Indigenous Partnerships and South Australian … · These habits are often invisible to those that hold ... Boucher, & Ellinghaus, 2007; Moreton ... Here I articulate a definition

Systems, Self and Sovereignty: Working with

Whiteness in Aboriginal Partnerships and

Natural Resource Management

Tania Searle

Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Flinders University,

Adelaide, Australia

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of

Honours

22 October 2015

Systems, Self and Sovereignty: Working with Whiteness in Aboriginal Partnerships and Natural Resource Management

i

Statement of Originality

I hereby certify that the work embodied in this thesis is the result of original research

and has not been submitted for a degree to any other University or institution.

Tania Searle


ii

Abstract

Indigenous peoples’ participation in the political decisions that affect them is

important as is the need to acknowledge the impact that public policy has upon their

lives. Australia is built upon a foundation of colonial conquest with an ongoing

history of repeated policy failures attempting to address the persistent social justice

issues in Indigenous affairs. Critical whiteness studies provides a framework for

identifying structural inequalities and habitual attitudes inherited from the days of

legalised white supremacy which are often invisible to non-Indigenous people,

occurring to them as normal. This study employed qualitative methods and discourse

analysis to draw on the experiences of six non-Indigenous Australians who work for

South Australian Government in Natural Resource Management with Aboriginal

Partnerships. Participants in this study exhibit a high level of self-reflection and

critical awareness of structural inequalities that operate in the contact zone. While

whiteness is reproduced and deconstructed in nuanced ways, the perspectives of

these participants demonstrate useful strategies for deconstructing whiteness in the

everyday; beyond awareness, beyond theory and knowledge, and into political

action.


iii

Acknowledgements

I thank my supervisor Dr. Monique Mulholland, family and friends for their support.

Especially to my three children; my two boys for pestering me to leave my desk and

take them down to the beach, and my daughter, all grown, for her intellectual

engagement with the world. Much respect always to my Uncle, Aboriginal artist

Gordon Syron, who first showed me how to reverse the gaze.


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Contents

Statement of Originality ................................................................................................ i

Abstract ........................................................................................................................ ii

Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... iii

1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1

2 Literature Review ................................................................................................. 6

2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 6

2.2 Black Writers on White Culture .................................................................... 6

2.3 White Writers Take up The Challenge .......................................................... 8

2.4 The Australian Context ................................................................................ 10

2.5 White is Not a Colour: A Structural Location ............................................. 12

2.6 Current Literature on Whiteness in Practice and Policy .............................. 13

2.7 Three Frames for Thinking through Whiteness in Practice and Policy ....... 15

2.7.1 Systems ................................................................................................. 15

2.7.2 Self ........................................................................................................ 16

2.7.3 Sovereignty ........................................................................................... 17

2.8 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 17

3 Methodology ...................................................................................................... 19

3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 19

3.2 Theoretical paradigms ................................................................................. 20

3.2.1 Discourse .............................................................................................. 20

3.2.2 Standpoint ............................................................................................. 21

3.3 Method ......................................................................................................... 23

3.3.1 Sampling ............................................................................................... 23

3.3.2 Discourse Analysis ............................................................................... 24

3.3.3 Data Analysis ....................................................................................... 25

3.4 The Scene ..................................................................................................... 26


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4 Systems ............................................................................................................... 29

4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 29

4.2 Wage-labour ................................................................................................ 29

4.3 Capacity Building ........................................................................................ 34

4.4 Timeframes .................................................................................................. 37

4.5 Governance .................................................................................................. 39

4.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 42

5 Self ...................................................................................................................... 43

5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 43

5.2 Invisibility .................................................................................................... 43

5.3 Individuality ................................................................................................. 46

5.4 Beyond Awareness ...................................................................................... 51

5.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 53

6 Sovereignty ......................................................................................................... 55

6.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 55

6.2 The Political Landscape: White Sovereignty and the Authority of State .... 56

6.3 Recognition of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge: ‘A Baby Step’ ............ 59

6.4 Ontological Pluralism: Reconfiguring Conceptual Building Blocks ........... 61

6.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 66

7 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 67

8 Appendices ......................................................................................................... 69

8.1 Appendix 1 - Interview Schedule ................................................................ 70

9 References .......................................................................................................... 71

1

1 Introduction

On 17 September 2015 The Victor Harbor Times published a short article headlining

Ngarrindjeri elder Darrell Sumner kills Coorong seals (Dempster, 2015). Sumner is

under investigation by the South Australian Department of Environment, Water and

Natural Resources (DEWNR), for killing four New Zealand/Long Nosed Fur Seals

and he expects to go to court. Sumner is cited to say the seals have no history in the

Ngarrindjeri region and are killing his totem the pelican. He asserts, “They’re our

totems, and I’m not following white man’s laws on that” and that he is “sick of the

science” the Environment Minister is espousing while the whole community,

including the Ngarrindjeri and the local fishing industry, is adversely affected.

I begin with the above news story to provide a current example of the issue central to

this thesis; the reproduction of whiteness through the domination of colonial

authority in regulating Natural Resource Management (NRM). DEWNR make the

following statement in their Reconciliation Action Plan (Government of South

Australia, 2014: 3);

The staff of DEWNR recognise South Australia’s Aboriginal people as the

traditional custodians of the state’s lands, water, plants and animals,

commonly known as country. We observe that country is central to the

social, cultural and spiritual lives of Aboriginal people. We acknowledge

the damage done to Aboriginal people and society, individually and

collectively, through colonisation, settlement and displacement. We will

endeavour to repair the damage, and where that is not possible, to reconcile

the past. We will build respectful and honest relationships through our

work and develop a better awareness of Aboriginal history, knowledge and

culture. We will ask and listen, before we act. And every day, we will work

with Aboriginal people to conserve and manage our environment and

natural resources.

While the news story cited above provides limited information on Sumner’s case or

his relationship with DEWNR it is clear there is a conflict between Sumner’s


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assertions and DEWNR’s Reconciliation Statement. Indigenous1 Australians, like

Sumner, have a long history of expressing their political voice (Foley, 2000). The

participation of Indigenous people in political decisions that affect them is important,

as is the need to acknowledge the impact that public policy has upon their lives

(Jeffries & Menham, 2011). Colonial paternalism has largely been replaced with a

discourse of mutual responsibility to rectify the social justice issues that persist for

Indigenous Australians. Yet the emphasis often remains on changing the behaviour

of Indigenous communities and Indigenous people (Howitt et al., 2014). Meanwhile,

Indigenous Australians continue to share a common complaint that government

consultation does not follow through with promised results (Hemming, Rigney, &

Berg, 2011) and government is failing in its job (Banerjee & Tedmanson, 2010).

Examining the role of non-Indigenous Australia is essential. Australia is built upon a

history of colonial settlement and domination over Indigenous Australians,

particularly through the colonizing action of ‘white males’ who predominantly make

political decisions, referred to by Moreton-Robinson (2009; 2007; 2005) as

‘patriarchal whiteness’, or as Sumner stated “white man’s law”. Australia’s history of

colonisation and the remnants of legalised white supremacy, is carried by non-

Indigenous Australians into the everyday work that government carries out with

Indigenous Australians. Western Anglo-phone principles and practice continue to

impose colonising structures upon Indigenous Australians (Banerjee & Tedmanson,

2010).

1 Indigenous is the term used for First Nations people nationally and includes both Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islander peoples.


3

The concept of whiteness provides a useful tool for turning back the gaze – from

regulating and managing the lives of Indigenous ‘Others’ to revealing the invisible

privileges of non-Indigenous people who are working with Indigenous people. This

is not the practice of overt racism, or race hatred, but subtleties that remain

embedded in thoughts and behavior acquired through white socialization in a

racialised society. These habits are often invisible to those that hold them while they

are ‘hypervisible’ to Indigenous people who easily identify whiteness and the impact

it has on their lives (Moreton-Robinson, 1999; 2015).

Indigenous land management techniques are now being incorporated into many areas

of contemporary Australian life, including NRM (McCarthy, M. in Rose, 1996b).

However, Indigenous people are expected to work in co-management partnerships

under bureaucratic systems fortified by Western epistemology and white sovereignty,

which underpin the authority of the Australian Nation-State. This a site where

embedded whiteness in both government institutions and its staff intersect and

impact on the well-being of Indigenous people. Structural power imbalances and

social inequities adversely affects Indigenous health and well-being (Hemming,

2007; Paradies et al., 2015; Pholi, Black, & Richards, 2009; Tatz, 2005).

Seminal whiteness scholars, Frankenberg (1993) and Dyer (1997) both reveal they

discovered whiteness within themselves, and in systems, through keeping company

with non-white people, in what Pratt (1991) calls the ‘contact zone’ - the social space

where cultures meet, primarily in contexts of asymmetrical power relations. This

study employs a qualitative analysis of how whiteness frames and shapes the

perspectives of non-Indigenous people who work in DEWNR Aboriginal

Partnerships, Government of South Australia (herein referred to as Aboriginal

Partnerships). While a large bulk of work has been undertaken on whiteness within


4

the International (Garner, 2007; Lopez, 2005) and Australian contexts (Carey,

Boucher, & Ellinghaus, 2007; Moreton-Robinson, 2004a; Riggs, 2007) as well as

Indigenous co-management partnerships in NRM (Haynes, 2013; Howitt et al., 2013;

Muller, 2014; Nursey-Bray, 2013), limited work is undertaken in examining

whiteness in NRM incorporating the perspectives of non-Indigenous practitioners. In

order to address this gap, and contribute to the sociology of race and critical race

studies in Australia, I interrogate the following question: ‘How does whiteness frame

and shape the perspectives of non-Indigenous Australians who work in Aboriginal

Partnerships with South Australian Government?’ Investigation into the views of

non-Indigenous employees of DEWNR Aboriginal Partnerships aims to;

Identify whiteness in the perspectives of non-Indigenous people who work in

Aboriginal Partnerships with South Australian Government

I argue that the perspectives of the six participants are framed by whiteness in

nuanced ways, simultaneously reproducing and deconstructing whiteness. A review

of the literature in presented in Chapter Two, exploring the theoretical history of

whiteness. Here I articulate a definition of the characteristics of whiteness through

three key themes which provide the basis for the data chapters 1) systems of

management, 2) self-reflection and 3) white sovereignty underpinned by Western

epistemology. Chapter Three offers the methodological framework informing this

study, founded on discourse analysis and standpoint theory.

In each of the three data chapters, Systems, Self and Sovereignty, I explore how the

DEWNR workers negotiate whiteness in complex and contradictory ways and

provide examples of reproducing whiteness, exhibiting critical awareness, reversing

the gaze and resisting the dominant system. Firstly, Chapter Four explains how the


5

participants in this study are critically aware of structural inequalities between the

Aboriginal2 people they work with and themselves. However, I argue that awareness

of inequalities is not enough to breach the stronghold of whiteness. I demonstrate

that whiteness is deconstructed and solutions to persist problems are found when

participants stop problematising Aboriginality and reverse the gaze to look at the role

of government. Chapter Five offers an analysis of the participants’ personal

interactions, thoughts and feelings. Here I demonstrate that despite a critical

awareness of inequality, whiteness is reproduced through invisibility and

individuality and deconstructed with conscious intention to rewrite discourse.

Chapter Six explores the political and ecological landscape in participant

perspectives, and reveals how participants have little room to move when it comes to

deconstructing the whiteness of white sovereignty and Western epistemology. While

Indigenous ecological knowledge is being incorporated and protected in DEWNR’s

NRM, the overall dominance of Western epistemologies in framing the issues is left

privileged and unproblematised. Institutional frameworks for understanding and

‘incorporating’ Indigenous knowledge constrain possibilities for the DEWNR

workers in terms of challenging and addressing the power of whiteness.

2 Aboriginal is the term used for First Nations people in South Australia


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2 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

Whiteness has a long history; from the violence of legalized white supremacy to the

subtle remnants of unearned privilege and power, both in systems and everyday

behaviour. To tease out the history and meaning of whiteness in Australia this

chapter begins by looking at how Black writers first critiqued whiteness as a people

who have historically been subjugated by white culture. It then turns to see how

Black and postcolonial scholars challenged white scholars to examine their own

culture and therefore reverse the gaze from the oppressed to the oppressor. This

challenge resulted in a new field of study focused on whiteness, its structural powers

and relations of privilege. A definition of the characteristics of whiteness is offered

before turning to explore three frames that will structure the data chapters; systems,

self and sovereignty. An understanding of whiteness and the sociology of race is

important to tease out in order to explore how whiteness frames and shapes the

perspectives of non-Indigenous people who work in Aboriginal Partnerships in South

Australia.

2.2 Black Writers on White Culture

Critical Whiteness Studies is viewed as a relatively new field of study, yet for more

than a century Black scholars named whiteness in their intellectual interrogations of

their subjugation by white culture (Kincheloe, 1999; MacMullin, 2005; Twine &

Gallagher, 2008). Credit is often paid to sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois for founding the

critical analysis of whiteness and laying the theoretical foundation. Du Bois states in

The Souls of White Folks (1920: 453) that the prevalence of whiteness is a ‘modern

thing’ of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In his study of American immigrants

working as labourers he argues that white identity is paid ‘a public and psychological


7

wage’ (MacMullin, 2005; Owen, 2007). He noted that whiteness is maintained by its

invisibility, that it operates as the normative cultural center, and is not a singular

category of social identification. He argues its hegemony was a global falsehood

used to justify the destructive practices of colonialism, militarism and unrestrained

capitalism for the sake of wealth and power (Twine & Gallagher, 2008). Du Bois

articulates (prior to gendered language debates) that the degradation of ‘men by

men’, the use of men for the benefit of masters, is as old as mankind itself, but

Europe applied this on an unprecedented scale (Du Bois, 1920). In order to remedy

white supremacist violence Du Bois (1923) urges that whiteness must be recognized

as a historical construction with no biological foundation. In The Superior Race

(1923: 476) Du Bois suggests that the greatest danger of white culture is the depth to

which so many intelligent people believe ‘the lie’ of white supremacy.

Franz Fanon, in his works Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the

Earth (1961), interrogated the behaviour of the colonialist through psychoanalyst

methods (Fontenot, 1975). In telling a story of a young Black man who emulates

whiteness in an attempt to escape his oppression, Fanon identified whiteness as a

structural location not a skin colour. Toni Morrison made a landmark literary

criticism with Playing in the Dark (1992) exploring how the representation of

whiteness played a role in the construction on American society (MacMullin, 2005;

Owen, 2007). In Killing Rage: Ending Racism (1995: 31) bell hooks reveals that

“…Black folks, from slavery on, shared in conversations with one another ‘special’

knowledge of whiteness gleaned from close scrutiny of white people.” She

encouraged the need to study and understand whiteness long before Critical

Whiteness Studies expanded as an academic field (MacMullin, 2005).


8

This insight into whiteness as a social construction written by Black scholars is

amplified in Charles W. Mills argument that whiteness, as racism, is a political

system. In The Racial Contract (1997: 3) Mills explains;

Racism in itself is a political system, a particular power structure of formal

or informal rule, socioeconomic privilege and norms for the distribution

of material wealth, opportunities, burdens, rights and duties. The social

contract that is central to Western political theory is not a contract between

everybody (we the people) but between the people who count as real

people (we the white people), so it is a racial contract.

For Mills, the Racial Contract provides privileges to white people as a group while

denying equal status to non-whites by exploiting their bodies, lands and resources.

He claims that the maintenance of this political system that shapes the world requires

a ‘structural blindness’ (Mills, 1997:19).

Mills notes that while all white people benefit from the Racial Contract not all are

signatories to it. Indeed, most white people today do not adhere to racist ideologies

and shy away from racial discussions. Making distinctions based on race is

associated with abuse and danger in the wake of the Nazi era (Cowlishaw, 2004), and

was challenged by the Civil Right Movements in America and Australia (Foley,

2000; Langton, 2011; MacMullin, 2005; Owen, 2007). Yet the inherited social,

political and economic benefits of whiteness remain where perceptions,

understandings, justifications, and explanations of the racialised social order continue

to perpetuate discrepancies in the social system (Owen, 2007). As such, it is not

enough to state, ‘I’m not a racist’ – as the scholars canvassed above argue, invisible

privileges remain.

2.3 White Writers Take up The Challenge

In the 1980s & 1990s white academics, in response to Black scholars challenging

them to ‘reverse the gaze’, began to interrogate their own culture. The field of


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Critical Whiteness Studies grew exponentially into an interdisciplinary field (Dyer,

1997; Hunter, Swan, & Grimes, 2010; Moreton-Robinson, 2009; Salter, 2013; Twine

& Gallagher, 2008).

The seminal work of Ruth Frankenberg White Women, Race Matters: The Social

Construction of Whiteness (1993) was inspired by a challenge from Black feminists

to white feminists that they were complicit in racism. Frankenberg took up the

challenge and identified whiteness as a structural location; a set of material and

discursive dimensions that are produced historically, socially, politically and

culturally and are intrinsically linked to relations of domination. Frankenberg (1993:

6) states that racism shapes white lives yet “…we tend to view it as an issue that

people of colour face and have to struggle with, but not as an issue that generally

involves or implicates us.”

This early scholarship from white writers viewed particular frames of whiteness in

relation to slavery and the African American experience (Hunter et al., 2010).

Richard Dyer however, took the analysis of whiteness to a larger more global

examination of the reproduction of the white race with his book White (1997) using

imagery, especially film, to demonstrate the representation of whiteness. Dyer

(1997: 2) articulates clearly;

There is no more powerful position than that of being ‘just’ human. The

claim to power is that to speak for the commonality of humanity…. The

point of seeing the racing of whites is to dislodge them/us from the position

of power, with all the inequities, oppression, privileges and sufferings in

its train… The assumption is that white people are just people, which is

not far off saying that whites are people whereas other colours are

something else, is endemic to white culture.

In parallel, postcolonial scholarship influenced a broader analysis of whiteness

outside of America and expanded its geographical, historical and conceptual reach


10

(Hunter et al., 2010). The term postcolonial does not merely refer to a period,

following the official end of colonialism, but a methodological revisionism enabling

a critique of Western structures of knowledge and power (Mongia, 1996). Edward

Said’s 1978 Orientalism is cited as a crucial text for the development of postcolonial

theory (Mongia, 1996). In Orientalism, Said employed Foucault’s notion of

discourse so to “…understand the enormously systematic discipline by which

European culture was able to manage – and even produce – the Orient…” (Said,

1978: 3). His work spawned an analysis of colonial discourse in literary and other

texts where issues of race, colony, empire and nationhood were investigated across a

range of academic disciplines (Mongia, 1996). Most significantly, this work

influenced critical whiteness studies through its articulation of ‘Othering’ –

constructions of the backward, timeless, primitive ‘Other’ served to construct the

West as civilized, developed and superior, justifying the colonizing mission of the

Anglo-phone West. In addition, Orientalism in part explains how the West gained its

power to be centered, invisible and privileged in its ability to ‘look out’ and define

the colonial ‘others’.

2.4 The Australian Context

Along with these seminal international works, examination of whiteness emerged in

the Australian context. The role that discourse plays in meanings of race in Australia

is explored in Jon Stratton’s Race Daze. He states (1998: 19-20);

Language is the foundation for our understanding of the world, and of our

experience in it. It is, therefore, the basis for our action in the world.

Language is also an instrument of power…Our social order is, in addition,

a system of power and it is those who occupy the places of political,

economic, media and other sites of power in our society who are most

important in shaping our discursively based understanding of Australia.

Within this system of power, then, certain ideas, and the language that

describes them, come to be taken for granted, naturalised. In short, they

appear to be unquestionable, even ‘true’.


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As with other ‘Western’ countries, race is used as a marker to include or exclude

members of the nation, based on Orientalist and colonizing discourses. Since

Federation in 1901 and up until the 1970’s Australia utilised the White Australia

Policy to maintain a white, homogenised, predominantly British national identity.

Premised on a white imaginary and notions of Terra Nullius (unoccupied land), the

Australian Nation-State has always dealt with Indigenous people from the top-down,

from Aboriginal Protection, Assimilation, the Stolen Generations, self-determination

and the current discourses of reconciliation and multiculturalism. Stratton (1998)

argues that since the adoption of multicultural policy the discourse of race has been

silenced, pushed to the background and replaced as ‘culture. Despite this move to

‘tolerance’ and ‘inclusion’ race continues to be of great importance in the

organisation of multiculturalism.

Ghassan Hage takes this argument further with White Nation: Fantasies of White

supremacy in a multicultural society (2000). Hage contends that both white racists

and white ‘multiculturalists’ share the same fantasy that leaves them to believe they

get to decide who is included and excluded from that space. Multiculturalism, he

concludes, is a different way of reinforcing white supremacy. It makes it easier for

people to state – ‘I’m not a racist’, while leaving unearned privileges off the hook.

Indigenous feminist Aileen Moreton-Robinson, a Goenpul woman, has written

extensively on whiteness and its relation to indigeneity in Australia. In Talkin’ Up To

the White Woman (2009) Moreton-Robinson repeats that while Australian

government promotes multiculturalism institutions remain white. Ownership of the

nation and its formation are closely linked to notions of race. Like many others, she

urges that the invisibility whiteness must be revealed in order to free the ‘Other’

from entrapment in a racialised society. In The White Possessive: Property, Power,


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and Indigenous Sovereignty, Moreton-Robinson (2015: xii) states that “…white

possessive logics are operationalized within discourses to circulate sets of meanings

about ownership of the nation, as part of common sense knowledge, decision

making, and socially produced conventions.” She reminds us that whiteness is not

invisible to Indigenous people but is ‘hypervisible’ (Moreton-Robinson, 2015: xiii)

and invites discussion on the formation of white identity in its relation to Indigenous

dispossession and denial of sovereignty – a history that has not been addressed in

American whiteness literature despite its foundational relevance.

2.5 White is Not a Colour: A Structural Location

On the whole, whiteness theorists argue that whiteness is a structural location, not a

skin colour. Drawing a distinction between Black and white skin was foundational to

its inception however this is no longer always the case. There are gradations of

whiteness, yet some are located in the center of whiteness, others will never come

close (Dyer, 1997) and the many ‘latté colours’ who exist on the periphery may make

opportunity to strategically move towards the white center (Hage, 2000: 57).

Similarly, gradations of perceived whiteness or Blackness exist in Indigeneity. While

there is a fantasy of the ‘Indigenous look’ in Australia many Indigenous Australians

are fair skinned (Paradies, 2006) yet the construction of race continues to measure

Indigeneity according to shade of colour (Moreton-Robinson, 2015).

Many scholars canvassed above have struggled with the term ‘white’ and make a

point of justifying the way they use it in their work (see Dyer, 1997: xiv; Hage, 2000:

19; Moreton-Robinson, 2009: xvi; Salter, 2013: 2). Across the body of whiteness

studies it is common to find an interchangeability of the words ‘white’ & ‘whiteness’

in both lower case and capitalised forms (Salter, 2013). In my discussion of

Australian whiteness throughout this thesis, I will use the term non-Indigenous to


13

include all Australians who are not Indigenous and I will use the term ‘white’ when

making specific reference to a cultural group of Anglo-Celtic.

Whiteness is based on a notion of race that is a product of European expansion,

colonial power, Western epistemology and has no biological significance (Guess,

2006; Hage, 2000; Moreton-Robinson, 2015; Riggs, 2007). As argued by Said (1978)

the construction of the exotic, inferior ‘Other’ simultaneously constructed whites as

superior, in the center looking out. From this central position whiteness shapes

political, legal, educational and economic structures, systems and institutions (Owen,

2007; Twine & Gallagher, 2008). As a structural location whiteness is a ‘standpoint’

that shapes perceptions of the self, others and the world (Frankenberg, 1993; Hunter

et al., 2010; Owen, 2007; Salter, 2013). As a social construction whiteness is a

‘double lie’; it claims a false sense of superiority on top of the false premise of race

(MacMullin, 2005: 276). Despite intention, whiteness and its effects continue (Dyer,

1997; Frankenberg, 1993; MacMullin, 2005; Moreton-Robinson, 2009) even though

race hatred is largely rejected today (Cowlishaw, 2004). However, intention is not

the problem. The problem occurs because white people do not recognise how they

benefit from whiteness (MacMullin, 2005).

2.6 Current Literature on Whiteness in Practice and Policy

Australian studies of whiteness have explored a broad range of topics including

nationhood (Bielefeld, 2009/2010; Boucher, 2007), immigration (Barton, 2011;

Dewhirst, 2008; Moreton-Robinson, 1998), Aboriginal assimilation (McGreggor,

2009), Indigenous rights (Foley, 2000; Howard-Wagner, 2009), education (Hatchell,

2004; Macgill, 2010; Schulz, 2011), social work (Walter, Taylor, & Habibis, 2011),

child protection (Young, 2008), research (Carey et al., 2007; Moreton-Robinson,

2006) and whiteness theory (Nicoll, 2014).While these studies listed look at


14

whiteness in general few specifically investigate the role of non-Indigenous

practitioners working in Australian Indigenous affairs. Kowal (2015), Lea (2008) and

Cowlishaw (1999) are exceptions, however these studies are located in the Northern

Territory and use an anthropological lens to capture the culture of Indigenous health

workers, bureaucrats and academics.

The gap in academic and policy literature that addresses whiteness in the

perspectives of non-Indigenous practitioners is most apparent in the field of Natural

Resource Management (NRM). Literature on NRM and Indigenous co-management

of lands identifies issues of conflicting ontologies, unbalanced power relations, and

the invisible dominance of Western institutional structures (Haynes, 2013; Howitt et

al., 2013; Muller, 2014; Nursey-Bray, 2013; Wiseman & Bardsley, 2013) although it

is not named as whiteness. The work of Rigney and Hemming (2008; 2010; 2013)

discuss whiteness in their work on NRM from an Ngarrindjeri perspective with

critical analysis of systemic issues. I have found no scholarship on whiteness and

NRM that examines non-Indigenous perspectives on Indigenous co-management in

Australia.

A plethora of guidelines are available for practitioners in Indigenous affairs yet few

encourage practitioners to examine themselves and instead focus solely on

understanding Indigenous culture. However, the recent Indigenous Allied Health

Australia (2015: 12-15) publication Cultural Responsiveness in Action: An IAHA

Framework includes ‘self-awareness’ as one of the six capabilities “essential for

successful partnership and action”. Similarly, Flinders University of South Australia

(2015) offer the Race, Power and Privilege folio for staff development. Key

publications from the Government of South Australia A Cultural Inclusion

Framework for South Australia (2006), South Australia’s Strategic Plan (2011) and


15

DEWNR’s Reconciliation Action Plan (2014) do not address issues such as power,

privilege or self-awareness, which is a gap to be redressed in this study.

Work that describes whiteness is important in making whiteness visible, yet

“interrogating whiteness goes beyond raising awareness. It is a progressive political

activity as well as a knowledge-producing activity” (Grimes, 2002: 384). As

whiteness is a social construction, its deconstruction is possible (Chubbuck, 2004).

Emphasizing how whiteness involves institutionalized systems and power in the

everyday is valuable for analysing the operationalization of constructions of race

(Moreton-Robinson, 2015). Examinations of whiteness can 1) influence management

systems to redress an imbalance of power, 2) inform everyday experiences for which

individuals are responsible, rewriting discourse and guiding behavior, and 3) inspect

the constraints of Western epistemology and white sovereignty. In addition, I concur

with Nicoll (2004: 19) that “we have a political and intellectual responsibility to

analyse and evaluate the innumerable ways in which white sovereignty circumscribes

and mitigates the exercise of Indigenous sovereignty.”

2.7 Three Frames for Thinking through Whiteness in Practice and Policy

In this thesis I aim to explore the narratives and negotiations of DWNER workers

through three key themes; systems, self and sovereignty - discussed in turn below.

2.7.1 Systems

Whiteness is crucial to examining organizational communication, culture and power

(Grimes, 2002) to explain how privilege shapes relations, processes, contexts,

outcomes of work and the structure of institutional management (Al Ariss, Özbilgin,

Tatli, & April, 2014). Western notions of management are ontologically privileged

(Howitt & Suchet-Pearson, 2006) and systems of management are imbued with

discourses of Western superiority and Aboriginal inferiority (Hemming, 2007).


16

Capacity building is predominantly focused on having Indigenous people and

organisations meet criteria specified under Western management systems (Howitt &

Suchet-Pearson, 2006) however there is a need for institutions, including

government, to address their own inter-cultural capacity deficits (Howitt et al., 2013).

Discourses of mutual responsibility continue to place emphasis on changing the

behaviour of Indigenous communities and Indigenous people (Howitt et al., 2014),

mentioned in Chapter One. However, given that systems are created and maintained

by people we must interrogate the self, as well as systems, for whiteness.

2.7.2 Self

The invisibility of whiteness has been defined in this chapter, however for

Indigenous peoples, white people are visible and possess a collective racial identity

(Moreton-Robinson, 1999). Furthermore, non-Indigenous people are in a position to

take an inventory of their habits and audit the cultural practices that oppress

Indigenous people (de Ishtar, 2005) to reveal whiteness. Frankenberg (1993: 3)

describes being in the company of Black Americans when “… an inventory of

meanings of racism, of racist behaviors began, de facto, to accumulate in my

consciousness.” Most non-Indigenous people do not have an awareness of whiteness

and few interact with Indigenous peoples (Anderson, 2012). However those who

work with Indigenous people have an opportunity to juxtapose their culture and way

of being against indigeneity. Yet awareness alone is not enough. White people can be

painfully aware of racialised conditions even as they perpetuate them (Nicoll, 2004).

Sustained vigilance in reflexively identifying and engaging with whiteness is

required (Salter, 2013) to move beyond awareness and rewrite the narratives of the

self (Chubbuck, 2004). A large part of making this shift, Nicolls (2004) argues, is for

white people to see themselves as part of a culture and not as individuals.


17

2.7.3 Sovereignty

Central to any relationship are the terms on which they were founded (Salter, 2013).

Under the colonial settlement of Australia the hegemony of whiteness is inextricably

tied to the denial of Indigenous sovereignty. Ownership of the nation is assumed by

white sovereignty deploying the white possessive logic (Moreton-Robinson, 2015) of

the Australian Nation-State. What is accepted as valid knowledge is based on white

terms including Indigenous ownership of Indigenous lands. Recognition of

Indigenous rights occurs under historical and continuing Indigenous dispossession,

marginalisation and exclusion (Howitt et al., 2013). Indigenous culture is only

recognised by white Australia if it is traditional and fixed (Moreton-Robinson, 1999)

– thus, as I argue in Chapter 6, traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge is easily

recognised. Western ontology assumes a linear progression from a wild original state

to a civilized state and ‘wild humans’ are viewed as resources for Western

management agendas incorporating Indigenous ecological knowledge into NRM

(Howitt & Suchet-Pearson, 2006: 324). However Indigenous knowledge goes beyond

ecological knowledge. Indigenous epistemology, as outlined by Foley (2003),

consists of the physical world, human world and sacred world. In this partnership

space, management is of the human world; a human endeavour entwined in political

and personal relationships. It is the personal and political dimensions of Indigenous

knowledge that has the capacity to deconstruct whiteness (Cowlishaw, 2004).

2.8 Conclusion

Defining whiteness and its relations to systems, self and sovereignty provides the

underpinning theory for the following analysis of the participant’s perspectives. Non-

Indigenous Australians did not invent racist thought but they inherit its legacy. With

that, they inherit the responsibility, to take ownership of the current cultural

frameworks that we all inhabit and to dislodge its centrality (Dyer, 1997). A starting


18

point is to cease viewing Indigenous peoples as victims whom are consumed and

exhausted by systems of oppression and instead resist those systems (Salter, 2013).

Before exploring how DEWNR workers negotiate whiteness, the following chapter

presents the methodological framework adopted for examining how whiteness

frames and shapes the perspectives of non-Indigenous employees of Aboriginal

Partnerships.


19

3 Methodology

3.1 Introduction

The theory of whiteness, mapped out in the previous chapter, suggests that

unconscious habits of power and privilege, and the denial of Indigenous sovereignty

and knowledge, are inherited by non-Indigenous Australians from Australia’s

colonial history, although they may not often be aware of their privileged position.

Investigating discourses of whiteness is inseparable from the paradigmatic theory of

discourse as is the standpoint of the researcher and the researched.

The research process must be responsible in the production of knowledge and

demonstrate engagement with a well-considered rigorous methodological design

(O'Leary, 2010). The methodologies (theoretical underpinnings) are discussed here in

concert with the methods (tools for data collection and analysis) in order to uphold

the rigor of sociological analysis. Discussed below are the theoretical paradigms of

discourse and standpoint theory which underpin the methodology and the method of

collecting and analysing data. This study is not searching for a single truth but is

interested in exploring the many meanings human beings ascribe to their social word.

It therefore sits under a postmodern epistemology of social constructionism, where

theories of knowledge emphasize that the world is constructed by human beings as

they interact with each other and engage in interpretation (O'Leary, 2010), as

discussed in Chapter Two where race and whiteness are social constructions. Racial

difference was once attributed to biology but is now considered a social construct

within human relations (Weinburg, 2014). Applying a social constructionist view to

social phenomena accounts for the tensions between meaning and causality,

interpretation and explanation, culture and materiality, subjectivity and objectivity,

and structure and agency (Fairclough, 2012; Weinburg, 2014).


20

In discussing the construction of knowledge ontology and epistemology must be

considered, where ontology is the study of what exists, and epistemology examines

how legitimate knowledge of the world is established (O'Leary, 2010). In short, what

we know and how we come to know what we know is linked to broader relations of

power and ethical consideration. Whose knowledge counts?

3.2 Theoretical paradigms

Paradigms represent a set of beliefs that directs questions around research regarding

what should be investigated and how it should be interpreted (Bryman, 2008). In

exploring how whiteness shapes and frames the perspectives of non-Indigenous

employees in Aboriginal Partnerships the way these participants ‘talk’ about their

experiences is analysed. As meaning is constructed through language (Hall, 1997)

the theoretical paradigms for this study is situated in theories of discourse and

feminist and Indigenous standpoint.

3.2.1 Discourse

Discourse frames the way a topic is represented, produces knowledge and shapes

perceptions that constitute the way in which power operates, especially over those

who are subject to the discourse (Hall, 1997). Foucault (1980) contends that the

exercise of power is not possible without the generation, circulation and operation of

discourses where statements are produced and regulated to become ‘truth’. Systems

of power produce a ‘regime of truth’ and a study of power must begin at the point

where it is in direct relationship to that upon which power yields its effect - as argued

in Chapter Two, whiteness is a discourse. Understanding how power is reproduced in

racialised knowledge is central to whiteness studies as whiteness functions as a

regulatory mechanism for defining Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty (Moreton-

Robinson, 2006). As whiteness is a discourse, examining how it appears in the

narratives of participants through the ways they reproduce or deconstruct whiteness,


21

is pertinent to this study. It is in the ‘talk’, embedded with meaning and

representation, that the operation of whiteness can be located in the perspectives of

participants.

3.2.2 Standpoint

Non-Indigenous Australians are shaped by discourses based on Western history from

the Enlightenment era, colonisation, racial superiority, and positivist ontology that

subjugates Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies (Foley, 2003). Unlike most

non-Indigenous Australians DEWNR workers are situated inside the dominant

Western epistemology, yet by stepping inside the ‘contact zone’ they have exposure

to Indigenous epistemology. This study does not have scope to explore the entire

‘world-view’ or ‘life-history’ that participants bring with them – however, it is

enough to state that their life histories informs the narratives and negotiations

presented here. While this study does not examine gender issues, feminist standpoint

theory challenges researchers to think about how knowledge is situated and produced

from multiple standpoints. This can capture various forms of knowledge construction

in individual standpoints. As a researcher my work is shaped by my own standpoint

which contributes to the construction of knowledge. ‘Good’ research methods are

supposed to be value free, yet this is not desirable for the feminist researcher and,

they argue, research is never value free (Harding & Norberg, 2005).

Feminists have sought to challenge mainstream thinking and customary

methodologies and epistemologies in order to develop more democratic social

relations (Harding & Norberg, 2005; Longino, 1993). Conventional standards for

knowledge production can discriminate against or empower certain social groups,

reinforce the practices of institutions or political arrangements, or confine the myriad

of everyday experiences into categories. In doing so, the exercise of power can be

reproduced by the social sciences. Feminist methodologies and epistemologies have


22

challenged conventional approaches to examine the intersectionality of social

features such as gender, race and class (Harding & Norberg, 2005). Possible

solutions to controversies surrounding power and knowledge offered by feminist

research can uncover how conceptual practices of power shape daily social relations.

Researchers can drive this power into democratic social transformation by designing

projects that transform the conceptual frameworks of social institutions. Standpoint

methodology has the power to generate intellectual and political resources to reveal

disadvantaged social positions and redress them via research (Harding & Norberg,

2005). It is intrinsic to feminist standpoint theory to not merely describe society but

to change it, not only to understand how power works in social relations but to

design research projects for social transformation, to not only generate new

knowledge but to empower through knowledge construction in recognising the

relationship between power and certain vantage points (Ardill, 2013). As such, the

results of this study will be presented to DEWNR by oral presentation and

accompanied by a summary report. Significance lies in the potential to feed into

policy and cultural change within the Government of South Australian by revealing

practices of whiteness.

The use of Indigenous standpoint theory (Foley, 2003; Nakata, 2007) should be

considered for this project. While I am unable to fully consult with Indigenous

people3 in formulating the research questions, given the scope of this study, the

understandings raised by Indigenous standpoint theory challenge me to be reflexive

about my position as a researcher (in the same way as feminist standpoint theory).

Being ‘white’ I am situated within the discourses I am interrogating - although I may

boast that I have developed a critical awareness of whiteness through my Indigenous

3 I note that while scoping for research possibilities I did consult with Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority

staff and Indigenous academics.


23

children and my participation in their communities, I remain in a privileged position.

However, as discussed in Chapter Two, non-Indigenous Australians can take an

inventory of cultural habits from the inside. I begin my research inquiry as an insider

in order to not only reveal habits of whiteness but attempt to identify what non-

Indigenous people do with their whiteness once they have noticed it.

3.3 Method

This study will use qualitative methods. It is a cross-sectional study where data is

collected from more than one case in a single point in time and examined for patterns

of association (Bryman, 2008). One-on-one semi-structured interviews were used to

encourage a relaxed free flowing, flexible conversation that provides a depth of

individual personal experience (O'Leary, 2010). The information comes from the

participants, capturing their perspectives, and so the data is generated from the

interviewees. Interviews were approximately 60 minutes in length, were captured

using audio recording on a smart phone and typed up verbatim. Ethical approval for

this study was granted by the Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee at

the Flinders University of South Australia. Approval from DEWNR was granted on

the condition that individual consent is met with consent from their managing

supervisors.

3.3.1 Sampling

As explained in Chapter One, participants were sourced from the Government of

South Australia, DEWNR Aboriginal Partnerships. A key contact was found via the

DEWNR website with whom I consulted. In scoping possibilities for this study I

established rapport with the key contact who provided direction on sourcing potential

participants and informed me of the needs of DEWNR – this ensured I could tailor

the relevance of this research to the department. Snowball sampling was used to

recruit participants via the key contact who forwarded a Letter of Introduction onto


24

the DEWNR Aboriginal Partnerships Working Group (APWG). Interested persons

were free to contact the researcher to volunteer their participation in the project at

which stage they were provided with an Information Sheet and Consent Form,

ensuring participants volunteered with informed consent. This method of recruitment

safeguarded individuals by allowing them to approach the researcher privately with

an expression of interest. Snowball sampling is not representative of the general

population (Bryman, 2008) however self-selection brings forth participants who are

willing to discuss the topic. Participant views cannot be generalised or account for

those who did not participate.

From the twelve non-Indigenous members of the APWG six responded with

expressions of interest. Following supply of the Information Sheet, one person

declined to participate given that the small size of the group may allow for re-

identification, compromising anonymity. A total of five participants from the APWG

completed interviews, one of which forwarded my contact details to another

colleague who was interviewed after following the same recruitment process. This

totalled six participants. All participants are over the age of 18 years and non-

Indigenous. A description of participants is provided below.

3.3.2 Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis and thematic coding of the interview transcriptions draw out key

themes common across participant responses on how whiteness might shape their

perspectives (Johnstone, 2008). Discourse analysis explores why some meanings

become dominant and others marginalised, relational to the construction of meaning,

its social and historical contexts, and the structure and power in relationships

(Bryman, 2008). Established values from an individual’s social grouping is absorbed

and unconsciously directs practices around age, gender, race, class and ability. Being

within the ‘contact zone’ and having exposure to other cultures can lead people to


25

question their home culture (Bloor & Bloor, 2007). This is captured in participant

narratives.

3.3.3 Data Analysis

During and after the transcription of interviews broad themes were noted to

formulate and organise the participant’s negotiations of whiteness. Systematic

analysis of the transcripts searched for repetition and differences between transcripts.

NVivo software was employed to identify frequent words across all transcripts,

conduct word counts and build matrices of coded themes to explore relationships,

order patterns and draw connections (Bazeley & Jackson, 2013). Words and phrases

that surround viewpoints – such as ‘looking’ and ‘seeing’ - are pertinent to

unmasking the invisibility of whiteness. In addition, characteristics of whiteness,

such a privilege, individuality, wage-labour and sovereignty, were used to code the

data - however this study engaged in cycles of inductive and deductive reasoning

(O'Leary, 2010), regularly returning to established theory as well as allowing for new

themes to arise. As is common in qualitative work, the operationalising of concepts

were decided upon as they emerge from the data collection and analysis (Natalier,

2013).

The interview schedule provided a set of open questions to elicit reflective responses

from participants regarding their experiences of working in partnership with

Aboriginal people (see Appendix 1). Using the same set of questions across

interviews provides consistency for comparison between participants. The questions

are presented in sets that discuss particular themes which was used for coding.

Question 1 serves as an icebreaker; however information about how long participants

have been working alongside Aboriginal people provides an important descriptive

variable. Question 2-4 are designed to explore the centrality of participants’ location

in mainstream Australia - how they occupy a position of ‘centre’, looking out in


26

relation to race, as argued in Chapter Two. Questions 5-6 aim to draw out narratives

of Indigenous ‘hypervisibility’ of whiteness. Lastly, questions 7-10 are designed to

identify if and how participants view whiteness in the structure and culture of the

institution in which they are employed, including notions of sovereignty and

knowledge. The articulation of discourse that locates participants as normatively

centred and Indigenous people as ‘Other’ or inferior will demonstrate the

reproduction of whiteness. Where participants reveal challenges to their dominant,

normal and central position identifies if whiteness is being deconstructed.

3.4 The Scene

DEWNR regulates eight NRM Regions in the State of South Australia. Aboriginal

Partnerships is managed by one or two people for each region. I spoke with six

managers from four of those regions. There are many First Nations whose

geographical boundaries do not align with the South Australian State borders or

NRM regions. Some of the regions are comprised of a mix of First Nations and some

are predominantly a single First Nation, therefore some participants work mainly

with one First Nation and some work with many. Across the State there is a diverse

range of different Aboriginal family groups, corporate groups, Native Title holders,

Native Title applicants and freehold Land Rights owners. While this helps set the

scene, the focus of this analysis is upon the perspectives common between

participants in relation to the reproduction or deconstruction of whiteness regardless

of similarities or differences of Aboriginal people in South Australia.

All participants are mature adults and non-Indigenous. Alice, Aaron, Rick, Joe and

Ben identify as ‘white’ whereas Jonnie identifies as ‘brown’. Alice was the only

woman which leaves four out of the six participants being ‘white men’. All

participants have worked with Aboriginal people in NRM between 4 and 10 years


27

with an average of 7 years. Jonnie, Aaron and Joe stated they had not received

Aboriginal education at school in Australia. Rick did not learn of Aboriginal issues at

school in the UK. Alice had studied Aboriginal issues at high school in geography

and history. Ben attended a Steiner model primary school where he had some

Aboriginal education. All had crossed Aboriginal issues in various ways through

university studies. Jonnie, Aaron and Alice mentioned having contact with

Aboriginal kids during their childhood. Most participants had lived in and/or worked

with Aboriginal communities in remote regions outside South Australia for several

years. Aaron and Alice had participated several times in formal Aboriginal led

cultural awareness training at work, Jonnie and Rick had participated once and Joe

and Ben had never undertaken Aboriginal formal cultural awareness training at work.

The participants have been raised and live within the dominant white majority of

Australian/UK society. Through this work they are immersed in the contact zone

with Aboriginal people and are now highly aware of Aboriginal history in Australia

and the effects of colonisation. They have a cognitive understanding that different

cultures have different perspectives and have recognised in various ways that they

have had carried misunderstandings about Aboriginal people. In knowing there are

other ways of viewing the world they embark upon much self-reflection and group-

reflection. They invest a lot of themselves into their work. They are aware they are

accountable to government for delivering outcomes and often feel frustration that

outcomes are not met.

The following three chapters discuss in turn the key themes of Systems, Self and

Sovereignty. Chapter Four discusses participant’s perspectives regarding whiteness

at a systemic level; wage-labour, capacity building, timeframes and governance.

Chapter Five examines how whiteness frames and shapes the perspectives of this


28

group in their thoughts, feelings and everyday behaviour at the level of ‘self’. In both

systems and self, participants have some agency to deconstruct whiteness. However,

as will be explored in Chapter Six, the institutional constraints of a government

department in terms of white sovereignty and Western epistemology gives little room

for participants to deconstruct whiteness. Across all data chapters I will show how

participants simultaneously reproduce and challenge whiteness, demonstrating

different degrees of critical awareness, reversing the gaze, and resisting the system to

deconstruct whiteness.


29

4 Systems

4.1 Introduction

Australia’s governance systems are built upon colonial whiteness that maintains

inequalities for Aboriginal people, as argued in Chapter One. The participants in this

study, introduced in the previous chapter, are highly aware of systemic inequalities

between themselves and the Aboriginal people they work with. Wage-labour,

organisational capacity, working to timeframes and governance systems arise as key

themes within the system that structures DEWNR Aboriginal Partnerships. However,

despite this awareness I argue that the pervasive hold of whiteness counters this

critical awareness of structural inequalities and a willingness to overcome

inequalities, with some participants more so than others. In instances when

Aboriginality is problematised and whiteness is maintained, solutions to persistent

problems cannot be seen. Concurrently, when the gaze is reversed solutions are more

easily found; the dominant system is resisted and whiteness is deconstructed.

4.2 Wage-labour

In a capitalist society whiteness secures an advantage for people positioned as white.

This is referred to in the scholarship as the material benefits of whiteness. Scholars

have drawn attention to wage-labour as a mechanism that laid the foundation of

whiteness (Allen, 1997; Roediger, 1991). Co-management of lands between First

Nations and government often requires Indigenous people, as representatives of

organisational bodies, to engage with government on their free time. Indigenous

people are often not financially rewarded for this highly political work as are their

non-Indigenous counterparts who work in the same space. Historically, non-

Indigenous people have filled paid colonial administrative positons while Indigenous


30

people have been subject to various top-down management regimes. Contemporary

government inherits this system.

A critical awareness of inequalities around wage-labour and the lack of Aboriginal

employment is high among this group. However awareness alone, as argued in

Chapter Two, is not enough to withstand the fall-back position of whiteness. Alice

struggles with this. She states that DEWNR has about 3 per cent employment rate of

Aboriginal people but she says, “I can’t think of anyone that is Aboriginal that sits

above the ASO6 level, so they’re not in those leadership and management fields even

though we’ve had strong emphasis on Aboriginal staff rates for the last 30-40 years.”

She is unsure if the reason why she is “not seeing a leader” in the department is a

lack of Aboriginal leadership and “not wanting to be in that field” or part of a “whole

range of issues.” Structural inequalities may be amongst that range of issues but

Alice does not specify this. Alice sees the structural inequalities yet in her narrative

she critically questions herself - is she blaming Aboriginal people for this lack and

perpetuating a negative stereotype or is there is something else to see? Chapter Two

noted that persistent effort is required to unmask the invisibility of whiteness. I

argue that the embeddedness of whiteness tempts one to blame Aboriginal people for

structural inequalities even when awareness of systemic whiteness is high.

Ben applies his critical awareness and attempts to disrupt whiteness by directly

challenging his colleagues who are “looking to utilise Aboriginal people” when he

questions colleagues on how they are going to include it their budget so that

Aboriginal people get paid. Ben says “money’s a pretty huge deal”. He genuinely

believes that Aboriginal people should get paid for what they do yet struggles when

he has Aboriginal entities charge him significantly more than mainstream entities for

services. His budget has just been cut, he cannot afford ‘unrealistic’ charges and it


31

“puts up significant blocks” when colleague make accusations of Aboriginal

greediness.

Aaron also raises the issue in regards to colleagues making accusations of Aboriginal

greediness. He uses the example of persistent requests for further funding by the

Aboriginal group he works with, whom already receive a higher level of funding

than other Aboriginal groups. While he is on the receiving end of this bid for money

he doesn’t frame it as greediness inherent in the Aboriginal group but as a long term

lack of financial retribution from government, representing a critical awareness of

whiteness as wage-labour. Below Aaron reverses the gaze to argue that the issue lies

not with Aboriginal people, but with government;

Aaron: they’ve just been left out, left out of the picture for such a long time

they’re like ‘nup more more come on bring it on come on’ and um I don’t

know whether a lot of people I work with, [pause] sometimes I get it as

well, but it’s just like [colleagues say] ‘those guys are just so greedy, they

just want more, like they’re insatiable. What about everybody else?’

Whereas really, you know, that’s kinda just like the tip of the iceberg what

we’re doing at the moment

Aaron is developing a new system for best practice in Aboriginal Partnerships, a

project management software program which includes “labour hire procurement

opportunities” where the program will inform of Aboriginal organisations who could

potentially supply a workforce. He explains, “…if you’ve got a massive tree planting

project and you’re really interested in engaging Aboriginal people… [you can find]

an Aboriginal organisation in the region that can do the labour hire for you.”

However he slips back into whiteness by laying the onus with staff to be interested in

employing Aboriginal people. This could allow for the system to maintain whiteness

if that person is not interested in employing Aboriginal people. Ben on other hand

would like to see “preferential procurement policies” that commit to a set number of

services from Aboriginal providers. He criticises the recruitment process of


32

government staff, in that selection criteria and selection panels are generic and do not

target Aboriginal people, even for Aboriginal specified positions like his own. Rick

and Alice both mention how DEWNR has provided employment opportunities for

Aboriginal people, especially in remote regions where there is little other

employment opportunities, however Ben would like to see a public commitment to

employ a specified amount of Aboriginal people within the department.

All participants naturally raised various issues surrounding wage-labour. Ben and

Rick frame this in terms of their privilege in getting paid for the work they do;

Rick: this doesn’t apply to all Aboriginal people but to a lot of Aboriginal

people they’re thinking about really fundamental life basic necessities,

whereas we just take that for granted, oh I know my salary is going to go

in every two weeks

Ben: I’m paid to be here five days a week and a lot of the people that I

work with live in Aboriginal housing and volunteer their time in a whole

raft of different areas, and it’s quite possible that the large majority of

projects that I’m looking for help to do, whoever is doing them with me

would be doing them on a voluntary basis, or with payment from me but

it would only be you know one little bit of payment here and one little bit

of payment there and while their whole world continues with kids and

family and housing insecurity and all that sort of stuff

Ben and Rick’s quotes highlight material inequalities. In the following excerpt Alice

recognises that some of the Aboriginal people she works with are not in a paid

position and this is presented as an issue that affects the organisational capacity to

get on with the job;

Alice: we work for government, we got staff, if you’ve got an issue we can

allocate that issue to someone to work through and so on, but with

[Aboriginal] body corporates there often are no staff. So you say look

you’re the official body we can talk to, and you’re the chair so I can talk

to, you sit in an elect position or whatever it is, this is the issue we wanna

talk about and get through um but then we might come up with a proposal

and send that through but it wouldn’t get looked at or be addresses or you

know I haven’t looked at that, I haven’t had someone, or I gotta send it to

my lawyers um yeah, so it’s just going backwards and forwards


33

The development of management plans places an enormous responsibility on

Indigenous leaders and adds significantly to the stress on Indigenous peoples that

leads to poor health and early deaths (Hemming, 2007). Aaron notices his privilege

in being able to walk away from work at the end of the day and switch off whereas

the Aboriginal people he works with cannot, as “they live it”.

When I asked Joe how bureaucracy and administration affects his work he whispered

“don’t get me started” and then immediately followed with “just paying people is

hard.” Joe recounted administrative issues that hold up the payment of wages for

people in remote communities when they undertake work with DEWNR. A greater

problem was the Commonwealth “work for the dole” program in which welfare

recipients are required to register with an employment recruitment agency and

undertake five hours of work a day. When Joe has blocks of full-time work to offer

he is told by the recruitment agencies that it’s “too many hours”. Joe demonstrates a

his critical awareness in expressing frustration at this policy structure that is

“preventing [the Aboriginal people I work with] from one, gaining experience that

could help lead to a job that they’re interested in and two, earn some money doing it

and see the country and all that sort of stuff, because they’re gonna be working too

many hours phhht!”

Chapter Two notes that for Aboriginal people whiteness is ‘hypervisible’ (Moreton-

Robinson, 2015). Indigenous interests go beyond the co-management of lands in the

NRM space and include broader issues including employment. Participants allude to

Aboriginal hypervisibility;

Aaron: we had a workshop where we bought some scientists, managers

and Ngarrindjeri together to talk about what makes for a healthy

functioning type of place. I think if you just had a group of scientists you’d

probably have a range of, you know, the ecological processes and water,

flow, timing, that sort of stuff … but for the Ngarrindjeri that were there it

was about sovereignty, it was about land, it was about incarceration, it was


34

about education, um the resourcing to be involved, you know all of those,

wellbeing, livelihood

Rick provides another example;

Rick: the emphasis is not necessarily on the same aspects of any given

project so we might be looking at environmental outcomes and they’d have

consideration for environmental outcomes too but in discussing, trying to

work with them on a project that may not be what the conversations are

about all the time, so there’s quite clearly a difference in [pause] um

[pause] how we’re seen [emphasis added]

Tania: And when you said, say if you have a natural resource management

agenda and they want to talk about other things, what are those other things

that they wanna talk about?

Rick: employment, again how we’re going to use the knowledge, you

know I’ve even heard it put in terms of intellectual property like ‘this is

our intellectual property’

Later Rick refers to intellectual property as a “tradable commodity” which further

represents his awareness of whiteness as wage-labour, including intellectual labour,

where Indigenous work is normalised as free-labour and non-Indigenous work is

privileged and valued as wage-labour. The issue of Indigenous knowledge is

specifically discussed in Chapter Six, supporting the argument presented in Chapter

Two that whiteness places Western epistemologies as superior over Indigenous

epistemologies. However the intersection of whiteness and knowledge, or the

knowing of how to go about things, is a major theme presented by this group with

regards to capacity building.

4.3 Capacity Building

The above section argued that the group in this study demonstrate critical awareness

of whiteness as wage-labour. This section will show their awareness of differences in

organisational capacity between Aboriginal entities and government. Again, while

awareness of this structural inequality is present some slip into the fall-back position

of whiteness and center Aboriginal capacity as lacking. As discussed above


35

organisational capacity may intersect with whiteness as wage-labour; a lack of

capacity may be due to lack of staff and resources rather than a lack of ability.

Additionally, I demonstrate that when participants reverse the gaze to see the

Western model of governance as the problem, this opens up solutions to working in

Aboriginal Partnerships.

Alice sees the “dominant hammer of white society” but cannot see any other way

than to build the capacity of Aboriginal organisations to function within the

dominant system. In putting these arguments, she represents the most critically

unaware position in the group. While Alice sees the structural inequalities she falls

back on problematising Aboriginality, decrying whiteness and then maintaining it;

Alice: how do you operate in this whitefella government society so that

you can get what you need? Because that is still the dominant society we’re

in. Those rule books are not going to get changed dramatically, they’re not.

So if for that particular Aboriginal traditional lands association or Native

Title group if they understand how to work in white society better they can

probably get what they need a lot better too. But it’s a corrupt system, that

balance of it, not in any individual part but there’s some real complexities

to how we try and overcome these cultural differences, because I still feel

we’ve got this dominant hammer of white society coming in on Aboriginal

culture and saying ‘yeah you’re Aboriginal, we get that, we respect that,

but hey you still gotta do it our way’. And, I do now also see umm,

increasingly perhaps that, it’s not the only understanding of working the

government system but um, it’s not supposed to be about what they’re like

with a different culture but what I don’t like is where you also have

individuals or families say well we have a right or we have, you’ve done

us bad so you need to help us out here, so it’s that, the welfare mentality

that we imposed that we wanna get out of, we also see actually trying to

be sustained

In the quote above Alice places the responsibility on Aboriginal people and

organisations to pick up the game. Furthermore, in trying to help Aboriginal people

out of a ‘welfare mentality’ she positions herself and government as ‘white saviours’,

where an inferior ‘Other’ is in need of help (Chubbuck, 2004: 304). Yet in this

‘partnership’, capacity building is required for both parties and government is in need

of building inter-cultural capacity, as raised in Chapter One. Although structural


36

inequalities are visible, when Aboriginality is problematised and the dominant

system is normalised as the only mode for operation, whiteness is maintained.

From discussions with this group, capacity building is presented in two forms;

cultural capacity building and organisational capacity building. Cultural capacity

building, as Aboriginal cultural awareness training is discussed in Chapter Five. My

analysis of organisational capacity building is presented in Table 1 below. There are

two entities where building capacity is required; Aboriginal organisations and

government. There are two ways in which capacity can be built; Aboriginal way or

government way.

Table 1: Organisational Capacity Building

Aboriginal Capacity Government Capacity

Aboriginal Way Self-determination Reversing Dominance

Government Way Danger!

Whiteness ahead Proceed with Caution

Business as Usual

As argued in Chapter Two, building Aboriginal organisational capacity ‘government

way’ is a dangerous site for reproducing whiteness; where Western epistemologies

are privileged and seen as the only way of operating. There is space for Aboriginal

organisational capacity to be built ‘government way’ especially if it is self-initiated

rather than imposed as a top-down regime. Rick speaks of an Aboriginal group who

“are interested to get quite a bit of support and what they need to do in terms of their

compliance requirements plus also running their business in an efficient profitable

manner.” However, insisting that Aboriginal people and organisations work to the

dominant system is a remnant of the colonial mandate to ‘civilise the natives’.


37

Joe speaks of “doing things in a culturally appropriate way … rather than the way

you’ve grown up.” He cites an example of an international standard in conservation

planning that was “not working” and rather than “barreling through” was adapted to

suit Indigenous peoples approach to planning, especially in remote areas of Australia.

As such he demonstrates a critical awareness and resistance to Western dominance.

Carrying on as ‘business as usual’ (see Table 1), developing government capacity

government way, has seen a string of policy failures across Aboriginal affairs, as

indicated in Chapter One. However, making the shift to build government capacity

‘Aboriginal way’ is a possibility, as Aaron explains;

Aaron: at the moment the way that we write, even the writing of things

poses a challenge, ahh you know, a management plan could be potentially

sung or drawn or whatever so there’s very different ways of doing it and

they’re just sort of challenges, like it’s just about being creative on how

you can merge those things together, about educating people that there is

a difference, that the way that people interpret things isn’t, there isn’t a set

way, there’s not set facts about particular things [breath] ah um you know

there’s potential to see things in different ways and to um yeah and to have

better, better sort of outcomes [emphasis added]

For Aaron, the differences are apparent, but merging those differences is about being

creative so to reverse dominance and pull back the oppressive blanket of the current

systems. When the gaze is reversed to reveal the Western model is a central part of

the problem in maintaining structural inequalities, “there’s potential to see”

solutions. This was revealed in the majority of the participant’s narratives, and

represents a critical awareness of whiteness.

4.4 Timeframes

Further to the above, where I argue that problematising Aboriginal capacity

maintains whiteness despite a critical awareness of structural inequalities, the same is

true for the key theme of timeframes. Timeframes, quantification and

compartmentalisation defined by Western epistemology operates as a top-down


38

colonialism within systems. Western epistemology shapes systems and processes of

management in this partnership space which maintain inequalities. Participants are

critically aware as demonstrated below in their narratives.

A lack of delivery on outcomes is an issue for both parties in this partnership space;

both Aboriginal people and government are frustrated with timeframes and a lack of

outcomes. Participants in this study expressed frustration with hold ups emanating

from their Aboriginal partners, including perceptions from colleagues;

Rick: So a lot of [colleagues] won’t even go there or won’t even bother to

try to engage with [Aboriginal people] cos they know that they’re gonna,

in their words have a hard time, because they don’t work to the same

timeframes

Aboriginal people may work to different timeframes however whiteness is enacted

when this is seen as the source of the problem and governments role is not examined,

especially when Aboriginal people share a common complaint that government

doesn’t deliver, outlined in Chapter One. Alice reports that the Aboriginal partners in

planning a strategic development were frustrated with government, “…so there was a

lot of ‘oh you guys just never do anything, government never achieves anything. It’s

the same story all the time, you come back and ask us and then you never deliver.’”

Timeframes and outcomes are an issue for both parties in this partnership space.

Again, colleagues were brought into the picture as examples of the reproduction of

whiteness. Rick demonstrates his critical awareness in the story below where

Aboriginal people are blamed for delays even when the blockage comes from

external sources. He explained;

Rick: it has been extremely difficult and it’s been difficult because we

want to do work around this waterhole and the waterhole is not on their

property it’s on a neighbour’s property and the neighbour is not an

Aboriginal person, it’s a person with long standing connection to the

pastoral region, political clout, an old family from that district, old in terms


39

of European settlement and so has political power and is just resisting…

now if I was to talk to someone [else]… he would have automatically

assumed it was the Aboriginal community that’s taking a long time;

they’re too slow, they’re not organised, they’re fighting amongst

themselves, all those common perceptions of what Aboriginal

communities are like. But that’s not the case at all. It’s actually the

pastoralist that’s blocking, won’t participate

Working to timeframes is a persistent problem that arose across all interviews

frequently with a critical awareness that the departments regulated and

compartmentalised timeframes minimise outcomes. They largely show an awareness

that this systemic issue lies at the hands of government. Joe states that “government’s

really slow at doing stuff.” Aaron notes that “red tape” can leave Elders dying before

they see outcomes. Alice critically reflects on the imposition of government

timeframes;

Alice: and time frames [pause] i-it gets very difficult, cos at the local level

we can also appreciate that things take time but our governance structures

don’t support that very well, that if we’ve got Aboriginal, er sorry

Australian government funding and time frames for delivery of that

funding we always would struggle

Alice reverses the gaze and shifts the problem away from Aboriginal people to

suggest a cultural shift within State government, and Commonwealth funding

streams, could structure budget time frames at 5 years instead of 12 months so to

accommodate the work that needs to be in place before a project can begin

implementation. When the gaze is reversed a solution can be imagined.

4.5 Governance

In each of the above sections I have argued that participants are critically aware of

systemic inequalities between themselves and their Aboriginal partners. Alice tends

to reverse the gaze less so than the other participants despite her critical awareness.

One of the clearest examples is with Aboriginal governance systems. Alice brings up


40

the issue of not having ‘one boss’ and her fall-back is to compare Aboriginal

‘politics’ to a Western model of governance;

Alice: That’s actually one of the biggest challenges. That fluidity of who’s

the boss at this point in time, impossible, impossible, ah, cos there is no

one boss, but it’s that you’ve got different family groups vying for different

attention, different politics. At least in, um say local council government

situation, I can say right well this person has been elected under terms that

I understand, they may not be in the next term but right now this is the

position they hold so I can go to them with some surety that if they make

a decision that that decision is ok and it stands

Consistent with scholarship presented in Chapter Two, privileging the dominant

system as normal, central and superior, reproduces the hegemonic nature of

whiteness. Earlier in the interview Alice raised the subject of Aboriginal governance.

She follows the same pattern as with the quote above, presenting the Aboriginal

position as lacking and thus inferior. Alice knows that the white system is dominant,

she acknowledges she is generalising but she’s sees no other way, continuing to

decry whiteness while maintaining it;

Alice: there is an Aboriginal governance system and they’re different, and

they’re different across locations but they’re also not able to say this is the

way we do things you need to do it our way either, often, I’m generalising,

but say in this context, in this co-management agreement, the agreement

between South Australian Government and this particular traditional lands

association the rules are written in this book [an agreement], the rule book

is there and we will work together, they are still very whitefella rules. And

so there is no other way for me in my job to work around those, once again

generalising

When Aboriginality is problematised, because ‘they’re not able’, and ‘whitefella

rules’ are the only option, the gaze is upon the inferior ‘Other’ and whiteness is

reproduced.

Contrary to this, Jonnie provides an example of resisting the dominant system by

adopting an Aboriginal governance model. In Table 1 this is depicted as ‘reversing


41

dominance’. Jonnie states “governance structures exist for a reason cos there’s lots of

public accountability, you’re accountable for everything that you do.” This is a

binding reality for this group however Jonnie would like to see government “turn the

tables” with its structures. Jonnie describes adopting an Aboriginal governance

structure to the work he does;

Jonnie: we’ve built a working group, which is a really whitefella construct

to go oh we’ve got a working group but … we’ve built that in collaboration

with the First Peoples, and because there’s a broad group there, lots of

language groups represented, what we’ve had to do is try and get a broad

representation of that language group. So we’ve borrowed from … what

they consider culturally appropriate structure of having seven Directors

[and added one more person per Director making a total of fourteen]… and

built it into our working group simply because we want to have that

representation across the board. I think when we started doing that

everyone was going ‘that’s a lot of people, why do you have that many

people, why can’t you have one person, the chair, you know, representing

themselves?’ It doesn’t work, and I think that’s really obvious that that

doesn’t work, so having that group of people takes the pressure off that

one individual to make decisions for a whole group of people

Jonnie believes this to be a small “step in the right direction” for the department.

While movement is slower and “anybody looking in” would view having so many

people in the working group as “silly” or “a headache”, Jonnie says it’s worthwhile

because “it works for them” - the Aboriginal partners he engages with. The gaze is

reversed and the dominant system is resisted. Whiteness can be recognised as a

social construction and its deconstruction is possible;

Jonnie: And that’s probably a big thing when you’re talking about culture,

it’s all a construct, your governance structure is all a construct, that

somebody, well a group of people have come up with and forced over you,

so don’t just think that’s the way you’re doing work cos that’s how it’s

done, someone created that, you can change it


42

4.6 Conclusion

Shown above, participants are highly aware of structural inequalities between

themselves and their Aboriginal partners regarding wage-labour, capacity building,

timeframes and governance in management systems. Alice, more so than others, slips

back into whiteness when problematising Aboriginality despite her awareness.

Chapter Two noted that altering the manifestations of whiteness in everyday life

begins when we cease viewing Indigenous peoples as victims consumed and

exhausted by systems of oppression and instead resist those systems (Salter, 2013).

The above demonstrates ways in which participants resist the dominant system.

The following chapter turns to whiteness in self, as invisibility and individuality,

accompanied with the need to move beyond awareness. I will show that participants

are somewhat less critically aware of whiteness in the self than in systems.


43

5 Self

5.1 Introduction

This chapter turns to issues around self: personal interactions, thoughts and feelings.

Some participants deconstruct whiteness by employing critical thinking to reveal its

invisibility and reverse the gaze to see themselves as part of a culture. They make

conscious efforts to rewrite discourse. While critical awareness is attained through

gaining an understanding of history and Aboriginal culture I argue that awareness

alone is not enough to deconstruct whiteness.

5.2 Invisibility

Whiteness is an invisible regime of power that influences our everyday lives

(Moreton-Robinson, 2004b). The role that whiteness plays in reproducing structural

inequalities, discussed in the previous chapter, appears to be easier for participants to

see than in their own behaviour and thoughts. Alice stated that racism is ‘still

systemic’, noting that it had only been ‘a very short time frame’ since legalised white

supremacy has been disbanded and ‘it might still take generations’ to push the shift

further away from racism. At the end of my interview with Alice I asked her if there

Alice: I think the biggest thing is whiteness is fog

Tania: Whiteness is?

Alice: Is fog, is not knowing how to how to deal with it, so I know things

are different, I know I should consider it, but how do I do that?

Alice knows whiteness exists but its visibility escapes her and she is asking for a way

to see through the fog. The illusiveness of whiteness is evident when participants

find difficulty in expressing white cultural paradigms they know are present but

struggle to pinpoint. I asked Rick if he had learnt anything about himself as a white

person. He hesitated before he replied, “Oh yeah yeah I think it’s difficult to, I find


44

that difficult to actually put into words I think”. Frankenberg (1993: 9) notes we must

“…understand not only how race is lived but also how it is seen, or not seen.” Both

Alice and Rick exemplify the difficulty of seeing whiteness, even when they exhibit

a high level of critical awareness about inequalities. Ben and Joe note the dominant

and privileged position of middle class, yet how this intersects with whiteness is not

visible. In the excerpt below Ben attributes privilege to class, not race. He

acknowledges racial difference in lower socio-economic society but neglects to

consider how race would impact an Aboriginal person situated in middle-class;

Ben: I notice my privilege but my privilege I don’t think comes so much

from being white it comes from being middle class … Aboriginal or non-

Aboriginal, if you’re born into a low socio-economic group … is gonna

impact on how you experience the world and your opportunities to engage

with the world. It’s not to say that I think there’s not certain challenges

that Aboriginal people face because of being Aboriginal, I think there are

but I would [pause] … I would think that the greater impact is class really

rather than race, but the double whammy is being born into a low socio-

economic group and being Aboriginal is gonna heighten that experience

Joe corrected me on my use of the term ‘non-Indigenous advantage’ stating that non-

Indigenous people as a group includes asylum seekers and immigrants that are

“treated harshly” in Australia compared to white middle class people. He says,

“…not all non-Indigenous people are advantaged anyway you know when people

assume, when they say non-Indigenous advantage they predominantly mean well off,

or white people… middle class up” In this statement, Joe clearly draws a distinction

between white people and non-Indigenous people but class and whiteness is

conflated and the intersection between whiteness and class remains indistinct.

Along with class, whiteness intersects with gender as ‘patriarchal whiteness’

(Moreton-Robinson, 2005), noted in Chapter One. Rose (1996a) and Moreton-

Robinson (2005) write about the invisibility of Aboriginal women. Narratives of

Aboriginal women as a group were absent from all six interviews. Participants spoke


45

of Aboriginal people, communities, families and Aboriginal men as a group, but not

once was Aboriginal women as a group mentioned. The only Aboriginal woman

mentioned, as an individual, is Jonnie’s staff member that his white colleagues ‘don’t

talk to’. Jonnie’s narrative describes her as being ‘ostracised’ by the dominant group

in the workplace. While an Aboriginal woman is brought into Jonnie’s story it is in

the context of her invisibility.

When I asked participants if they recognised that they have held myths about

Aboriginality all participants could easily recall some stereotypes that they were able

to dismiss after critical reflection within the contact zone. These include myths of;

the noble savage or the ‘original conservationist’ when Aboriginal people may want

development/mining on their lands and the things money can buy; all Aboriginal

people want to be Park Rangers but really some would rather be hip-hop artists;

Aboriginal people work in specific fields because of the Aboriginality of the position

however they might work in Aboriginal health because they are interested in health;

that Aboriginal people are not well educated and articulate in modern systems when

many are technologically savvy and use Facebook; Aboriginal people are not all the

same but are diverse; Aboriginal people are unwell due to drinking and smoking as

self-inflicted illness whereas they might be ill for reasons beyond their control.

These moments of unpacking myths demonstrate a critical unpacking of whiteness,

however in other ways its grip remains strong. Chapter Two explained that the

deconstruction of whiteness takes sustained vigilance. White people are born into

and spend a lifetime immersed in whiteness and it may take a lifetime to unlearn its

habits (Chubbuck, 2004). Aaron exemplifies this when talking about Aboriginalist

myths;


46

Aaron: I do get those little flashes sometimes, and I catch myself as well,

and I’m like, why the, why the fuck am I still, why the hell does that still

happen? It’s really weird um, [taps] yeah

Tania: Why do you think it does happen?

Aaron: Dunno, I think something’s been programmed in to me from an

early age

Aaron’s extract above demonstrates the discourses that occur in subconscious

thoughts and feelings. In the quote below Rick provides an example of making a

conscious effort to change discourse and deconstruct the invisibility and normativity

of whiteness when telling me a story about settling into working in an Aboriginal

community. Rick repositions what would otherwise be centered as normal when he

corrects himself mid-sentence to add ‘what we would think’. In this he acknowledges

what is seen to be ‘personal’ is not a truth but a cultural construct;

Rick: almost straight away people would be telling me quite personal, what

we would think of as quite personal, quite personal things like their

relationships with each other in the community

Discourse and behaviour shifts when participants contextualised themselves within

their own culture, reverse the gaze, question their thoughts and deliberately change

discourse, as Rick and Aaron demonstrate above.

5.3 Individuality

The above shows the invisibility of whiteness which participants simultaneously

reproduce and deconstruct. This section establishes how the visibility of whiteness is

shrouded when white people identify as ‘individuals’ rather than belonging to a

cultural group, and demonstrates how whiteness works through discourses of

individuality. As argued in Chapter Two, non-whites are seen first as a racialised


47

group before as individuals. To reverse the gaze white people must see themselves

first as part of a racialised group and as individuals second (Nicoll, 2004).

I was informed that some DEWNR colleagues declined to participate because of the

word whiteness in the title of my project or that others “couldn’t see the point” –

highlighting the use of the word ‘see’ as an indicator of the visibility of whiteness, as

raised in Chapter Three. Aaron and Jonnie urged for a softening of the word

whiteness, perhaps to be replaced with ‘privilege’, so that colleagues don’t take

personal offence and can more comfortably engage in the conversation. It is an irony

that a request to soften the word, to quieten it - to push whiteness back into

invisibility - is precisely what white people need to understand about whiteness.

Frankenberg (1993: 6) explains, “It’s much harder for white people to say ‘whiteness

has nothing to do with me I’m not white’ rather than ‘race has nothing to do with me,

I’m not racist’.” Shying away from the word whiteness may avoid the discomfort of

discussing racialised identities when individuals do not wish to be associated with

the effects that race has played in our history, outlined in Chapter Two. However

avoiding bringing whiteness to the foreground keeps it in place. The privilege here is

that white people can turn off, back away and distance themselves from those

uncomfortable situations whereas racialised people can’t.

Seeing oneself as an individual ties the Western concept of individuality to the

centrality of whiteness. When an individual takes personal offence they fail to

recognise that they are part of a larger structure, as Jonnie explains in his justification

to soften the word;

Jonnie: so I think that kinda softening that down so that the personal

offense that’s taken by those, the word is removed and then you can

actually have a good discussion about it, I dunno, it’s the same old deal

though isn’t it, like people react on a, in a personal way um, without really

considering things, [without] removing the personal from it


48

As argued by Dyer (1997) in Chapter Two, to locate white people as a racialised

group is a mechanism for dislodging the position of power that comes with being

‘just a person’ as opposed to being ‘something else’. However, there are other factors

at play such as the ‘good anti-racist/bad racist’ dichotomy (Kowal, 2015; Salter,

2013) and the fear of being accused a racist (Cowlishaw, 2004). Whiteness

challenges this dichotomy in that good anti-racists can be implicated in the discursive

and material structures that maintain whiteness. Further to this is the fear of being

essentialised (Haggis, 2004); that is to be conglomerated into a group and lose ones

individuality.

The interview question “Has an Aboriginal person ever said to you ‘You white fellas

are all the same?” was designed to reveal the commonalities of white culture, in ways

that are ‘hypervisible’ to Aboriginal people. For Alice, she sees the grouping of

‘you’re all the same’ as being directed at her as a representative for government, not

at her position in a racialised society. Alice can see that government has a culture but

as an individual she is not implicated. While the intention is to ‘be different’ Alice

falls back onto problematising the inferior ‘Other’ who needs to step up. Said (1978)

argued the construction of the ‘Other’ as inferior simultaneously constructed whites

to be superior. Alice reflects this by restating the inferiority of Aboriginality;

Alice: So when they say, when a claim is made that you’re all the same,

we’re not, we’re trying to be different here but you need to help me out,

we need corresponding difference from you guys rather than you guys

being all the same too

Ben deflects the placement of belonging to white culture by disguising it behind

Indigenous humour. Ben tells this story early on in the interview;


49

Ben: I was desperately needing to pee and we were at this [sacred] men’s

site you know and um we were there for about an hour and I was absolutely

busting and eventually we left and I was the driver and we jumped in the

car and drove for about fifty meters and I stopped the car jumped out and

had a piss and this old Aboriginal bloke says ‘is that what you’re doing?

You’re all the same, you think you’re so powerful that even your piss is

going to damage the place’, and that was just sort of, that that was a

humorous thing but it was also just this like [pause] dunno it just showed

me we’re we’re, they’re pretty grounded, pretty grounded, pretty

humorous, pretty resilient

In this story, the old Aboriginal bloke uses ‘all the same’ and ‘you think you’re

powerful’ together as a cultural description of white people. Ben begins to say ‘it just

showed me we’re we’re…’ as if he is about to describe an aspect of white culture but

quickly falls-back on describing Aboriginal people. During the interview Ben asked

me if I was interested in hearing a story about ‘being pulled up as a whitefella’ but

later when I directly asked him if an Aboriginal person has ever said ‘you

whitefella’s are all the same’ he responded;

Ben: No, no, not, no I haven’t. My feeling on that is um [pause] Aboriginal

people are highly intelligent and I don’t think um, I can imagine

conversations and possibly I’ve even been in conversations where people

in frustration would go oh you bloody white people you’re all the same

[pause] I would not really think that though as an actual statement of will,

you’re the same as all other whitefella’s, you know I think that people

understand that we’re different, we’ve got different intentions, I think in

moments of frustration I think yeah maybe it might come out, but no I’ve

never had that directly levelled at me in that way

Like Alice, Ben views himself as ‘different’ and not the same as other white people

due to different intentions. As many scholars have noted, (Dyer, 1997; Frankenberg,

1993; MacMullin, 2005; Moreton-Robinson, 2009) the intentions of individuals has

little effect on the lived experiences of racialised people when whiteness continues to

privilege and benefit white people. Ben’s quote contradicts the scholarship raised in

Chapter Two that states Aboriginal people do see white people as a group and are

hypervisible to whiteness.


50

For the other participants my question regarding ‘you whitefella’s are all the same’

invoked mixed responses, sometimes embraced or ignored;

Aaron: Oh yeah, yeah yeah, I’ve had lots of different things

Joe: I’ve heard it used, not in those words I don’t think

Rick: I’m not sure that I’ve actually heard that one, I probably have and

I’ve pushed it aside, I’ve just kinda ignored it, um or just laughed,

sometimes it is pretty funny, hah! They don’t mind giving us bit of a hard

time sometimes

As Jonnie does not identify as white I rephrased the question and asked if he had

ever heard the phrase used, to which he replied “oh yeah, yeah, I’ve probably said

that myself”. From a ‘brown’ identity Jonnie is privy to see white culture from the

outside and identify how white people share commonalities. This is more difficult to

see from inside the cultural group, as shown above. Aaron however applies his

critical awareness of belonging to a white cultural group to reverse the gaze and

contextualise the larger political shaping in which he sees himself as a ‘pawn’. He

views that his best intentions may meet resistance from the Ngarrindjeri Regional

Authority (NRA) whom he works with because their objective is to place political

pressure at a higher level upon DEWNR and the State. His reflection that this work is

‘bigger than an individual thing’ alleviates any personal offence. Aaron states;

Aaron: I think a lot of us take it as an individual thing whereas the NRA’s

movement is a nation based thing, like it’s bigger than any individual

Ngarrindjeri as well. I think whitefella’s take things to heart as on an

individual basis and kinda don’t get that what’s happening there is much

bigger than just either one of us … I find reflecting back onto that as um,

as something that can you know make me feel sort of little bit more

comfortable in those situations

Individual intention is negated by recognising the larger political forces at play.

Aaron realises his work is not about him but is a political movement.


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5.4 Beyond Awareness

Above I argued that whiteness is reproduced through denying white cultural

belonging and instead identifying as an individual with good intentions. Participants

demonstrate moments of deconstructing whiteness when the gaze is reversed and

they see themselves and their work within a larger political context. Below I argue

that awareness of Aboriginal culture and history, predominantly delivered through

formal workplace training, is not enough to deconstruct whiteness. Government

focusses heavily on Aboriginal cultural awareness and increasing Aboriginal cultural

competency of its public servants. Chapter Two identified that reflexively engaging

with whiteness requires more than theoretical knowledge and awareness of the

‘other’. I suggest what is required is an understanding of whiteness as a social

construction so that deconstructing whiteness is an empowering possibility.

Aaron reported that within the department “There is significant guilt in non-

Indigenous people about colonisation and its impacts.” Most participants noted that

Aboriginal cultural awareness training was heavily laden with history. They view

this as a necessary component to contextualise the inequalities between Indigenous

and non-Indigenous Australians - however gaining an understanding of Australia’s

colonial history is not without duress. Ben reflects on this in the quote below;

Ben: the feedback what I’ve got from the people in DEWNR, employees,

that quite commonly cultural training follows a pretty similar path which

is some historical coverage, some conversation around the political

reasons, the policy reasons for why we’re in the current situation that we

are in. Quite often people leave feeling pretty deflated, possibly shameful,

possibly guilty depending on who ran the training, I mean the training here

has been run by Aboriginal groups and they’ve left feeling quite victimised

Chapter Two stated that white people believe racism to be something that affects

people of colour and not themselves (Frankenberg, 1993). When white people feel

‘victimised’ upon being informed of Australian history from an Aboriginal


52

standpoint it suggests a superior position is taken where it is ok, normal, or

acceptable for Aboriginal people to experience trauma but it is not ok for white

people to be upset by the same inherited history. Ben’s above quote, reflecting on the

experiences of his colleagues, reiterates the point made above, and in Chapter Two,

that white people feel uncomfortable in conversations about whiteness, race and its

legacy. Not only do they possess the privilege to remove themselves from difficult

conversations, they feel entitled to not be affected by them.

It is important for Aboriginal people to tell their stories of how colonisation affects

them, past and present (Cowlishaw, 2004) and in hearing these stories non-

Indigenous Australians must move beyond guilt (Maddison, 2011; Salter, 2013).

Through the perspectives of these participants I suggest that what appears to be

missing in DEWNR cultural awareness training is how white people possess control

over changing their attitudes, habits and behaviours today.

As Alice stated above, in looking for a way through the fog of whiteness, “how do I

that?” Alice feels there is something more to learn in order to work more effectively

with Aboriginal people although she could not articulate what this was. She is

critically aware that “you don’t know what’s missing.” Alice articulates her

experience of Aboriginal cultural training;

Alice: A lot of the [training] I’ve been to have been about history. But I

know the history. I know why we’ve got a lot more disadvantaged

Aboriginal people comparatively to white Australians but what I’d like to

know is how do I work contemporarily with Aboriginal people?

Rick noted that in addition to learning history and culture there was a contrasting of

“what Aboriginal traditional life was like with the way Aboriginal people are

expected to behave now, which is our, the non-Indigenous, way.” The reference here

is on Aboriginal people and how they are expected to behave in the dominant culture.


53

How white people behave today does not appear to be under examination for its own

characteristics, privileges and habits. I argue that there is space for cultural capacity

building to include characteristics of whiteness that presently occur in the everyday

and provide tools for deconstruction.

As noted above, deconstructing whiteness takes more than knowledge and awareness

but requires a sustained examination of the self. Aaron articulates this in terms of

understanding privilege and power when suggesting DEWNR staff can be taught

how to reverse the gaze;

Aaron: having the emerging leaders within our organisation going through

a course … where they actually learn about things like privilege and power

around how you improve engagement so you’re not just having sort of

general awareness, [where] you might have gone to a half day cultural

awareness thing, you’re actually starting to build peoples skill sets in doing

that engagement and awareness of not just histories but giving them the

skills to negotiate that stuff. I think that’s a key area for education

5.5 Conclusion

This chapter explored how whiteness affects people in their everyday thoughts and

reactions. Revealing the invisibility of whiteness can occur when discourses of

individuality are challenged, and seeing that ‘white’ people belong to a cultural

group. Building relationships in the contact zone means white people must step out

of one’s comfort zone and move beyond awareness. Ben critically reflects on this

feeling of discomfort and demonstrates reversing the gaze to question yourself rather

than focus on the ‘Other’;

Ben: I think you need to understand, and I need to challenge myself on this

all the time, is where our prejudices come from, cos we do all have them I

think. Why do I feel uncomfortable when I sit in a room or next to an

Aboriginal person on the bus? … I think there’s just a lot of preconceptions

around Aboriginal people that a lot of us, even if we’ve managed to chase

them out to the very back blocks of our mind, still hold somewhere and I

think as non-Indigenous people you need to acknowledge what are the

things that make me feel uncomfortable and why are they there?


54

Having the tools to unpack these uncomfortable feelings will be of benefit to non-

Indigenous people working in Aboriginal Partnerships. The following chapter moves

from self and systems to explore how whiteness is negotiated around issues of

sovereignty and epistemology.


55

6 Sovereignty

6.1 Introduction

This thesis so far argues that whiteness frames and shapes the perspectives of these

participants in nuanced ways. I present examples of how participants reproduce

whiteness, demonstrate critical awareness, reverse the gaze and resist the dominant

system. Chapter Four, reveals these nuances in relation to the systemic issues that

participants report in their work with DEWNR Aboriginal Partnerships. Chapter Five

discussed this in terms of perspectives participants hold of themselves and personal

relationships. This chapter examines participant views to see how whiteness works in

relation to white sovereignty (Nicoll, 2004) and Western epistemology.

State sovereignty is the overarching authority that DEWNR staff work under. State

authority acknowledges First Nations ownership in two ways; through its legal

system under the Native Title Act (1993) and acts of symbolic reconciliation.

Reconciliatory Acknowledgement of Country or ‘traditional ownership’ is relegated

to a symbolic past rather than a continuing sovereign authority. Participants in this

study are aware of the bind of ‘white sovereignty’ and at times critically appraise

State authority. This is most evident when the participants talk of protecting

Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, However Indigenous epistemology

includes knowledge of the political landscape, along with broader issues of

sovereignty, which is seldom reported by participants. Western epistemology and

science as ‘truth’ has been privileged in Western modernity. Participant views are

pregnant with ontological pluralism, in reconfiguring the conceptual building blocks

to deconstruct the privileged position of Western epistemology and science as ‘truth’.

In this chapter I argue that whiteness as white sovereignty and Western epistemology

is an institutional stronghold difficult for DEWNR staff to resist despite their critical


56

awareness. The government department is underpinned by the authority of white

sovereignty and bound by Western epistemology, and as such there is less room for

participants to move against the hold of whiteness.

6.2 The Political Landscape: White Sovereignty and the Authority of State

The political landscape of Indigenous co-management of lands is dominated by the

rule of white sovereignty and Western epistemology. Whiteness is embedded in

government and its authority to determine and regulate legislated ownership of

Aboriginal lands, and in discourses that relegates Aboriginality to the past as

‘traditional’. White sovereignty acknowledges traditional ownership in two ways,

discussed here in turn; firstly with legislated regimes, namely the Native Title Act

(1993), and secondly regards the reconciliatory performance of Acknowledgement of

Country.

As government employees these participants feel bound by white sovereignty and are

under obligation to fall back on ‘what the law says’ despite any personal degree of

critical awareness. Imposed systems of control, such as the Native Title Act (1993)

are foundational to arising problems (Howitt & Suchet-Pearson, 2006). Participant

narratives are fraught with problems where Native Title has been granted and

complications are sealed. Where white law has authorised Aboriginal ownership of

lands, difficulties occur between DEWNR staff and the Native Title group as well as

within and between Native Title holders. As Joe states;

Joe: within um a Native Title group in our region there’s a lot of politics

around who speaks for what and who’s allowed to go where even though

Native Title agreement says every claimant on this list owns it, has rights

to all of the country it also says this group has rights to this part of the

country and so there’s six groups in this claim, so everybody owns

everything but this group owns this part, but it doesn’t say that for the other

groups so there’s a real disjunct in the actual, the determination written by

the judge which has caused a lot of concern


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Rick reiterates a similar sentiment;

Rick: Native Title groups are extremely difficult to connect with um we

work mainly, we try to, we always try to engage with them and in some

instances we’re able to do that, erm more often than not it’s with

communities, residential communities

In addition to Native Title, whiteness underpins government practices of

reconciliatory Acknowledgement of Country where ‘traditional ownership’ is

recognised in documents and verbal ceremonies. Traditional or cultural discourse of

Aboriginal ownership relegates Aboriginality to the past (Hemming, 2007). Ben,

Jonnie, Joe and Aaron reflect critically on the government’s symbolic

acknowledgement of traditional ownership. Ben expresses his frustration;

Ben: at the beginning of many meetings, not all meetings, there’s a

recognition or Welcome to Country given, and that recognition of country

if a whitefella does it generally says something along the lines ‘I’d like to

acknowledge the traditional owners of this land’ which always sticks in

my throat because in Adelaide there is no land that Aboriginal people have

management over apart from like two very small Aboriginal Lands Trust

parcels of land. So we espouse this and a lot of our planning documents

espouse this, you know the traditional owners of the land, which implies

to me that we’re saying well the Aboriginal people are the owners of the

land, the traditional owners of the land. But how does that articulate? Well

it doesn’t at all. Aboriginal people are consulted generally late in any

planning processes. If they are consulted early my feeling is that they’re

consulted on this kind of symbolic action side of things rather than actual

input into management you know, so for example, I feel like this

department would like signs [in parks] that say this land here was used for

this and this area here was that. Do we actually want to work with

Aboriginal people on the more meaningful management actions about

what should happen on their country? No I don’t think so…in terms of

sovereignty I feel like most people would say yes Aboriginal people are

the traditional owners of the Adelaide region. What happens with that

expression that Aboriginal people are the traditional owners of the

Adelaide region is highly problematic, there’re just very limited spaces for

Aboriginal people to exercise management of and much less, very few

even potentials for conversation around things like co-management

Although greater efforts are not being realised Ben can see that there is room for

“trying much harder”. Similarly, Aaron reflects the underlying cursory tactics of

government beneath his work;


58

Aaron: the elephant in the room always is land rights, sovereignty type of

issues. What is it that state government department would do um to

reconcile in that area? Cos reconciliation just never really goes in that sort

of spot, you’ve got Native Title but it’s been watered down so much it

doesn’t really mean that much

Aaron acknowledges the “racism type of relationship” that is foundational to the

construction of Australian society where the issue of land ownership is central.

Reconciliation Action Plans and Acknowledgement of Country are important; and

Welcome to Country delivered by Aboriginal people is vital. However this is

undermined when ‘traditional’ relegates Aboriginality to the past while Western

paradigms are normalised as the only system under which to operationalise this

partnership.

Aaron explains that “doing your Welcomes” becomes meaningless unless

government reinvests into Aboriginal people and organisations. He reflects a critical

awareness that Western epistemology is normalised while Indigenous epistemology

is espoused as ‘culture’ and discussed the possibility of rewriting the discourse in

government documents;

Aaron: when you’re writing an ecological character description um, you

don’t say this is the Western science culture way of ah viewing the

environment, that’s just being placed there’s as normal and the [tap] the

only bit that’s actually cultural is the Indigenous bit that’s in there...I’d like

to see…language inserted in the work that we do to acknowledge that this

is the way that we, this is a cultural way of doing it, it’s not the way of

doing it. There’s other ways of doing things and potentially better ways

um, it’s making our culture and the [tap tap] the things that we think

normal like [pause] they’re invisible at the moment, I don’t think a lot of

people see the way that we do things is just part of our culture

Rewriting discourse in DEWNR documents, from ecological character descriptions

to reconciliation plans would be a deliberate act of resisting the system and


59

deconstructing whiteness. Both Aaron and Jonnies espoused faith in the Government

of South Australia as being progressive and able to realise such possibilities.

6.3 Recognition of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge: ‘A Baby Step’

The above argues that whiteness as white sovereignty is an institutional stronghold

difficult for DEWNR staff to resist despite their critical awareness, although

suggestions to rewrite discourse is a progressive step. However there is a growing

space that is incorporating Indigenous ecological knowledge in NRM, outlined in

Chapter One, and DEWNR seeks to respect and protect this knowledge. Participants

are highly aware of the issue of Indigenous knowledge as intellectual property and

challenge ‘white possessive logic’ (Moreton-Robinson, 2015) especially with regards

to what Moreton-Robinson (1999) calls Terra Knowledgius – where knowledge is

claimed to be unowned and thus appropriated. Under Western assumptions of a

linear progression from a primitive original condition to a civilised state, Indigenous

ecological knowledge (seen as traditional) is arguably easier to incorporate under

paradigms of whiteness.

‘White possessive logic’ is described in Joe’s story below through the story of a

biologist who excitedly wrote an article about his ‘new discovery’ of Grevillea as

well as the businessman looking to secure a financial monopoly on the sale of the

Grevillea. Joe displays a critical awareness of the perils of ‘the white possessive’;

Joe: we did like a joint biological survey between Parks and Wildlife and

the community and it was a whitefella who pointed out this, a unique plant

he’d never seen before, Grevillea, and … then went “new species holy shit

that’s awesome”, went and wrote an article about it and published it in

their newsletter without running it past the community first, which

everything was agreed gets run past the community first. Next thing you

know there’s a fella with an Australian native plant nursery with a pretty

bad reputation coming out looking for it, brandishing the article going “oh

I’m just looking for this do you know where it is, can I have a look?” …so

because this particular plant had great horticultural potential beautiful

flowers and all this stuff and it wasn’t on the market this fella wanted to

get the seeds and go through the process of getting plant breeders rights so

he would have the monopoly over the sales of that plant. So total, just stuff


60

up, little miscommunication on Parks and Wildlife behalf created a big

issue for people on the ground

Profiting off Indigenous knowledge and the exploitation of lands and resources is

fundamental to the Racial Contract as argued by Mills (1997) in Chapter Two. Joe

exemplifies Mills’ statement that while all white people benefit from the Racial

Contract not all are signatories to it, which Joe clearly is not. All participants except

Alice raised the issue of including and protecting Indigenous ecological knowledge

and this reflects a critical awareness of the issues. Aaron explains that knowledge is

“the last bastion” that Aboriginal people can protect and “hold onto even in the

absence of being able to hold onto other things that they have had, like land.”

Rick raised the issue of protecting Indigenous ecological knowledge to explain the

development of new guidelines for the Arid Lands region, running off the back of a

comment I made on the university ethics process. Rick saw this new development as

an ethical process to protect Indigenous knowledge and alleviate differences in

approach to the work;

Rick: we’re developing some guidelines for staff and for, it’s more for staff

in the way that we engage with Aboriginal groups or individuals when

we’re discussing what’s known as traditional ecological knowledge …

[my colleague] is trying to put in into the overarching strategy for what

will eventually become some guidelines and probably even some

processes about how people should, what they need to do, a step by step

guide, literally a step by step guide erm and they’re the conversations

we’ve had, you know each of us comes from our own particular world

view and and there’s quite obviously a lot of points where the two don’t

[meet], when it comes to dealing with Aboriginal people that’s why a lot

of people back away from it because it’s so such a different [pause] it

appears to be such a different [pause] way of going about things

Again, Rick changes discourse mid-sentence, correcting “it’s so such a different” to

“appears different”. He demonstrates that within the dominant paradigm, space is

growing to recognise and protect Indigenous ecological knowledge. Arguably,


61

recognition of Indigenous ecological knowledge is easy because it is closer to nature-

culture colonial and Orientalist discourses. A more progressive move would be to

recognise the full extent of Indigenous epistemology - which includes not just

Connection to Country and knowledge of natural landscape - but the complex issues

of Indigenous sovereignty.

6.4 Ontological Pluralism: Reconfiguring Conceptual Building Blocks

Following my exploration of the dominance of white sovereignty and recognition of

Indigenous ecological knowledge, below I argue there are two aspects to consider for

reconfiguring the conceptual building blocks to move towards ontological pluralism;

ecological knowledge and political knowledge. Ontological pluralism does not

advocate for the replacement of one paradigm with another but to reconfigure the

conceptual building blocks of this partnership space and level the balance of power

across different epistemologies and ontologies. A beginning is to deconstruct

Western epistemology as ‘truth’.

The structure of management systems is underpinned by Western epistemology, the

dominance of which creates blockages to working in partnership, revealed in Chapter

Four. In the excerpt below Rick demonstrates the hold of whiteness where he cannot

see beyond the confine of Western epistemology although he searches for another

way;

Rick: It’s been something that’s been nagging away at me for quite a

while, like if I was going to, if I had my way totally [inaudible] to, I’d been

given let’s say a million dollars for the next five years how I’m going to

spend it, how I’m going to do it … if I was given all the same outcomes

and a million dollars [loud tap] but no no [tap tap tap] none of this divided

up into time frames, all this divided up into blocks of money over certain

periods, how would I go about it, I don’t know what the answer to that is.

What model am I going to use, if I’m not going to use a project

management model, what model am I going to use, and will that model

still achieve the outcomes that I’m looking for?


62

Rick struggles to identify a solution to difficulties posed by the tight

compartmentalisation of project management. He is required to manage this

partnership space, bound by his responsibility as an employee of the Government of

South Australia and under regulation of the funding stream from the Commonwealth.

Here, white sovereignty authorises the project management process while neglecting

notions of co-management and partnership. White hegemony presents a double bind;

1) Rick understands the world and his job through the lens of Western epistemology

and 2) he is bound by the white sovereignty of government authority. Rick questions

this authority and cannot find an answer. The unanswered question is a vacant space

which Rick desires to fill. I suggest this vacant space is one into which Aboriginal

people can speak. To sit in a space of white not-knowing is to resist the fall-back

position to solve other people’s problems and exercise entrepreneurialism,

characteristics of whiteness identified by Dyer (1997) and discussed in Chapter Five.

Within the confines of white sovereignty and Western epistemology some

participants demonstrate views pregnant with ontological pluralism, whereby

Western epistemology is seen as ‘cultural’ and not as truth. Common ground is found

where ontologies align, outlined below. Further to this I argue that ontological

pluralism goes beyond recognition or incorporation of Indigenous ecological

knowledge. Indigenous epistemology includes knowledge gained through Indigenous

hypervisibility of whiteness.

Participants exemplify how ontological pluralism occurs in simple ways, especially

regards scientific and ecological concepts. Rick talks of a significant site rich in

Aboriginal artefacts where “the contemporary science concurs with what the

Aboriginal accounts are of the history of that area”. Rick doesn’t do this in a way that

places scientific ‘discovery’ above Aboriginal knowledge passed on through


63

generations. Rick’s telling of the tale recounts that the Aboriginal knowledge comes

first, science came later and that both methods of knowledge share the same

conclusion. There are deeper relationships to be found between science and

indigeneity. Aaron points to scientists creating meaningful relationships with the

natural world which borrow from indigeneity.

Aaron: I think as non-Indigenous people there’s elements of that

connection so if you’re a fish biologist you probably love trout or love

Murray Cod, you’d probably do anything you could to ensure that they

don’t become extinct, you know you’d lobby and make sure that there’s

habitat available for them and all that sort of stuff and in a way you pretend

potentially that they’re your totem, you have that similar sort of

relationship but it probably doesn’t go to the extent that that could be your

great-grandmother and so you have that really close family relationship

and personal love relationship with it as well so um yeah there, there’s a

lot of similarities but there’s also those differences

Joe mentions that being quiet and observant in new situations helped him settle into

living in a remote Aboriginal community. He attributes this partly to personality and

partly to his science background – to observe and understand rather than assume,

likening science to observation. Jonnie speaks of science as observation and parallels

this with Indigenous knowledge as observation. In addition Jonnie speaks of Western

science as a cultural construct rather than the bearer of truth;

Jonnie: I think Western science is definitely a cultural construct, but in that

I try to look at the similarities between the two instead of the differences

and I think science comes from this really, observation perspective and

[Indigenous] cultural knowledge is definitely done from an observational

perspective as well. It’s like this institute, understanding of this group,

your surroundings, simply because you’ve experienced it for so many

years and that experience has been passed on over generations. So from a

scientific perspective I just see that really as a massive amount of data and

you create or you behave accordingly based on that data you’ve collected

over the years and that data’s collected through observation and that’s what

science does. I think as a scientist you’re not afforded that amount of time

to actually collect your data and build that knowledge base. So in that I

think science can kinda borrow from that knowledge base. The struggle I

think comes from when science is a written [pause] it’s a written thing and

you need to have those records and verify your data and all that kinda jazz

whereas traditional knowledges, it’s an orative culture so it’s all passed

down, it’s all up in the mind. And then there’s lots of places where there’s

translation of that data from your mind to somebody else and there’s


64

differences in interpretation along the way there. So while it exists I think

that scientists would look at it and go mm the integrity of that data is

compromised, but it’s not, it works

The above quotes demonstrate a critical awareness of Western epistemology as a

cultural construct. On equal footing, commonalities are found between both Western

and Indigenous ways of acquiring knowledge, levelling the ontological playing field.

Under the stronghold of State authority this is a difficult task. Jonnie concedes that

this is “a really tough space” to work in and generating pragmatic procedures to

incorporate Aboriginal knowledges into DEWNR projects “is hard, from both sides.”

Ben decisively chose to tell me the story below rather than discuss protecting

Indigenous ecological knowledge. He critically reflects upon the difficulty of

fostering ontological pluralism under a system bound by white sovereignty;

Ben: the one that was really apparent to me, I work a lot in land

management um so it’s it’s these two different ontologies [emphasis

added] around what effective land management is, so you know a big part

of my last job was around burning so and and there’s been a lot of work

done on Aboriginal traditional Aboriginal burning practices um so the

government really wanted to see traditional burning practices being used

and demonstrated and put up in the media and displayed as a positive thing

that Aboriginal people have got to contribute [pause] and yet part of my

reporting requirement was to, at the end of the year to report on x amount

of hectares burnt, so you know it was just this kinda you know, the the x

amount of hectares burnt as opposed to traditional burning practices were

at complete loggerheads with each other, they just didn’t and couldn’t fit

and um and that constant conversation between the scientists, the

government bureaucrats and then the Indigenous folk who had knowledge

around fire management now that was a particularly hard one to find a

middle ground on so yeah, I think that was an interesting example

Ben’s narrative highlights how combining these two ontologies is problematic

because white authority acknowledges only a slice of Indigenous epistemology.

White sovereignty is attempting to include and promote Indigenous traditional

ecological knowledge while maintaining authority over the political and systemic


65

frameworks operating under Western epistemology which demands quantification.

Government disallows the fullness of Indigenous epistemology by attempting to fold

a slice of Indigenous ecological knowledge into a Western framework.

As stated in Chapter One, Indigenous people have always expressed their political

voice. Chapter Two outlined the tripartite composition of Indigenous epistemology;

physical world, human world and spiritual world (Foley, 2003). Indigenous

ecological knowledge is one slice of this epistemology, the physical world.

Knowledge of the human world includes the contemporary human world, and

Indigenous hypervisibility of whiteness, in relationships and human created systems,

which is seldom incorporated into management structures in this partnership space.

Aaron and Rick critically reflect upon the insights they have gained in that the

Aboriginal people they work with have an astute political awareness;

Aaron: Aboriginal organisations have to go for a whole different range of

um options say if they wanna keep themselves running a whole range of

different ah grants or funding opportunities they’ve got to liaise with a

whole range of different people and I think they’ve got really much better

insights in how bringing all those things together um ahh so coordinating

things ahh how you negotiate and work different parts of the network to

progress things and I think a lot of non-Indigenous people are quite blasé

to that sort of thing um anyway I have been anyway but it’s interesting to

see how an Aboriginal organisation works that, you know looks at the key

networks, looks at how they join together, looks at what you’d need to

bring them together um like in an agreement making sense, bind that and

to start working it, the NRA has thought about that a lot and they’re, I

guess they’re working working that strategy on the state and it’s really an

interesting, interesting thing to see um because a a lot of non-Indigenous

people don’t actually have to think about that

Rick: if you go and talk to an Aboriginal group they’re very really switched

on about those kind of things [political rights], now how they’ve arrived at

that position is, I don’t really know what it is, I can speculate but I don’t

know for sure why they’ve arrived at that point of view


66

As explored in Chapter Four and Five, DEWNR staff have power to move beyond

critical awareness and deconstruct whiteness in self and systems. However,

Sovereignty is an issue of State authority which makes it difficult for DEWNR

workers to resist and challenge the power of whiteness.

6.5 Conclusion

The above argues that whiteness operates within the political landscape of DEWNR

Aboriginal Partnerships by relegating Aboriginal ownership as traditional and thus

past. DEWNR as a government department is developing processes to protect

Indigenous ecological knowledge, however this is a ‘baby step’ considering the

recognition of Indigenous ecological knowledge fits beneath Orientalist and colonial

discourses that conflate Aboriginality with nature-culture. The stronghold of white

sovereignty and Western epistemology thwarts ontological pluralism, which is

required in this partnership space. White sovereignty, backed by Western

epistemology, regulates the structures of this co-management partnership, and more

complex issues of sovereignty are overlooked.


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7 Conclusion

In exploring how whiteness frames and shapes the perspectives of non-Indigenous

employees of DEWNR Aboriginal partnerships I have shown that participants

reproduce and deconstruct whiteness in nuanced ways. Firstly, regarding systems, I

have argued that participants are critically aware of structural inequalities around

wage-labour, capacity building, timeframes and governance structures. Participants

demonstrate a willingness to overcome inequalities and make moves to resist

unbalanced systems in this partnership space. However the fall-back position of

whiteness remains a stronghold especially when Aboriginal people are viewed as ‘the

problem’ and Western systems are normalised or seen as the only way of operating.

Secondly, within the chapter on self, participants simultaneously reproduce and

deconstruct whiteness. Discourses of individuality (and the forms of centred

invisibility that this produces) make whiteness difficult to see and I argue there is a

need to move beyond awareness and make deliberate effort to interrogate the self; to

reverse the gaze and rewrite discourse. Thirdly, participants clearly see the authority

of white sovereignty and they have little room to move to resist whiteness at this

level. The privileging of Western epistemology remains strong yet is being shifted in

the field of NRM by 1) incorporating and protecting traditional Indigenous

ecological knowledge and 2) as seeing Western science as a cultural construct,

moving towards ontological pluralism - where conceptual building blocks are

reconfigured and equaled. However, acknowledging Indigenous ecological

knowledge is an easy ‘baby step’ when ‘traditional’ is conflated with a colonial

nature-culture view of Aboriginality – a view which neglects the expanse of

Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies that includes other forms of Indigenous

knowledges in the contemporary human world of management and politics. This


68

reveals a gap for further research enquiry as Indigenous standpoints in this

partnership space have not been included in this thesis.

As shown in the Introduction to this thesis, “white man’s law” continues to exert

power over Indigenous lives despite the fact that DEWNR’s Reconciliation Action

Plan espouses that staff will develop better awareness of Aboriginality. I argue that

what is required in this partnership space is to match this growing awareness of

Aboriginality with an awareness of whiteness in systems, self and sovereignty.

Producing discourse can begin with government documents such as DEWNR’s

Reconciliation Action Plan to include self-awareness on the part of non-Indigenous

staff and be accompanied by practitioner guidelines that provide practical examples

for reversing the gaze and resisting oppressive systems in the everyday. In addition

to understanding their Indigenous partners, there need is for white people to further

examine themselves and their culture, and acquire the necessary tools to be

empowered and take action to deconstruct whiteness.

The perspectives of these critically aware participants have demonstrated useful

strategies for deconstructing whiteness in the everyday; beyond awareness, beyond

theory and knowledge, and into political action. Further work in the sociology of race

can build on this to unpack and deconstruct whiteness – in order to identify how

people realistically and practically reverse the gaze and resist the Western

epistemologies that underpin systems. This will be beneficial for multi-disciplinary

fields where Indigenous and non-Indigenous people work together in the contact

zone.


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8 Appendices


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8.1 Appendix 1 - Interview Schedule

1. Can you briefly explain what your work with Aboriginal partnerships entails?

How long have you been doing this?

2. What’s your personal background in understanding Aboriginal culture and

history prior to doing this work? E.g. what did you learn at school or what

stories did you hear when growing up?

3. What Aboriginal cultural training have you undertaken through your work?

a. Was there something that you realised about yourself that changed your

thoughts and behaviour with Aboriginal people?

4. Can you tell me of a time when heard yourself think something about

Aboriginal people and then realise it to be a myth? E.g the time when I heard

myself think ‘what’s she doing in that nice car?’

5. Can you tell me of a time when an Aboriginal person has told you off or

corrected you about something to do with their culture, history or social myths?

a. How did that make you feel?

b. What did you realise about yourself?

6. Has an Aboriginal person ever said to you “You white fellas are all the same”?

a. What was that about?

b. What did you think at the time when that happened?

c. Did you reflect upon it afterwards?

7. What challenges have you personally faced in working with Aboriginal

partnerships with regards to Aboriginal knowledge and sovereignty?

8. What do you think other non-Indigenous people need to understand about

themselves and mainstream Australian culture in order to better relate to

Aboriginal people?

9. Can you identify a persistent problem that occurs between non-Indigenous

people and Aboriginal people working in government partnerships?

10. How would you like to see the culture within government change in order to

create more meaningful relationships with Aboriginal people?

11. Is there anything else you would like to add?


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