 10–16.

Fredericks, B. (2009b). The epistemology that maintains white race privilege, power and control of Indigenous studies and Indigenous peoples’ participation in universities. Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, 5(1), 1–12.

Fredericks, B., & Brien, D. (2014). I have pen, book and food; Now, let’s write: Indigenizing a postgraduate writing workshop. AlterNative, 10(4), 422–433. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/117718011401000408

Fredericks, B., Lamey, T., Mikecz, M., & Santamaria, F. (2015). Enabling people to “see what they can be”: The Community Aspirations Program (CAP-ED). Immunological Investigations, 17, 54–63.

Fredericks, B., & White, N. (2018). Using bridges made by others as scaffolding and establishing footings for those that follow: Indigenous women in the academy. Australian Journal of Education, 62(3), 243–255. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944118810017

Fredericks, B., White, N., Phillips, S., Bunda, T., Longbottom, M., & Bargallie, D. (2019). Being ourselves, naming ourselves, writing ourselves: Indigenous Australian women disrupting what it is to be academic within the academy. In L. Thomas, & A. Reinertsen (Eds.)., Academic writing and identity constructions: Performativity, space and territory in academic workplaces (pp. 75–96). Palgrave Macmillan.

Green, S., Russ-Smith, J., & Tynan, L. (2018). Claiming the space, creating the future. Australian Journal of Education, 62(3), 256–265. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944118802594

Habashi, J. (2005). Creating Indigenous discourse: History, power, and imperialism in academia, Palestinian case. Qualitative Inquiry, 11(5), 771–788. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800405276809 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800405276809

Hogarth, M. (2017). Speaking back to the deficit discourses: A theoretical and methodological approach. The Australian Association for Research in Education, 44, 21–34. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-017-0228-9

Jones, T., Takayama, K., Posthausen, G., Carter, K., Landrigan, B., Bennell, D., Ahoy, C., Parkinson, C., & Wallace, C. (2016). Improving services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students: A critical study. Nova Science.

Kovach, M. (2010). Conversational method in Indigenous research. First Peoples Child and Family Review, 5(1), 40–48. https://doi.org/10.7202/1069060ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1069060ar

Locke, M. (2018). Wirrawi bubuwul – Aboriginal women strong. Australian Journal of Education, 62, 1–12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944118799483

Manathunga, C., Davidow, S., Williams, P., Gilbey, K., Bunda, T., Raciti, M., & Stanton, S. (2020). Decolonisation through poetry: Building First Nations’ voice and promoting truth-telling. Education as Change, 24, 1–24. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25159/1947-9417/7765

Moreton-Robinson, A. (1998). When the object speaks, a postcolonial encounter: Anthropological representations and Aboriginal women’s self-presentations. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 19(3), 275–279. https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630980190302 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630980190302

Moreton-Robinson, A. (2000). Talkin’ up to the white woman. University of Queensland Press.

Moreton-Robinson, A., Walter, M., Singh, D., & Kimber, M. (2011). On stony ground: Governance and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in Australian universities. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. http://dese.gov.au

Moreton-Robinson, A. (2013). Towards an Australian Indigenous women’s standpoint theory: A methodological tool. Australian Feminist Studies, 28(78), 331–347. https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2013.876664 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2013.876664

Nakata, M. (2004). Ongoing conversations about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research agendas and directions. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 33, 1-6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1326011100600807

Nakata, M. (2007a). Disciplining the savages, savaging the disciplines. Aboriginal Studies Press.

Nakata, M. (2007b). The cultural interface. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 36(1), 7–14.

Page, S., Trugett, M., & Sullivan, C. (2017). Past, present and future: Acknowledging Indigenous achievement and aspiration in higher education. HERDSA Review of Higher Education, 4, 29–51.

Patfield, S., Gore, J., Fray, L., & Gruppetta, M. (2019). The untold story of middle-class Indigenous Australian school students who aspire to university. Critical Studies in Education, 63(1), 80–95. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2019.1572022

Thunig, A., & Jones, T. (2020). “Don’t make me play house n***er”: Indigenous academic women treated as “black performer” within higher education. The Australian Educational Researcher, 48, 397–417.

Tuck, E., Yang, K. W., & Gaztambide-Fernández, R. (2015, April). Citation practices challenge. Critical Ethnic Studies. http://www.criticalethnicstudiesjournal.org/citation-practices

Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2012). Decolonising methodologies: Research and Indigenous people. Zed Books.

Tynan, L. (2020). Thesis as kin: Living relationality with research. AlterNative, 16(3), 163–170. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1177180120948270

Tynan, L., & Bishop, M. (2019). Disembodied experts, accountability and refusal: An autoethnography of two (ab)Original women. Australian Journal of Human Rights, 25(2), 217–231. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238X.2019.1574202

Uink, B., Bennett, R., & van den Ber, C. (2021). Factors that enable Australian Aboriginal women’s persistence at university: A strengths-based approach. Higher Education Research & Development, 40(1), 178–193. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1852185

Universities Australia. (2017). Indigenous strategy 2017-2020. https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/publication/indigenous-strategy-2017-2020/

Waters, M. (2013). Nurturing the “beginning” in protecting our traditional practices from the end: Family, kinship and Kamilaroi Aboriginal First Nation knowledge in Australia. The Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia, 4(1), 177–192.

Wilson, S. (2008). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Fernwood Publishing.