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3 Decolonizing Australian Universities: Why Embedding Indigenous Content in the Curriculum Fails That Task

  • David Hollinsworth
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Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies
This chapter is in the book Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies

Abstract

There is considerable support in Australia and overseas (especially in the United Kingdom) for decolonization of higher education. Much of this support is based on continuing poor retention and attainment rates of Indigenous higher education students, along with decades of well-founded critique of Eurocentric, masculinist and colonial curriculum and pedagogy. Drawing from a range of Australian examples and first-hand reflections from my journey of writing and teaching on anti-racism within higher education since the late 1970s, this chapter provides an overview of my involvement in efforts to design and deliver Aboriginal higher education and Aboriginal studies, and critical anti-racism curriculum and policy as ‘decolonizing’ moves. I argue against the privileging of curriculum reform in isolation from critical race theory and serious forms of anti-racism amid naive assumptions about the nature of systemic and cultural racisms in Australian universities today. Several pitfalls are highlighted, including a lack of attention to power and governance, culturalist and essentialist representations of Aboriginal people, tokenism, what makes a university a safe and welcoming place for Aboriginal students, racial taxation on Aboriginal staff and becoming an accomplice rather than an ally. These failures point to a range of critical racial and decolonial literacies necessary for the task of decolonizing.

Abstract

There is considerable support in Australia and overseas (especially in the United Kingdom) for decolonization of higher education. Much of this support is based on continuing poor retention and attainment rates of Indigenous higher education students, along with decades of well-founded critique of Eurocentric, masculinist and colonial curriculum and pedagogy. Drawing from a range of Australian examples and first-hand reflections from my journey of writing and teaching on anti-racism within higher education since the late 1970s, this chapter provides an overview of my involvement in efforts to design and deliver Aboriginal higher education and Aboriginal studies, and critical anti-racism curriculum and policy as ‘decolonizing’ moves. I argue against the privileging of curriculum reform in isolation from critical race theory and serious forms of anti-racism amid naive assumptions about the nature of systemic and cultural racisms in Australian universities today. Several pitfalls are highlighted, including a lack of attention to power and governance, culturalist and essentialist representations of Aboriginal people, tokenism, what makes a university a safe and welcoming place for Aboriginal students, racial taxation on Aboriginal staff and becoming an accomplice rather than an ally. These failures point to a range of critical racial and decolonial literacies necessary for the task of decolonizing.

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Series Editors’ Preface vii
  4. List of Figures and Tables ix
  5. Notes on Contributors x
  6. Foreword xvii
  7. Acknowledgements xxi
  8. Introduction: Articulating a Critical Racial and Decolonial Liberatory Imperative for Our Times 1
  9. Going beyond ‘Decolonize the Curriculum’
  10. Being Woke to Anti-Intellectualism: Indigenous Resistance and Futures 13
  11. Decolonizing Australian Universities: Why Embedding Indigenous Content in the Curriculum Fails That Task 32
  12. Let’s Get Critical: Thinking with and beyond the ‘Dead White Men’ of Social Theory 49
  13. (De)constituting Settler Subjects: A Retrospective Critical Race-Decolonizing Account 62
  14. Being in the Classroom
  15. Shedding the Colonial Skin and Digging Deep as Decolonial Praxis 79
  16. Racially Literate Teacher Education: (Im)possibilities for Disrupting the Racial Silence 93
  17. In Conversation with Helena Liu: Redeeming Leadership – a Project of Critical Hope 111
  18. The Provocateur as Decolonial Praxis 123
  19. Doing Race in the Disciplines
  20. Decolonizing the Curriculum in the Colonial Debtscape 137
  21. Race-ing the Law 152
  22. Assembling Decolonial Anti-Racist Praxis from the Margins: Reflections from Critical Community Psychology 164
  23. Unravelling the Model Minority Myth and Breaking the Racial Silence: A Collaborative Critical Auto-Ethnography 178
  24. Counter-Storytelling as Critical Praxis 190
  25. Building Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies beyond the Academy
  26. Incantation: Insurgent Texts as Decolonial Feminist Praxis 205
  27. Race at Work within Social Policy 227
  28. ‘The Sole Source of Truth’: Harnessing the Power of the Spoken Word through Indigenous Community Radio 246
  29. Resistance, Solidarity, Survival
  30. Death Can Be Clarifying: Considering the Forces That Move Us 261
  31. In Conversation with Yassir Morsi: Slow Ontology as Resistance 276
  32. Teaching Race, Conceptualizing Solidarity 290
  33. In Conversation with Alana Lentin: Racial Literacy – an Act of Solidarity 305
  34. Teacher/Decolonizer 317
  35. Index 322
https://doi.org/10.56687/9781529234442-008

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Series Editors’ Preface vii
  4. List of Figures and Tables ix
  5. Notes on Contributors x
  6. Foreword xvii
  7. Acknowledgements xxi
  8. Introduction: Articulating a Critical Racial and Decolonial Liberatory Imperative for Our Times 1
  9. Going beyond ‘Decolonize the Curriculum’
  10. Being Woke to Anti-Intellectualism: Indigenous Resistance and Futures 13
  11. Decolonizing Australian Universities: Why Embedding Indigenous Content in the Curriculum Fails That Task 32
  12. Let’s Get Critical: Thinking with and beyond the ‘Dead White Men’ of Social Theory 49
  13. (De)constituting Settler Subjects: A Retrospective Critical Race-Decolonizing Account 62
  14. Being in the Classroom
  15. Shedding the Colonial Skin and Digging Deep as Decolonial Praxis 79
  16. Racially Literate Teacher Education: (Im)possibilities for Disrupting the Racial Silence 93
  17. In Conversation with Helena Liu: Redeeming Leadership – a Project of Critical Hope 111
  18. The Provocateur as Decolonial Praxis 123
  19. Doing Race in the Disciplines
  20. Decolonizing the Curriculum in the Colonial Debtscape 137
  21. Race-ing the Law 152
  22. Assembling Decolonial Anti-Racist Praxis from the Margins: Reflections from Critical Community Psychology 164
  23. Unravelling the Model Minority Myth and Breaking the Racial Silence: A Collaborative Critical Auto-Ethnography 178
  24. Counter-Storytelling as Critical Praxis 190
  25. Building Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies beyond the Academy
  26. Incantation: Insurgent Texts as Decolonial Feminist Praxis 205
  27. Race at Work within Social Policy 227
  28. ‘The Sole Source of Truth’: Harnessing the Power of the Spoken Word through Indigenous Community Radio 246
  29. Resistance, Solidarity, Survival
  30. Death Can Be Clarifying: Considering the Forces That Move Us 261
  31. In Conversation with Yassir Morsi: Slow Ontology as Resistance 276
  32. Teaching Race, Conceptualizing Solidarity 290
  33. In Conversation with Alana Lentin: Racial Literacy – an Act of Solidarity 305
  34. Teacher/Decolonizer 317
  35. Index 322
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