Monday, December 20, 2010

2010 - Wrapping up the Year


The Last Week. A pleasant time of the year, meetings now tend to be about opening up possibilities rather than sorting out problems or getting my hair dried. With the support of a major peak body in the not-for-profit sector and colleagues in the Graduate School of Education we intend to develop a proposal for a Masters by Course Work degree, and we've commenced planning. I attended a useful University of Melbourne colloquium on Graduate Attributes - a lot of useful experience shared with colleagues and we've already started to factor this into our thinking.


Bronwyn Jane Adams Memorial Award.
Johanna Simmons was successful in her application for a Bronwyn Jane Adams Memorial Award:

‘Johanna will undertake a comparative study of two programs demonstrating leadership and best practice in teaching Indigenous studies in Australia and New Zealand. The study will include curriculum inventories, exploration of the two programs’ pedagogy rationales and overarching philosophies and a quantitative study of student numbers. Her visit will contribute to inter-university relationships that could lead to an international academic consortium and specialised exchange programs for students undertaking Indigenous studies.’


Blair's Insights. I know people get angry at the content of Tony Blair's Tony Blair: A Journey but it's artful, intelligent, and often funny. From a literary perspective it's one of those self-exculpatory narratives without the naivety of most of them. There's plenty to be learned from it. Versions of the battle between New Labour and Old Labour are played out in many domains, including Aboriginal affairs.


Interdisciplinary Foundation Subjects.
Once more our subject Australian Indigenous Studies topped the quality of teaching evaluations for these subjects. Our tutoring team led by Alicia Coram did a fantastic job. Several students commented on the fact that tutors made the tutorials a place for respectful and open discussion. With 360 students it’s probably the largest non-compulsory Australian Indigenous Studies subject in Australia. The fact that it’s at the University of Melbourne which has never had anything remotely comparable makes it all the more remarkable. The subject introduces students to different aspects of Indigenous Australia – some are inspired to go on and do our Indigenous Studies major. Changes to the current structure for Interdisciplinary Foundation subjects are planned next year and our primary concern will be to ensure that those changes do not detract from our achievements. Our 2nd and 3rd year subjects were very well received by students this semester as well. I really hope that we are developing an identifiable University of Melbourne Indigenous studies culture.


Happy Christmas. The Year of the Tiger has at times been tempestuous. We're happy to have survived and grateful for what we have. We’ll leave you with this song that featured in
Four Lions. Even the suicide bombers were singing it.



Saturday, December 11, 2010

Anthony Mundine

Whether he admits it or not, it’s the end of the road (or at least the boxing road) for Anthony ‘The Man’ Mundine. He may fight on, and win a few more fights, but on the evidence, his reflexes are shot and his strength and durability minimal. It’s been quite a journey since he walked away from a rugby league career in 2000. A magnetic presence, The Man was a source of pride to many Koories and his individualism and personal style an attractive alternative to the conformism and uncouthness of some sports people. Unfortunately the expectations some of us had of him as a leader were probably unrealistic. There were moments however when anything seemed possible.

Anthony achieved far more than most could have foreseen as a fighter and is one of a very small group of athletes who’ve performed at an elite level in two distinct sports. The problem was the better he became as a fighter the greater the expectation that he would fight major names in the sport but once he was established he preferred low risk fights in Australia. After each win there was always talk about taking on the best. It never happened and when a head-butting novice finally knocked him out it no longer mattered.

As well as the highlights Anthony also provided a few lowlights - the fight with Lester Ellis (Ellis was an alcoholic at the time) and the fight with Danny Green - with both men engaging in coded race-baiting.

The stand The Man took against racism in rugby league was courageous and the viral response an indication of how insecure a lot of Settler Australians are when challenged by Aboriginals. Unfortunately he undermined any chance to build on this. His comments on race sometimes seemed to coincide with the publicity demands of his fights and ten years after leaving rugby league it's hard to say if his understanding of issues affecting Aboriginal Australia is any more developed. This all sounds pretty tough but I believe it's the result of trying to balance his contradictory roles as fighter, promoter, and Aboriginal leader. Once The Man is out of boxing we'll see his full potential.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Winter's Bone, Age and Youth

Winter’s Bone. Now on general release, I saw this at the Melbourne International Film Festival. I’d just seen a few blockbusters so at first it seemed amazingly low-tech and needy in its demanding of sustained attention. The film works with a subtle narrative so it won’t appeal to everyone but it effectively sketches out the lives of a group of Ozark mountain people. What struck me was the eros of their attachment to the animals they hunted for food and those they kept a pets. For some Murri rural workers this eros was a transmutation in a post-colonial setting of the original relationship with land and creation. I count myself fortunate in that I’m part of a minority who were actually connected to people who embodied it. Some of the women in Winter’s Bone looked like they had Native American ancestry as well, so I wasn’t completely surprised to read an interview with the director in which she talked of the importance of animals to the Ozark community she worked with and the Native American connection.

Jindalee Lady. Thanks to Jane Brown, School of Culture and Communication Library Manager, for arranging a screening of this film at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. We never quite untangled the riddle of why this film is almost impossible to see. Johanna, Jane and I watched it, and a consensus opinion was that though Brian Syron’s film may be naïve in its cinematic technique, and some of its representations, there is nothing naïve in its emotional power. The film is a tribute to Aboriginal women centred on conception and the mother-child connection. Lydia Miller amps up the intensity with an outstanding performance.


Age and Hypocrisy. We’d received emails from a Settler woman from another university who’d received some grant and was inviting people to a workshop. (The workshop included the usual genuflections to Indigenous people.) It looked like it could be relevant to our program but on the day of the workshop we couldn’t attend because it clashed with our School planning day. As a compromise I arranged for a 20 year old high-achieving Aboriginal undergraduate (who does some work for me as a research assistant) to attend as an observer. The intention was for AIS academics to attend further meetings. The woman who had been emailing us was notified by email that this would happen. On the day of the meeting there was torrential rain and despite having a bad cold the research assistant put on a shirt with a collar and leather shoes and headed off to the workshop. On arriving at the room where the workshop was supposed to be he was confronted by a middle-aged Settler woman whose opening gambit was, ‘Who are you?’ and who then dismissed him with the words, ‘I think you’ve come to the wrong place.’ If he’d only confirmed that woman’s name I’d be doing a lot more with this but that’s where mentoring comes in.

Age and Marginality. A post-graduate student of mine (in his early twenties) presenting a paper at one of those off-campus/para-university events was subject to an unchecked half hour of blather and personal attack by an ‘independent scholar’. I’m not blind to the imperfections of sandstone universities and the University of Melbourne but I sincerely believe that this couldn’t have happened if it had been held at the University of Melbourne. In fact I was surprised the other week when attending a contentious paper presented by a visiting scholar on Indigenous issues, at the fairness and courtesy of the critique by University of Melbourne scholars.

Incidents like these and our continued response to them are the substratum necessary for the advancement of Australian Indigenous Studies.

Volunteering. If you know a student or recent graduate who is interested in volunteering Youth Challenge Australia is worth considering. More on these opportunities next year.

http://www.youthchallenge.org.au/

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Islam dreaming and a rare drawing


Farewell. We’ve had to farewell Heather Dorries, Endeavour Research Fellow based in Australian Indigenous Studies. Heather had to return home to Canada because of a family commitment. While she was with us she was the ideal visiting fellow: interested in learning about us, the University of Melbourne, Australian society, Aboriginal Australia, as well as providing us with perspectives on Indigenous issues in Canada, and carrying out her own research.

Also Johanna Simmons who has been the backbone of the AIS program for the last three years has left us to take up a position in the Office of the Provost. We’ll miss her but it’s great to see her achievements recognised with a promotion. ( The photograph is of Johanna at the end of winter. She wasn't usually dressed like that.)
http://www.provost.unimelb.edu.au/


Greg Inglis. A big year for Inglis with the latest news suggesting that he is going to play for South Sydney. If that happens it will be a huge source of pride for grass roots Koories in NSW. I had one of those I was there moments when Inglis made his debut for the Melbourne Storm as slight teenager filling in for Billy Slater at fullback. His development as a footballer is self-evident but Inglis also showed a firmness of character in the way he addressed the Andrew Johns racial vilification incident. ‘Mediation’ should be well and truly consigned to the past.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/23/2935266.htm



Massacre Drawing.
The latest edition of the national Library’s eNews reports on a rare drawing of a massacre carried out by settlers in QLD in the 19th century.

‘The drawing is of the massacre of a group of Aboriginal men, women and children by white squatters at One Tree Hill near the road from Moreton Bay to Darling Downs. The drawing depicts eleven squatters firing on a group of 25 Indigenous people, likely to be of the Barunggahm, Jarowair, Giabal and Keinjan language groups.’

http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn4970952

Pecan Summer. Attended the premiere of Debra Cheetham’s Pecan Summer in Mooroopna. The production had many profound moments – my favourite was the last scene where people assemble in Federation Square to hear Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Apology to the Stolen Generations. Following the broadcast of Mr Rudd’s speech Ursula Yovich and Caitlin Munro, playing the separated mother and daughter, sing a duet (independently of each other) before leaving the stage without ever connecting.

Launch. Dr Peta Stephenson's Islam Dreaming: Indigenous Muslims in Australia was launched at the Post Colonial Institute. Lots of people in attendance and an upbeat mood to welcome a groundbreaking text.
http://www.unswpress.com.au/isbn/9781742232478.htm

Friday, October 8, 2010

Happened

Happened. Indigenous Studies Teaching Colloquium. Over 40 registrations and at times 50 or so people present.  The aim was to have an open dialogue with a view to uncovering possibilities for cooperation, collaboration, and improvement. We commenced the day with four concise presentations by practitioners on key issues relating to Australian Indigenous studies and then broke off for discussion. What was evident was that there has been a rapid shift in what can be identified as Australian Indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne. Many of those in attendance were from schools and disciplines not previously associated with Australian Indigenous studies. It was energising to encounter exciting new initiatives being pursued in a spirit of openness and collegiality. Special thanks to the AIS team and Emma Kowal, Rebecca Garcia Lucas, and Alicia Coram.

 

Read. Leonard Peltier,  Prison Writings: My Life is my Sun Dance.  Leonard Peltier has spent years in prison for a crime many believe he didn’t commit: the shooting of two FBI agents in 1975 at Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. Peltier’s description of the American prison system is brought into sharp relief by his commitment to Native American spirituality and his refusal of a degraded, inmate’s mentality. Chief Arvol Looking Horse, Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe writes the foreword to Prison Writings…

 

Seen. Yohanghza Theatre Company’s  Midsummer Nights Dream  and Hamlet. Essential Shakespeare presented through the prism of Korean shamanism and traditional culture. Inspiring – and left me increasingly dissatisfied with a lot of Australian and Australian Indigenous theatre. Maybe the theatre companies need less constraints and more corporate and public sector support.

 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/spirited-korean-take-on-denmarks-woes/story-e6frg8po-1225926373952

 

Melbourne Fringe.  AIS student Tom Carmody appears in Coma and the Good Times, The Open Stage, University of Melbourne. <http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/coma-and-the-good-times/>.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Australian Indigenous Studies Practitioners' Colloquium

The Australian Indigenous Studies Program and the Indigenous Studies Teaching
and Learning Programs Sub-Committee are convening an annual colloquium for
 staff who teach and develop subjects with Australian indigenous content, or
 who teach Indigenous Australian students. The colloquium will focus on common 
issues, shared experiences and identification of best practice. It will 
conclude with a discussion of themes for a 2011 forum. Morning tea and lunch 
will be provided. Friday 17 September, 9:45am - 2:30pm, Yasuko Hiraoka Myer
Room, Sidney Myer Asia Centre. Enquiries: Johanna Simmons 8344 8143. RSVP
(essential) to: jsimmons@unimelb.edu.au

Sunday, August 29, 2010

The New Semester


Australian Indigenous Studies 100181. The start of a new semester and the good news is that we’ve held student numbers in our interdisciplinary foundation subject Australian Indigenous Studies. It will probably be the only chance many of these students have to do an Australian Indigenous studies subject, and one which introduces a breadth of perspectives and facts. It’s also the necessary foundation for developing an Indigenous studies program and I'll have more to say on this in future.


Dr Rachel Nordlinger, Linguistics and Languages, lecturing on Aboriginal languages for 100181 students.

Open Day, Sunday 15 August. As usual, louring weather as the AIS team backed up for an additional day’s work. Notwithstanding the weather this was a special Open Day for AIS. Each year an increasing number of the gifted and motivated make their way to our presentation. This year I was able to go through the suite of concordant subjects that make up the AIS major and honours program – an advance on the grab bag of subjects that sometimes follows from cross-listing, or discordant subjects sometimes quite loosely held together by the notion of ‘discipline’. It all made me think back to 2007 when we stepped up to back the Growing Esteem strategy. The spirit of optimism in the air then has been realised.



Tutor Coordinator Alicia Corum and tutor Tom Newman-Morris workshop ideas at a 100181 team meeting.





Odette Kelada, Australian Indigenous Studies and Jason Eades, Koorie Heritage Trust, lecturing for Critical Debates in Australian Indigenous Studies students.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

NAIDOC Week

Honours. I’ve just received news that our Honours program has been approved. Thanks to Johanna Simmons, Sharon Tribe and Peter Eckersall, School of Culture and Communication, for support; and Marion Campbell, Associate Dean, Teaching and Learning, Faculty of Arts, for guidance. I’ve always envisaged a two-year window for setting up our courses. That’s been achieved.  


Worawa College, Healesville. Worawa College has experienced some upheaval in recent years but has re-established itself as an Indigenous all girls school.  It’s meeting an important need and we wish the school every success.

http://www.worawa.vic.edu.au/


Didn’t see  Jindalee Lady. Few people have seen this 1992 film though it is referred to in Marcia Langton’s Well I Heard it on the Radio… . Directed by the late Bryan Syron, it’s one of a corpus of hard to find films with Aboriginal actors made in the ‘80s and early ‘90s – an important transitional period in recent Aboriginal history. Unable to find a dvd of Jindalee Lady I subscribed to a company that listed the film for on-line viewing. After trying several computers and watching a blank screen I gave up.  Eventually I’d like a collection of these films in the University library.


Attended. Deborah Cheetham’s ‘Til the Black Lady Sings’ (Cheetham providing some insight into her life with reminiscence and song) and a preview (with cast) of ‘Pecan Summer’. The performance took place at BMW Edge and there was the magical combination of music, and outside, Melbourne’s lights reflected in the Yarra. Previously I’ve mentioned the Indigenous opera community Cheetham has created - noteworthy on the night were the numbers of grass roots Indigenous people in attendance and the powerful and immediate way they recognised the medium of opera as giving form to their histories and sentiments.


Visitors. Heather Dorries, an Indigenous Canadian scholar (Anishinaabe) arrives later this month to spend the semester with us.

 

A special perspective. Mr John Howells was a student in the subject Key Thinkers and Concepts last semester. No big deal except that Mr Howells is 78 years old and enrolled as part of the Community Access Program.   His thoughts on the subject:

 

BACK TO SCHOOL

 

 

People over fifty years of age like me (born 1932) learned little at school about Australia's indigenous people. How different it is now. Today nearly four hundred first year students at Melbourne University each year enrol in the subject, "Australian Indigenous Studies". Many go on to complete a major in the field and some go on to post-graduate study and research work. Every university across Australia has similar programs. School programs today also reflect this growing interest. One may expect that over the next ten or twenty years Australians will become well-informed about our indigenous people.

 

It is important that those of us, who are over fifty and who are concerned about the protection of human rights in Australia, seek to be well-informed about our indigenous citizens. With this in mind I took the second year subject, "Key Thinkers and Concepts", at Melbourne University during Semester 1 this year. There was a lecture each Tuesday morning from 9.00 till 10.30 and a tutorial from 11.00 till 12.00. Our lecturer, Philip Morrissey, a tall Aboriginal man, was excellent and introduced us to the anthropologists W.E.H.Stanner and Eric Michaels, the cultural studies theorist Stephen Muecke, the cultural nationalists Mudrooroo, Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Kevin Gilbert, the public servant and statesman Nugget Coombs, the reconciliation and social justice thinkers Mick and Patrick Dodson, the conservative thinker Noel Pearson, the Aboriginal educationalist Chris Sarra, and the Yolgnu leaders Mandawuy and Galarrwuy Yunupingu. It was fascinating and I enjoyed every moment of it. During the tutorials we took it in turn to introduce to our small group one of the set texts and to lead a discussion of it. We also had to write two essays on set topics during the course.

 

I was very nervous at first, but it was a great course and a great experience. The other students were all about nineteen or twenty years of age, but were very accepting of an old fellow like me. The first time the tutor called the roll and I answered "yes", one chap asked, "How long, John, since you last answered a roll-call?" When I replied, "about 60 years", there were grins all round. I was able to enrol through the University's Community Access Program which admits mature age students without prerequisites. How much did it cost? It is not cheap. As a former student I got a 20% discount, but it still came to $1,339.

 

I am now all fired up to share some of things I have learned and some of the books and other writings I have read. My first instalment follows. I hope you will be encouraged to read the book I am recommending.

 

John Howells

 

 

 

NAIDOC breakfast. A pleasant interval last Friday as Indigenous staff and students gathered with non-Indigenous colleagues for a NAIDOC Week breakfast. Simone Brotherton from the Centre for Indigenous Education orchestrated proceedings; Acting Provost Pip Pattison welcomed guests; Centre for Indigenous Education Manager Chris Heelan spoke on the history of NAIDOC; and Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin conducted the Welcome to Country in her own inimitable style that combines maximum dignity with personal warmth.


Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Stepping Up

Semester 1 2010 is now over. Once again thanks to our great tutors Naomi Tootell and Scott MacKay who really stepped up. The AIS team were challenged by things outside their control so the ride had its bumpy moments but there were a lot of highs. In delivering our new major the AIS team gave about thirty new lectures. Two of the lectures I gave, which still resonate, were on Dr H.E.C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs in our second year course Key Thinkers and Concepts and Deborah Cheetham and her forthcoming opera Pecan Summer, in another second year course Aboriginal Women and Coloniality. I always find it hard to square Coombs’ great achievements and evident wisdom with his impracticable, and sometimes irresponsible, ideas about Aboriginal development. In spite of my own reservations, Dr Coombs’ ideas carried the day with a fair number of the students. Pecan Summer is set to be a sensation when it opens later this year. As well as writing the opera Cheetham has created an Aboriginal opera community from scratch. These developments remind me of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance community developed by Carole Johnson and others in Sydney in the 1980s which eventually led to the establishment of Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Grants. In the last fortnight we’ve submitted two grant applications – done while I’ve been in Europe. It would have been impossible without great support from Fran Edmonds (who has been coordinating applications) and Johanna Simmons.


Turku. I’ve just been at the International Society for Cultural History annual conference in, Turku, Finland. A great conference but occasionally standard history was presented as cultural history. ‘Micro-history’ seems to be the buzz word and will undoubtedly prove a useful rice bowl for historians. A couple of remarks from key note speaker Professor Jacques Revel that stuck in my mind:

‘Why should reasons [explanations] be simple?’

‘Why should we be simple when we can be complex?’


Read. Philip Roth’s The Human Stain 2000. A Jewish professor accused of racism is really an African American who, many years before, passed as white man. The novel suggests that his reasons for passing had more to do with the desire for freedom than opportunism though his sister observes that it was as logical for a light-skinned African American to pass in the1940s as it is to claim every drop of blackness in an age of affirmative action.


Watched. The Baader Meinhof Complex 2008, dr. Uli Edel. The best foreign language film I’ve seen in years. Tough and challenging, and a reminder that a few things were lost on the journey away from the Sixties.


Attended. I made use of 48 hours in London to attend a performance of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and August Wilson’s Joe Turner's Come and Gone. I doubt that I’d see The Crucible performed at a comparable standard in Australia and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone requires an Afro-diasporic cast. The hieratic final scenes of The Crucible were as powerful as theatre ever gets. August Wilson’s play was written in the 1980s – so it’s of the same era as Jack Davis’ No Sugar. It left me wondering if we will ever see Aboriginal theatre re-emerging as a central Indigenous art form.

http://www.openairtheatre.com/pl113reviews.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2010/jun/15/august-wilson-joe-turners-come-gone

Visited. Yinka Shonibare’s ‘Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle’ at Trafalgar Square. I was glad I took time out from my trip to the airport to check out this artwork. I’d expected it would be one more bleak work critiquing/deconstructing British imperialism. Instead its most salient qualities are lightness, freedom and optimism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/may/24/shonibare-fourth-plinth-ship-bottle

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/may/16/yinka-shonibare-fourth-plinth-trafalgar

http://www.london.gov.uk/fourthplinth/plinth/shonibare.jsp

Saturday, April 10, 2010

An Explanation and Three Films

A key staff member had to take unplanned leave just before semester started and we've struggled a bit delivering our new subjects. Productive work units get a lot of their dynamism from the positive emotional energy of staff. Even the most unhappy and dysfunctional workplace will have some rhetoric about team building. (Undoubtedly it's bound to be one of some team leader's key performance indicators.) So it's been hard - not just because there is more work for less people, but because we've lost a colleague and the inspiration they bring.

On a more upbeat note: it's been a good summer for films. The one I liked best was Rob Marshall's Nine but I saw three that have some relevance to Australian Indigenous Studies: Avatar, Bran Nue Dae, and Precious.



Avatar.
1. Major in its conception and execution.

2. The pseudo-problematic of the white ex-marine, Jake Sully, saving the Indigenous Na'vi is as boring as yesterday's newspapers. The Na'vi of course are cats and cats don't symbolise anything but cats. (One of the Na'vi warriors has part of his ear missing; presumably bitten off in a fight. Conclusive proof that they are cats.)


Bran Nue Dae.
1. It's been nice walking into mainstream cinemas and seeing Bran Nue Dae posters up alongside the standard Hollywood productions. One more sign of a small and productive shift in Settler Australia's perception of Indigenous Australia.

2. I enjoyed seeing some veteran performers again, as well as a new generation of Indigenous talent. I have however seen the original musical and it was impossible not to compare the film with the stage performance. The subtle wit of the musical has disappeared and the religious symbolism has been completely garbled. Catholicism and Evangelicalism are treated as though the differences are meaningless. In the musical the differences actually meant something. The closing scenes which are so powerful in the musical are oddly dissonant in the film - performers blithely singing about a 'magic night' in broad daylight.


Precious.
1. I was worried about this film. It's a favourite of Barbara Bush; and some African American critics have attacked, what they saw, as demeaning portrayals of black American men and black urban life. Surprisingly I found the film moving even though there is a lot to take against if you are inclined.

2. Notwithstanding her appalling life, sixteen year old Precious dreams of future happiness and gives this symbolic form in the fantasies she concocts from popular culture. Like many American films it's absurdly gauche but actress Gabourey Sidibe establishes Precious' subjectivity in the first frames of the film and then establishes an almost hypnotic narrative.

3. It's a classic tale of an outsider's desire for a community, and a place, not just where they can be happy but where they can be known, in all that miraculous singularity we're condemned to.


Friday, February 26, 2010

Anathemas and Universities

One of the most challenging aspects of contemporary Indigenous affairs is accounting for the diversity of perspectives held by Aboriginal leaders and intellectuals. The debate over the Northern Territory Intervention is probably the most salient example. Otherwise think of the differing political philosophies of Patrick and Mick Dodson, Noel Pearson or Warren Mundine. There is commonality but also important differences.

The challenge for Indigenous Studies is to develop coherent narratives that can frame this diversity and allow students to develop critical thinking skills with a view to forming philosophies cognate with their core values. The problem is that for some people Indigenous issues are the equivalent of moral issues, with right and wrong clearly defined. Those who are 'wrong' in this schemata are then anathematised - usually with the aid of some derogation. Any style of teaching Indigenous Studies, any Indigenous Studies subject, that offers 'right' answers will prove seductive even if the intellectual outcomes are verifiably limited. There is much more to be said on this; though I will note that the unsavoury aspect of this style of teaching can manifest as student on student bullying and name calling.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Shocking News

Shocking news this morning of the sudden passing of Ruby Hunter. Ruby was gold, tried and proven by the fire of racism, and probably unaware of the number of people she inspired.

It's almost twenty years since I saw Ruby for the first time, on commercial television. I was living in Sydney when the video of 'Down City Streets' was broadcast by a Sydney television station. The combination of the song and the spiritual presence of Ruby and her partner Archie Roach had an immediate impact.

Neither of them were ever the sort of people commercial television gave much space to. As I watched and listened, I couldn't help but wonder at how both of them had emerged intact from the experience that gave meaning to the song, and turned it into art.

Ruby's personal dress style (both regal and whimsical), and her numerous performances, were moments of reassurance, manifestations of a profound and deep Aboriginality which reached back to a distant past.

Listen to Archie's, 'From Paradise'



Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Aboriginal Guest Lecturers

In 1983 Stephen Muecke (currently Professor of Writing at the University of NSW) problematised the ethics of Aboriginal-Settler collaboration when he and the late Nyigina elder Paddy Roe published Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley. Prior to this, Aboriginal narratives and texts were often edited without reference to their authors, and Aboriginal knowledges used without permission, recompense, or acknowledgement. In Reading the Country: Introduction to Nomadology, a 1984 publication with Paddy Roe and Krim Bentarrak, Muecke noted that the only bibliographic references for Paddy Roe in the National Library of Australia were for Gularabulu - although generations of academics from a range of disciplines had sought out and benefited from Paddy Roe’s knowledge and circulated it under their own names.

In spite of the impact of Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley, the ethics of Settler academics relying on Aboriginal guest lecturers to deliver Aboriginal content remain largely unexamined. What does it mean when a non-Aboriginal lecturer with access to the relative security and perks of the tenured academic teaches an Aboriginal studies subject where over 50% of the lectures are delivered by Aboriginal guest lecturers? Is a guest lecturer’s fee a fair exchange? It might be a non-issue if the guest lecturers were all Aboriginal professionals of equivalent salary, job security, career prospects, and social status. And what about the impact on students? Do they come to believe that the only person with a right to speak on Aboriginal issues is an Aboriginal?

I know one Settler scholar teaching in Aboriginal studies who, after years of using Aboriginal guest lecturers, decided to take responsibility for the lectures himself and to supplement them with relevant audiovisual material. An extreme response, but at least one that registers the problem.






Thursday, January 28, 2010

Boot Camp for Teachers

I’m not directly affected by the release of the school league tables and it's not an area I claim any expertise in but as someone who respects teachers who work in the public school system it’s hard not to be annoyed when they are presented as the problem. Federal Minister for Education Julia Gillard is skitching parents on to teachers who are apparently not delivering; underperforming school principals are to be mentored; the reality show ’Boot Camp for Teachers’ is probably in pre-production.

Not having any school age children I thought I’d check the league table results for my old primary school. XYZ Public School is situated in Northern New South Wales. Many of the families of students are transients; 34% of students identify as Indigenous, and many of the school’s students come from single parent families. The school’s performance in literacy and numeracy, as represented by the National Assessment Program, isn’t very good and it’s outperformed by Cherbourg State School. Cherbourg State School is the school Aboriginal educationist Chris Sarra had such a profound impact on and it has become in a sense a ‘show school’ for the new regime in education. Comparisons with XYZ Primary School are revealing. XYZ Public School has a student population of 216 while Cherbourg State School has 199 with 99 % of the school’s students being Indigenous. Students at Cherbourg State School were intensively coached for the National Assessment Program tests and its website showcases an extensive range of programs for students. It’s the disparity in staffing levels that is most confronting. Cherbourg State School has a teaching staff of 19.2 and a non-teaching staff of 13.6. In comparison, XYZ Public School has a teaching staff of 15.8 and a non-teaching staff of 4.6. I assume that these figures are also a pretty good indicator of the relative level of resources available to both schools. Because it is so poorly resourced there doesn’t seem much of a chance at XYZ Public School that a child with learning difficulties will get the intensive support they need. The Cherbourg State School results are to be applauded: I’d also be applauding if comparable resources and attention were being directed to XYZ Public School.

Finally for my old teachers at XYZ Public School – one or two you were doozies but you’re remembered with affection and gratitude. You were my first point of contact with White Australia and the greater world. Something worked…

Sunday, January 3, 2010

The job gets done...

2010 starts for the Australian Indigenous Studies program tomorrow.  I’m feeling primed and ready to roll but deadlines are already pressing. We’re developing teaching materials for new subjects as well as reviewing previously taught subjects. Everything has got to be ready for the coming semester. As well as that we’ve got to finalise our Honours program for 2011 - that has to be completed  by the end of January.  I’d have liked to have been further advanced with these tasks but this is the time frame we’ve got. Add up various other deadlines and commitments and it’s a combination of optimism and fatalism that will see us through.  As for fatalism, one of my former bosses, an ex-army officer, used to say, ‘The job gets done; it might be done differently; it might be done worse, but it gets done.’ Aboriginal affairs generally is bedevilled by short-term goals, and short-sighted, sometimes cynical,  strategies; thankfully  that’s not the case with the Australian Indigenous Studies program. The optimistic vision is that the completion of each of January’s tasks lays the foundations of a unique program.