Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T01:12:11.960Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Wilful Character of Indigenous Educational Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2017

David Bright Open the ORCID record for David Bright [Opens in a new window]  and
Elizabeth Mackinlay
David Bright*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia
Elizabeth Mackinlay
Affiliation:
School of Education, The University of Queensland, St Lucia 4072, Queensland, Australia
*
address for correspondence: David Bright, Faculty of Education, Building 6, 29 Ancora Imparo Way, Monash University, Clayton 3800, Australia. Email: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

In her recent work, Sara Ahmed explores wilfulness as a negative charge made by some against others, thinking about the relationship between ill will and good will, the particular and the general, and the embeddedness of will in a political and cultural landscape. In Ahmed's reading, wilfulness is a characteristic often ascribed to those who do ‘not will the reproduction of the whole’ (2011, p. 246) — those who are deemed wayward, wandering, and/or deviant. Using Ahmed's discussions, in this paper, we report on the successes and failures of a research project exploring mentoring programs in enhancing the recruitment and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander preservice teachers. We think about the tensions always present between two faces of such a project: the need to reproduce modes of compliance to the expectations of a Western academic institutional regime; and the wilful pursuit of the kinds of wayward resistance and critique that may be potentially undermining and self-sabotaging as well as wholly necessary as attempts at decoloniality. We report on both the successes of the program and the continuing failure to address issues of colonialism. In doing so, we position Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research as a performative doubleness which needs wilfulness in order to ‘stand up, to stand against the world’ (Ahmed, 2011, p. 250) of colonial reproduction in neo-liberal times.

Keywords

ColonialitydecolonialityIndigenous educationmentoringSara Ahmedwilfulness
Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , December 2018 , pp. 92 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmed, S. (2007). A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory, 8 (2), 149–168.Google Scholar
Ahmed, S. (2011). Willful parts: Problem characters or the problem of character. New Literary History, 42 (2), 231–253. doi: 10.1353/nlh.2011.0019.Google Scholar
Ahmed, S. (2012). Whiteness and the general will: Diversity work as willful work. philoSOPHIA, 2 (1), 1–20.Google Scholar
Cixous, H. (1979). Vivre l'orange/To live the orange. Paris, France: Des Femmes.Google Scholar
Darwin, A. (2000). Critical reflections on mentoring in work settings. Adult Education Quarterly, 50 (3), 197–211. doi: 10.1177/07417130022087008.Google Scholar
Grosfoguel, R. (2013). The structure of knowledge in Westernised universities: Epistemic racism/sexism and the four genocides/epistemicides of the long 16th century. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 11 (1), 73–90.Google Scholar
hooks, b. (2004). The will to change: Men, masculinity, and love. New York, NY: Washington Square Press.Google Scholar
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2008). Against war. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Mathews, P. (2003). Academic mentoring: Enhancing the use of scarce resources. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 31 (3), 313–334. doi: 10.1177/0263211x03031003007.Google Scholar
Mellor, S., & Corrigan, M. (2004). The case for change: A review of contemporary research on Indigenous education outcomes. Camberwell, Victoria: Australian Council for Educational Research.Google Scholar
Mignolo, W. (2011). The darker side of Western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA). (2010). Aboriginal and torres strait islander education action plan 2010–2014. Carlton South, Victoria: MCEECDYA.Google Scholar
Pascal, B. (2003). Pensées (Trotter, W. F., Trans.). New York, NY: Dover.Google Scholar
Patton, W., Lee Hong, A., Lampert, J., Burnett, B., & Anderson, J. (2012). Report into the retention and graduation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students enrolled in initial teacher education. Adelaide, SA: More Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Teachers Initiative, University of South Australia.Google Scholar
Reynolds, H., & Hodder, N. (1999). This whispering in our hearts. Enfield, NSW: Royal Blind Society.Google Scholar
Rousseau, J.-J. (1911). Émile (Foxley, B., Trans.). London, England: J. M. Dent and Sons.Google Scholar
Thomas, N., Bystydzienski, J., & Desai, A. (2015). Changing institutional culture through peer mentoring of women STEM faculty. Innovative Higher Education, 40 (2), 143–157. doi: 10.1007/s10755-014-9300-9.Google Scholar
Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1 (1), 1–40. Retrieved from http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/18630.Google Scholar