Australian Indigenous early career researchers : unicorns, cash cows and performing monkeys

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Data from the Developing Indigenous Early Career Researchers (ECRs) project reported that efforts of Indigenous ECRs are often undermined by examples of micro-racism. Shared personal experiences revealed racist attitudes and assumptions held by some non-Indigenous academics. This draws critical attention to the fact that while many institutions have developed Indigenous strategies to address disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff and student’s, racism is prevelant in higher education institutions across Australia. In this study, Indigenous ECRs metaphorically described their presence in the academy as unicorns, cash cows or performing monkeys. These terms illustrate the way in which Indigenous ECR attendance in the Australian higher education sector has been viewed, devalued and/or undermined by non-Indigenous academics and the institutions in which they are employed. Specifically, the notion of behavioural racism is used to critique the level of engagement and commitment of non-Indigenous academics to the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges and worldviews.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-17
Number of pages17
JournalRace Ethnicity and Education
Volume26
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Open Access - Access Right Statement

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

Keywords

  • racism
  • Indigenous
  • higher education
  • early career researcher
  • trajectory

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Australian Indigenous early career researchers : unicorns, cash cows and performing monkeys'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this