Journal of Sociology

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(Re)presenting Indigeneity: The possibilities of Australian sociology

Kathleen Butler-McIlwraith
Journal of Sociology 2006 42: 369
DOI: 10.1177/1440783306069994

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(Re)presenting Indigeneity
The possibilities of Australian
sociology
Kathleen Butler-McIlwraith
University of Newcastle, NSW

Abstract
Recent calls for sociology to develop a greater engagement with Indigenous
issues provide a unique opportunity to enfranchise Indigenous peoples voices
and experiences in both the discipline and the mainstream academy. In this
article I seek to establish a position that reflects my understandings of the
Indigenous lived experience and its expression within sociology, simultaneously recognizing and challenging the way in which these understandings are
shaped by discourses of both Western hegemony and marginality.
Keywords: Indigenous peoples, marginality, sociology

The study of Indigenous people in Australia is a staple of the discipline of

anthropology within academic, bureaucratic and juridical domains. In
contrast, sociological attention has been sporadic at best, ranging from
the early interest of sociological founding fathers, such as Durkheim, to the
contemporary descriptive statistical portrait of Indigenous disadvantage
found in introductory sociology texts. The call to address the marginality of
Indigenous issues in Australian sociology provides new possibilities for
the development of a dialogue between those historically enfranchised in
the discipline and Indigenous peoples [and knowledges] that have traditionally been marginalized in the mainstream academy.
In considering these possibilities, this article uses an approach that can
be categorized as phenomenological and auto-ethnographic. I present my
own journey, as an Indigenous academic, to recognition of the value of sociology for connecting with Indigenous social phenomena. While these
approaches are sometimes considered academically problematic, this
approach is consistent with Indigenous epistemologies that stress the need
for individuals to contextualize their engagement with the academy in terms
Journal of Sociology 2006 The Australian Sociological Association, Volume 42(4): 369381
DOI:10.1177/1440783306069994 www.sagepublications.com

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370 Journal of Sociology 42(4)

of their lived experiences in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous domains

(Kelly, 2005). The article also seeks to demonstrate the constraints and
liberations encountered by an Indigenous academic in attempting to engage
with sociology. In telling my own story I aim to facilitate dialogue within
Indigenous academic spheres and between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
scholars.

Unearthing the Indigenous sociological possibilities

My own journey towards sociological understandings has been circuitous.
I do not categorize myself as a sociologist, but do fit within Gans perspective of a sociologist as somebody trained in sociological methods or has
some training in related disciplines, particularly anthropology (Skrbis and
Germov, 2004: 290). My undergraduate and postgraduate studies required
an engagement with sociological and anthropological literature based on
both the theory and practice of the respective disciplines. I gained much
from the sociological perspectives on critically analysing inequality and the
emancipatory possibilities of a praxis-based approach. I was disenchanted,
however, by the limited sociological attention given to Indigenous
Australians despite the fact that we feature so prominently as the most disadvantaged cohort on all key socio-economic indicators. It is both surprising and disturbing that, despite my early recognition of this imbalance in
the early 1990s, it is only very recently that the literature has begun to comment on the Indigenous absence from Australian sociology (Cooke, 2005;
Pyett and Walter, 2004; Skrbis and Germov, 2004; Willis and Broom,
2004). Given this sociological exclusion of the Indigenous, anthropology,
which was actively engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
political struggle via Land Rights, seemed more relevant to my own studies.
This engagement with anthropology, however, was not unproblematic.
While anthropology is steeped in a self-identified colonial past (Cowlishaw,
1992), I reasoned that transformative action from within might facilitate
Indigenous empowerment in a number of domains.
I did not expect to remain within the university after my degree. Even
when I attained a lecturing position within a Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, I did not categorize myself as a lecturer I was an anthropologist in training. My gaze was turned firmly outwards and teaching was
a means to hone the skills that would take me into the field; to do ethnography; to be immersed in my discipline; and eventually to be involved in
Native Title work. The lectures adhered to a conservative framework,
where I was the talking head out the front. A White male colleague had
developed my first course and I reproduced the readings that had been part
of his teaching. The readings focused on moieties, Western desert art, spirituality and northern land rights. While there was some attempt to juxtapose the traditional with the contemporary, there was nothing on urban

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Butler-McIlwraith: (Re)presenting Indigeneity 371

Indigenous life and Marcia Langton (1993) was the sole Indigenous inclusion to course literature. Tutorials, too, were uneventful, where we were all
distanced from the material. After all, the Aborigines depicted in the text
were as much the Other to me as they were to my predominantly White
education students.
At the same time I was required to conduct sociology tutorials. Here I
noted that the interplay between the literature and the students lived experience (and mine too) was far more dynamic. In class, and in their written
submissions, many students demonstrated that they could articulate the
sociological relevance of the course to their real life. I realized, that in my
eagerness to do anthropology properly, I had been teaching anthropology
in a manner that was merely reproducing Western patriarchal hegemony
(Cowlishaw, 1992). I had fallen into the trap of co-option, where, as Lynes
articulates the better a student one is, the better one is able to master the
subjugators language, the more likely one is to be mistaken for one of those
your efforts are designed to resist (2002: 1046). In contrast, I could see that
the sociology tutorials operated along a far less restrictive framework,
where the institutional and discursive silences on Indigenous people unwittingly created a space for me to exploit. More critically, because there were
no entrenched pedagogical frameworks on contemporary Aboriginality I
was able to blend sociology and anthropology into a paradigm reflecting
my understanding of the urban Indigenous cultures that students would
come in contact with later, as teachers.
The opportunity to include urban Aboriginality was particularly satisfying. The recognition of creativity and innovation that underlies the wider
analysis of city life is denied to Aborigines, ignoring the tremendous structural innovations that emerged from the Aboriginal urban context. For
example, the Aboriginal medical and legal services, the educational developments from early childhood in the Murrawina pre-school, to the higher
educational institutions of Tranby and Eora (Howie-Willis, 1994a, 1994b,
1994c: 3423, 734, 1099) and the cultural developments such as the
Aboriginal and Islander Dance Theatre, and broadcasting on the ABC and
SBS (Howie-Willis, 1994a: 1718) are all significant representations of the
urban Indigenous experience. The considerable Aboriginal sporting achievement especially in football and boxing (Tatz and Tatz, 1996), and political
and social developments that linked disparate Aboriginal people under a
pan-Aboriginal agenda, are also part of this new Indigenous terrain.1
Thus, the urban context is an area where sociology has the potential to
provide socially just representations of contemporary Indigenous people
consistent with the frameworks of urban structural analysis extant within
the discipline. Further, it transcends the traditional/urban dichotomy that
has worked to the disadvantage of urban Aboriginal people. Examining the
urban experience through the lens of sociology created insights, not only
into scholarship, but also of personal epiphany I lived in the field.

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372 Journal of Sociology 42(4)

Suddenly I had a new perspective, new concepts and a new language to recognize and name the discomfort that I had experienced engaging with
anthropology. I could see that I had been inculcated to believe that cultural
study was only relevant if mediated through the institution, which in practice was only another way of continuing to colonize.

The challenges of sociology for the Indigenous

scholar
Engaging with the sociological, however, is not without its own challenges
and controversies. Within the academy, the urban/traditional bifurcation
has already been utilized to dismiss Indigenous critique. In the infamous
BellHuggins debate, Bell identified her detractors as urban activists, juxtaposing their knowledge to that of her traditional collaborator (Pettman,
1992: 129). Within this dichotomy, urban Aboriginal people are seen to
have departed from a particular Western conception of the purity of tribal
life, its unity in space and time, and its natural authority rooted in the
Dreamtime (Kapferer, 1988: 142). As a consequence, urban Aboriginality
tends to figure primarily as an example of urban pathology, with high rates
of criminality, appalling health standards and low educational and employment outcomes arising from the combination of poverty and racism. While
the remote-area Aborigines are presented as having similar poor social and
economic indicators, they are still lauded for their authenticity, and seen as
being in touch with their connectedness to Dreaming. In contrast, the
cityscape is often depicted as the urban wilderness where the spiritually
bereft and dispossessed fail to negotiate the demands of modernity Black
apparitions whose presence then ironically becomes a signifier of danger to
the (White) Australian Self.
Nakata (2004: 12) suggests a useful way to consider our [Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islanders] relationship to the corpus of knowledge circumscribed by Western systems of thought. We need to know, he argues:
[W]hat does this knowledge mean for us and what do I have to know about it to
understand where I am situated in relation to it, how it positions me and how I
might position myself to engage with it in my own interests or on my own terms.
(2004: 12)

Asking myself these questions led me to consider what, ultimately, was my

role as an Indigenous academic? Was it to provide students with a textually
based, disciplinarily pure means of analysing the Other? How could the
educational politics I have been practising as discrete from the academy
inform my pedagogical practice? Because of its tradition of challenges and
critique of the contemporary milieu, sociology provides me with a vehicle
for a more appropriate approach. And the process of reflexivity suggested

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Butler-McIlwraith: (Re)presenting Indigeneity 373

by Nakata has similarities with feminist perspectives stressing a critical

appraisal of ones own life (Pettman, 1996).
I realized that my own Indigenous knowledge was a valid and valuable
part of my teaching practice. When discussing Aboriginal missions,2 I talk
about my own experience of visiting my family on missions and the mission
stories that are part of our oral history. On the topic of land rights, I had
been on the committee of a land council, lived in the local area and witnessed the racism that was directed towards land council initiatives. I personally viewed certain sites as sacred, spoke Aboriginal English at home
and had attended conferences that placed the Indigenous experience in an
international context. I had first-hand knowledge of Aboriginal education
in schools, as a student, and in professional and advisory capacities. I had
been employed by the Department of School Education in a number of contexts, and held an executive position for several years on the Regional
Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG). Yet, despite all this
unique first-hand experience, I had devalued myself on the basis of collegial
comments because I hadnt done any fieldwork and immersed myself in
community while adhering to a disciplinary perspective! Thus, feminist
sociology, coupled with Indigenous epistemology, provided a valuable key
for me to create a new professional persona.
It is not only within sociology itself that Indigenous academics must
struggle to find a place. Stereotypes and resultant structural patterns from
within and without the university also create obstacles to be overcome. For
example, the vast majority of Indigenous academic staff are currently
employed within Indigenous-specific units (UNSW, 2004). These units function as important centres for Indigenous student support and cultural life,
and educate non-Indigenous students and staff on Aboriginal issues. But they
also frequently marginalize their Indigenous staff from mainstream academia
and the institution. Physical marginalization ripples into a marginalization of
Indigenous knowledge and culture within the institutions agenda.
Choosing to locate oneself in the mainstream, however, or even within
the university system, is difficult for Indigenous people. Although
Indigenous graduates tend to be lauded within the mainstream and generally supported, sometimes dissenting, hostile voices from our own communities can limit the range of options perceived as being open to us. The
following quotes from Parente et al.s (2003: 15) recent work on Indigenous
student aspirations exemplifies the nature of such restrictions:
I got bashed by me own mob cause I want to go to uni. They accuse me of thinking Im too good for em.
If ya get good grades then ya get called an uptown nigger ...
Me aunt told me that I shouldnt go to uni because they will only turn me into a
coconut [Black on the outside and White on the inside] and no one would want
me to come back.

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374 Journal of Sociology 42(4)

For Indigenous academics the challenges of reconciling our academic roles

with our Indigenous identity are also often problematic. Our roles are
fraught with concerns around our engagement with scholarship and the
consequent risk of the loss of the Indigenous cultural self. For example,
Indigenous American activist, Russell Means vitriolically refers to those he
deems traitors and sell-outs, a category in which he includes Indigenous
university students and academics. He tempers this assertion only slightly
by acknowledging that there may be some who remain dedicated to their
culture but who are confused on how to proceed (Lynes, 2002: 10436).
This prescriptive perspective of a commitment to scholarship being
premised on confusion at best, and a refutation of cultural identity at worst,
means we are constantly engaged in defending our position, not only to
others but also to ourselves. My own response is that the task is not
confusing, but necessarily requires deliberation, because the terrain, both
cultural and political, that we are negotiating is constantly shifting. When I
engage with sociology I do not want to replicate its elements of Whiteness.
Yet at the same time my sociological work has meant, if not an adoption,
at least an accommodation with dominant cultural values and practices
(Lynes, 2002; 1046). Even as I attempt to temper these, I recognize that the
act of critique itself means that Western knowledge is engaged.
I also need to anticipate that my work will be rejected by some
Indigenous commentators as politically contaminated (Monhanram,
1999: 186), by its inclusion of sociological knowledge. Yet I also draw
inspiration from many Indigenous authors, who amaze me with the depth
of their scholarship and their courage to challenge orthodoxies. I am not
constructing a position here that negates the possibility of others developing Indigenous pedagogies or theories based on an exclusionary model, but
I am saying these do not have the scope to adequately address all the issues
I wish to discuss. As Smith argues, multiply formed oppressions need to be
responded to [by] multiply formed resistance strategies (1999: 12). When I
approach sociology I am not strictly a Marxist and I do not slavishly repeat
Foucault, but critically, cautiously approach their work. What I have developed through my engagement with these writers, and those who have
developed their work, is a syncretic understanding that refuses to be contained within one cultural tradition. In this, I am attracted by McGees
(2001) description of Jurgen Habermas:
He is a voracious reader of anything and everything connected to the enterprise
of social inquiry. And he is quite unabashed in confessing to piracy not the sort
of thievery we condemn as plagiarism, of course, but the bold, imaginative
appropriation of parts of theories that strike his fancy and suit his needs. If
taking things out of context were the great crime scholars sometimes pretend,
we would never cross the artificial barriers of the disciplines, we would not crosspollinate our practices with fresh insights from the outside, and we would be
the poorer for our condemnation of Habermass ingenious pilfering.

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Butler-McIlwraith: (Re)presenting Indigeneity 375

In this way, I would like to think that my scholarship is modelled on

Habermass intellectual marauding, in that it provides an exploration across
disciplines, incorporating those elements that are relevant to the aims of this
work. There is no essentialized demarcation of an externally determined
appropriate literature based on the authors racial positioning, although
this may be a factor in framing my analysis. I therefore do not make a
claim for the universal inclusion of Western knowledge but caution that
rejecting a discipline, such as sociology, simply because it emerges from a
Western tradition does not advance the cause of critical thinking. Rather,
it simply inverts the binary by privileging the marginal and dismissing
the mainstream.

An Indigenous critique of sociology

Sociology, like anthropology, also has a discipline history in relation to
Indigenous peoples, and Indigenous Australians, that must be acknowledged before it re-negotiates the relationship. Consistent with many
Western disciplines that rose to prominence in the 19th and early 20th centuries, sociologists examined emerging anthropological data on Aboriginal
Australians for its potential to shed light on the origins of man, a quest
with undeniably Darwinian overtones (Hiatt, 1996). Emile Durkheims
Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1971) represents the most useful
example of this because of its influence at the time of publication and its
continued currency in modern sociology internationally. Connell (2005)
comments Durkheim sets up his analysis like a chemist choosing the ideal
laboratory conditions for a crucial experiment (p. 6). At the same time,
acknowledging Durkheims prejudice, Connell tempers this criticism by
asserting that it takes a very sophisticated form. Others however have
argued the Australian data were introduced simply to illustrate
Durkheims theories, rather than the theories being constructed or adopted
to account for the data (Jones, 1986). Indeed, within Australian anthropology, Durkheims work is regarded by some as misguided, particularly
after the devastating critique provided by the influential W.E.H. Stanner
(Charlesworth, 1998: xv).
When I look at Durkheims work, two things strike me that might be
considered more emotive than academic. The first is a deeply held revulsion
for the discourses that considered the creation of hierarchies of culture a
valid intellectual enterprise. Second, I remain distressed when I see contemporary sociologists discussing Durkheims work and using terms such as
primitive and less advanced (Jones, 1986) with regard to Aboriginal
people without deconstructing the implicit racism of the enterprise and the
jargon. While, for Connell (2005), the sophistication of Durkheims writing
allows it to transcend the crude racism of others, as a member of the

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376 Journal of Sociology 42(4)

colonized I cannot see the ameliorating effects of scholarship on racist

conclusions. In fact, I deplore it all the more because it emerges from
the academy and as such retains a legitimacy now denied to the common
public expression of racism. I would argue then, that in attempting to guard
against the contemporary imposition of this discursive hegemony, sociology
needs to first engage in rigorous reflection on the interrelationship between
fledgling sociology and anthropology, and their combined role in constructing Indigenous Australians in ways that supported policies that underpinned widespread dislocation, alienation and impoverishment.
Further, I want to challenge the potential for the emerging debate in
Australian sociology to be premised on what Bain Attwood terms
Aboriginalism. Based on Saids model of Orientalism, Attwood comments
that:
Aboriginalism in the Australian context disempowers Aborigines because they
are made into an object of knowledge over which European Australians, as the
dispensers of truth about their needs and requirements, gain control.
Aboriginalism can, moreover, be seen to have produced the reality it has imagined by influencing government policies and practices ... racialising the aboriginal [sic] social body and so making Aborigines of the indigenous [sic]
population. (1992: ii)

This is consistent with the philosophical inheritance of Durkheims hierarchies, whereby the objectified Aboriginal subject is scrutinized in ways
that attempt to maximize difference from the White Australian self. Skin
colour, location, language, spirituality and the performance of these on
demand to a White audience, be they tourist, judiciary or teacher, all act as
markers of authenticity (Brady, 2000).
A common thread in the critiques offered by other Indigenous academics to Western orthodoxies is that many Indigenous people operate
multiple subject positions with regard to Indigenous identity. This phenomena of differing positions according to race was described in sociological literature as early as 1903, by the first African-American sociologist
W.E.B. Du Bois who coined the phrase double-consciousness, which he
described as follows:
... the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with a
second sight in this American world a world which yields him no true selfconsciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other
world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always
looking at ones self through the eyes of others, of measuring ones soul by a tape
of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. (1970: 3)

I would argue that Australian Indigenous peoples experiences could also be

reflected in the development of double-consciousnesses. It is often necessary
to manifest intellectual forms that conform to the dictates of the academy,
but I would argue that Indigenous perspectives often baffle the outsider in

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Butler-McIlwraith: (Re)presenting Indigeneity 377

their non-sanctioned difference. This also often acts as a trigger for the
overt (re)emergence of fear and hostility or rejection and denial. Du Bois
metaphor of the veil is also useful in explaining the intersection of
Indigenous and non-Indigenous frames of reference, for the veil serves to
affect the vision of both the observer and the wearer. The White gaze,
attempting to render everything visible and known, is thwarted by the veil,
which obscures and sometimes totally negates observation (see Fanon, cited
in Monhanram, 1999: 64).
Similarly, to be behind the veil offers the individual a different perspective on the world outside, seeing through the peculiar lens of the colonized
(Cliff, cited in Marinara, 2003; 151). The aim of increasing:
... an understanding of the political and social realities of those on the cultural
margins asks us to explore contradictions, not as a static, essential difference, but
as a critical difference the changing shapes of differences both between and
within so that we dont just act as cartographers, locating the spaces and gaps
on the social landscape, but rather work to interrogate those gaps and construct
new meanings. (Marinara, 2003: 151).

Moreover, while the veil is sometimes worn through outside influence or

coercion, it may also be voluntarily adopted for the specific purpose of
facilitating distance and difference.3 Thus there is the potential for the veil
to be either oppressive or emancipatory, depending on context. This is an
apt metaphor for the tension felt by Indigenous academics in trying to negotiate mainstream disciplines.
I believe that rigorous sociological inquiry on Indigenous issues may
offer an insight into aspects from behind the veil. I emphasize, however,
that through my participation with sociology I am not attempting to justify my right to claim an Indigenous identity, nor am I trying to rip aside
the veil to expose those who I term my people to an external cultural
legitimation; this does not rest within the disciplines domain of power.
Further, I reserve the right to revise my position in recognition that this is
not, and should not be, a static process. My position will likely undergo
change as a response to new life experiences and reflections on these
(Pettman, 1996: 107).
Further, if a new sociological tradition in Australia is developed that
encourages a dialogue with Indigenous people, protocols need to be established. One that I believe should be given primacy is the need for this dialogue to feature a face-to-face interaction rather than a reliance on textual
dialogue only. The reasons that necessitate this are complex and speak
as much to rectifying the ethnocentrism evidenced at the inception of
the discipline, to creating an anti-colonial framework as central to
the contemporary sociological theoretical and methodological impetus. A
problematic element of the textual debate that is a feature of academic
life is that many non-Indigenous academics are now able to utilize the

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378 Journal of Sociology 42(4)

autobiographical work of Indigenous people to provide the raw data for

their analysis. This represents but a small shift from the founding fathers
using ethnographic data gathered by anthropologists. It is not debate.
Most Indigenous autobiographies have not been written within the confines of the academy, nor was the academy the target audience. Indeed,
Indigenous autobiographies can serve as emotive examples, juxtaposed to
the rational theoretical frameworks of the mainstream. This risks perpetuating an ethnocentric division expressed by August Comte. Comte
posits the existence of three great human facilities, intelligence, action and
feeling, and he declares that each of the three great races, White, Yellow
and Black, has uncontested superiority in one of these faculties. Whites
are most intelligent, Yellows work hardest, Blacks are the champions of
feeling (Macey, 2000: 185).
I remain wary that Indigenous critiques of sociology will be received
harshly, as has been the case in other academic domains. Indigenous academics from Kevin Gilbert to Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2002: 11314)
have been criticized and dismissed for the vehemence of their response to a
White academy that presumes to know about Indigenous people. Many
Indigenous academics remain peripheral to the academy, other than in the
position of the ubiquitous guest lecturer the reserve army of labour for
White academics to selectively include in order to handle the contentious
obligatory Indigenous inclusion. In attempting to overcome Indigenous
boundaries, some non-Indigenous academics have initiated collaborative
research and found this to be as much, if not more, problematic than individual engagement. In critically considering the collaborative process,
Scherrers and Solomon (2000: 130) comment: [W]e need to consider ways
in which we can participate collaboratively and at the same time use
research to extend understandings about the tensions and contestation
around the construction of knowledge.

Conclusion
Like anthropologists and feminist scholars, sociologists, fond of seeing
themselves as part of a positive transformative tradition, may find that they
have been observed with far more rigour from the periphery than they have
shown in gazing outwards towards the Indigenous. It must be stressed that
there are no simple answers to achieving an inclusive sociological body and
the Indigenous desire to participate may well run the full gamut from a
resounding No to an eager Yes. Nevertheless, I would suggest that those
currently enfranchised in the discipline should give some consideration to
what a dialogue between the centre and periphery will entail. Is the centre
willing to become more inclusive, or are Indigenous knowledges to remain
the appendices to White thought?

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Butler-McIlwraith: (Re)presenting Indigeneity 379

Notes
1 I use examples here from Sydney, consistent with Dr Bob Morgans perspective
that stresses to Kooris the essential ingredients for true justice and equality:
pride and dignity based on a profound sense of Kooriness and an unseverable tie
with our previous generations (cited in Miller, 1985: xiii). My Kooriness leads
me to privilege examples from New South Wales, particularly those areas in
which my family have lived.
2 Aboriginal missions is used here to refer to settlements established by both
Church and state under the guise of protecting Indigenous people. It is argued
by some that, rather than fulfilling this function, they were actually constituted
to facilitate the destruction of Indigenous cultures and to provide slave labour to
White capitalist enterprises (Kidd, 1997: 60). My great-grandparents Archie
Russell and Mary (Ping) Russell were placed on Karuah Mission, north of
Newcastle, New South Wales.
3 While I can see the relevance of the veil as a metaphor for the experience of
racism, I recognize that it also has gendered and racialized specificity. I am not
trying here to appropriate the experience of Islamic women or to indulge in
Orientalist clichs (Degabriele, 1992).

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Butler-McIlwraith: (Re)presenting Indigeneity 381

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Biographical note:
Kathleen Butler-McIlwraith is currently an Associate Lecturer in the School
of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle. She
belongs to the Worimi and Bundjalung people of coastal New South Wales.
Sections of this article were written during a secondment as a Research
Academic to Umulliko Indigenous Higher Education Centre, also at the
University of Newcastle. Address: School of Humanities, Ourimbah
Campus, University of Newcastle, Brush Road, Ourimbah, NSW 2258,
Australia. [email: Kathleen.Butler@newcastle.edu.au]

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