The politics of representation: Australian aboriginal women and feminism

Intersectional Race and Gender Analyses: Why Legal Processes Just Don't Get It

“…In particular, the lawyers who were interviewed said it was up to Indigenous women to voice their concerns and that it was not up to non-Indigenous people to 'be going off and saying "this is how Aboriginal women should be doing this"' (Face-to-face interview with NIFL27, 7 May 2003). This was influenced by debates that were raging in academic circles at the time regarding who should speak for Indigenous women (see in particular, Bell and Nelson, 1989;Bell, 1990;Larbalestier, 1990). Although one of the female lawyers admitted that the sentiment might have been misguided, she said that at the time they thought that if Indigenous women wanted to raise the problem of family violence, they would, and they would do so in a manner in which they felt comfortable; 'but it is not for us to be imposing our .…”

Whose (Im)moral rent gap?

“…It clearly identified an unspoken reality about researchers and who should best represent such issues (and not be included as a secondary voice)—in short, the centre of this debate was a politics of representation. As (Larbalestier 1990: 146) noted at the time, whilst,Bell's concern for the conditions of existence of Aboriginal women in the Northern Territory is not in doubt nor at issue … [w]hat is at issue is the way in which that concern is raised … that the focus of the article is not so much on the issue of intra-racial rape, as it is on the appropriateness of the theory and practice … and [the] moral responsibility … to discuss such issues. At least twelve Aboriginal women challenged Bell's right to do so.…”

Globalizing Feminist Ethics

“…This article exposed astronomical rates of violence and rape, including frequent gang‐rape, committed by Aboriginal men against Aboriginal women. The truth of the allegations was undisputed, but some Aboriginal women objected that it was inappropriate for this topic to be broached by a white woman, even in collaboration with an Aborigine (Bell and Nelson 1989; Larbalestier 1990; Bell 1990, 1991a, 1991b; Klein 1991; Huggins et al 1991; Nelson 1991). Closing some debates and excluding some topics from some people's intervention seem to run entirely counter to the ideal of free and open discussion as that has been understood in Western moral philosophy.…”

“…The views of feminists with professional credentials would likely be taken as authoritative, especially if they were published in scholarly journals, where authors are positioned as experts and those studied become “informants” whose opinions are merely data for expert analysis. One critic of the white Australian anthropologist Diane Bell observed that even though Bell's controversial article was officially co‐authored with an Aboriginal woman, Topsy Napurrula Nelson, Nelson's words were placed in italics framed by Bell's prose, a device that distinguished Nelson's input from “the dominant White voice controlling the shape and tone of the academic text” (Larbalestier 1990, 147).…”