`Whiteness' and `Aboriginality' in Canada and Australia

Abstract

In writing about `whiteness' we are trying to enact a `way of talking' that draws in part on Aboriginal ideas about how to conduct a conversation or tell a story. We also use Homi Bhabha's ideas of `third space' (an `interruptive, interrogative, and enunciative' space) and hybridity as a related way to think through the problems of essentializing binaries and rigid identities. In Aboriginal cultures in Australia and Canada, rather than adopting the `neutral' or `objective' stance common in the academy, it is customary to introduce oneself to one's audience, providing a context to assist in interpretation and exchange. Without such an introduction, real stories cannot be told and productive conversations cannot happen. We thus begin our conversation with each other and with you by examining our personal relationship to the idea of whiteness in order to reveal some of its complexity in Canada and Australia. `Whiteness' as an abstraction has proved useful in moving the invisible norm to visibility, but we show how an awareness of `whiteness' in the two locations can be recuperated to re-privilege the already privileged. Aboriginal speakers and writers have theorized `whiteness', in many cases from outside the academy, in the process `hybridizing' traditional genres. For many of them, Aboriginality, like whiteness, is a construct that often stands in the way of thinking clearly about where to go next in the fight against racism.

Responding to Racialization Through Arts Practice: The Case of Participatory Theater

“…Within countries such as Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, different authors have highlighted the need to examine the taken for granted power, privilege, and normativity attached to whiteness in institutional, organizational, and everyday settings (Fee & Russell, 2007;Frankenberg, 1993;Green, Sonn, & Matsebula, 2007;Moreton-Robinson, 2004;Smith, 2012;Tascón, 2008). Many have shown how, as a settler colony, a legacy of Anglo privilege and cultural dominance (Forrest & Dunn, 2010) continues to inform national identity and belonging, shaping constructions of who belongs and who does not within Australia (Green et al, 2007;Hage, 2000).…”

Mapping Whiteness and Coloniality in the Human Service Field: Possibilities for a Praxis of Social Justice in Child and Youth Care

“…A willingness to question normalizing discourses in regard to learning and appropriate social behaviour is of particular relevance for CYC and human service practitioners as "much of the current research that underlies policy and evidence-based practice remains Euro-Western in its subject matter and methodological orientation" (de Finney, Green, & Brown, 2009, p. 161). Fee and Russell (2007) note that, as Canada does not have the same overt history of slavery and violent racialized conflicts as the United States, many Canadians believe they are race-neutral. This presents additional challenges for raising awareness and engaging people in dialogue about the embedded nature of white privilege and white values in Canadian society.…”

Experiencing and writing Indigeneity, rurality and gender: Australian reflections

“…In conversations with each other about our work we have reflected on our understanding and practice of diversity and found that we had, in many ways, avoided undertaking Indigenous research. 7 There is 4 Fee and Russell (2007) note that until recently 'whiteness studies' centred on American concerns, but that in Australia Hage (1998) and Stratton (1998) drew on whiteness studies in their respective books White Nation and Race Daze. However, they argue that 'the most prominent Australian proponent and critic of whiteness theory and studies is Aileen Moreton-Robinson' (Fee and Russell, 2007, p. 202).…”

“…111-125) and Moreton-Robinson (2003b) for an illuminating critique of the entire episode. A parallel debate has also occurred in relation to white feminist author/editor Margaret Somerville's Life (Hi)Story Writing: the Relationship Between Talk and Text (1991) in which the writer explores her role in relation to the production of a number of books produced with Indigenous Australian women (see Grossman, 1998Grossman, , 2001Fee and Russell, 2007 for an elaboration on this debate). 9 See Fitzgerald (2004) for a discussion of the connections between feminist and Indigenous research methodologies.…”