9 The Provocateur as Decolonial Praxis
-
Fiona Foley
Abstract
Racism continues to be a societal burden in Australia that I have learned to carry – that gaze wrapped up in judgement from a white society and white individuals. It manifests in everyday educational environments, including in my work as an Aboriginal artist-academic-activist. Aboriginal art and politics have had an uneasy relationship in this country. The one-sided colonial narrative continues to silence Aboriginal voices and has inflicted far-reaching collateral damage from the academy to wider Australian society. My platform for disrupting the colonial narrative and decolonizing the histories of Queensland is the visual arts. In this chapter, I reflect on my experiences teaching creative arts in Australian and American universities through engaging two of my artworks, Annihilation of the Blacks (1986) and HHH (Hedonistic Honky Haters) I (2004). I engage these artworks to provoke conversations about race and racism and explore the legacies of racial superiority. The provocateur as decolonial praxis makes many students and colleagues feel uncomfortable. I argue that critical provocation in teaching is vital, and that it needs to move students and colleagues beyond ‘feeling uncomfortable’ in Australia, where denial is a key feature of racism.
Abstract
Racism continues to be a societal burden in Australia that I have learned to carry – that gaze wrapped up in judgement from a white society and white individuals. It manifests in everyday educational environments, including in my work as an Aboriginal artist-academic-activist. Aboriginal art and politics have had an uneasy relationship in this country. The one-sided colonial narrative continues to silence Aboriginal voices and has inflicted far-reaching collateral damage from the academy to wider Australian society. My platform for disrupting the colonial narrative and decolonizing the histories of Queensland is the visual arts. In this chapter, I reflect on my experiences teaching creative arts in Australian and American universities through engaging two of my artworks, Annihilation of the Blacks (1986) and HHH (Hedonistic Honky Haters) I (2004). I engage these artworks to provoke conversations about race and racism and explore the legacies of racial superiority. The provocateur as decolonial praxis makes many students and colleagues feel uncomfortable. I argue that critical provocation in teaching is vital, and that it needs to move students and colleagues beyond ‘feeling uncomfortable’ in Australia, where denial is a key feature of racism.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Series Editors’ Preface vii
- List of Figures and Tables ix
- Notes on Contributors x
- Foreword xvii
- Acknowledgements xxi
- Introduction: Articulating a Critical Racial and Decolonial Liberatory Imperative for Our Times 1
-
Going beyond ‘Decolonize the Curriculum’
- Being Woke to Anti-Intellectualism: Indigenous Resistance and Futures 13
- Decolonizing Australian Universities: Why Embedding Indigenous Content in the Curriculum Fails That Task 32
- Let’s Get Critical: Thinking with and beyond the ‘Dead White Men’ of Social Theory 49
- (De)constituting Settler Subjects: A Retrospective Critical Race-Decolonizing Account 62
-
Being in the Classroom
- Shedding the Colonial Skin and Digging Deep as Decolonial Praxis 79
- Racially Literate Teacher Education: (Im)possibilities for Disrupting the Racial Silence 93
- In Conversation with Helena Liu: Redeeming Leadership – a Project of Critical Hope 111
- The Provocateur as Decolonial Praxis 123
-
Doing Race in the Disciplines
- Decolonizing the Curriculum in the Colonial Debtscape 137
- Race-ing the Law 152
- Assembling Decolonial Anti-Racist Praxis from the Margins: Reflections from Critical Community Psychology 164
- Unravelling the Model Minority Myth and Breaking the Racial Silence: A Collaborative Critical Auto-Ethnography 178
- Counter-Storytelling as Critical Praxis 190
-
Building Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies beyond the Academy
- Incantation: Insurgent Texts as Decolonial Feminist Praxis 205
- Race at Work within Social Policy 227
- ‘The Sole Source of Truth’: Harnessing the Power of the Spoken Word through Indigenous Community Radio 246
-
Resistance, Solidarity, Survival
- Death Can Be Clarifying: Considering the Forces That Move Us 261
- In Conversation with Yassir Morsi: Slow Ontology as Resistance 276
- Teaching Race, Conceptualizing Solidarity 290
- In Conversation with Alana Lentin: Racial Literacy – an Act of Solidarity 305
- Teacher/Decolonizer 317
- Index 322
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Series Editors’ Preface vii
- List of Figures and Tables ix
- Notes on Contributors x
- Foreword xvii
- Acknowledgements xxi
- Introduction: Articulating a Critical Racial and Decolonial Liberatory Imperative for Our Times 1
-
Going beyond ‘Decolonize the Curriculum’
- Being Woke to Anti-Intellectualism: Indigenous Resistance and Futures 13
- Decolonizing Australian Universities: Why Embedding Indigenous Content in the Curriculum Fails That Task 32
- Let’s Get Critical: Thinking with and beyond the ‘Dead White Men’ of Social Theory 49
- (De)constituting Settler Subjects: A Retrospective Critical Race-Decolonizing Account 62
-
Being in the Classroom
- Shedding the Colonial Skin and Digging Deep as Decolonial Praxis 79
- Racially Literate Teacher Education: (Im)possibilities for Disrupting the Racial Silence 93
- In Conversation with Helena Liu: Redeeming Leadership – a Project of Critical Hope 111
- The Provocateur as Decolonial Praxis 123
-
Doing Race in the Disciplines
- Decolonizing the Curriculum in the Colonial Debtscape 137
- Race-ing the Law 152
- Assembling Decolonial Anti-Racist Praxis from the Margins: Reflections from Critical Community Psychology 164
- Unravelling the Model Minority Myth and Breaking the Racial Silence: A Collaborative Critical Auto-Ethnography 178
- Counter-Storytelling as Critical Praxis 190
-
Building Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies beyond the Academy
- Incantation: Insurgent Texts as Decolonial Feminist Praxis 205
- Race at Work within Social Policy 227
- ‘The Sole Source of Truth’: Harnessing the Power of the Spoken Word through Indigenous Community Radio 246
-
Resistance, Solidarity, Survival
- Death Can Be Clarifying: Considering the Forces That Move Us 261
- In Conversation with Yassir Morsi: Slow Ontology as Resistance 276
- Teaching Race, Conceptualizing Solidarity 290
- In Conversation with Alana Lentin: Racial Literacy – an Act of Solidarity 305
- Teacher/Decolonizer 317
- Index 322
