AustLit

'This article problematises settler colonial theory and critical whiteness studies and their role in supporting advocacy scholarship, or scholarship purporting to uphold Indigenous political aspirations. It examines the conceptual reliance of these paradigms on binarised, orthodox representations of Indigeneity and the role of these representations in supporting particular “pro-Indigenous” political priorities, such as decolonisation. By way of example, a retrospective engagement with Sarah Maddison’s Beyond White Guilt: The Real Challenge for Black–White Relations in Australia is offered. I argue that this text’s representation of all non-Indigenous people as “white” and “guilty” perpetrators constructs Indigenous people as “black” and (by implication) “innocent” victims. The circumscription of Indigeneity delimits the terms by which Indigenous people can articulate their interests in the dialogue proffered as evidence of decolonisation, thus rendering the dialogue a monologue. Underscoring the power of this monologue, a Métis critique of Indigenous cultural-nationalist anti-colonial movements is called upon to argue that those who employ orthodox representations of Indigeneity put their commitment to an ideological position above a negotiation of alternatives. Consequently, the task of theorising decolonisation is diminished, and those we seek to support in our scholarship remain marginalised in our representations of them.' (Publication abstract) 

'Based on interviews with 31 non-Indigenous Australians during 2015–2017, this article argues that there is no “typical” non-Indigenous Australian way of talking and thinking about Indigenous Australia. Rather, a more plausible reading of our data is that non-Indigenous Australians are experiencing, in a self-aware and cautious way, the ascendancy of the idea that the Indigenous/non-Indigenous distinction is culturally, morally and politically significant. While interviewees varied in their views about Indigenous difference, their awareness that Indigeneity poses relatively new and compelling questions for Australians was evident in their reflexive ways of talking, as they took up a position in (what they evoked or implied as) a field of non-Indigenous opinion. We propose a model of the orthodoxy that defines this field. Reviewing previous research on non-Indigenous Australians’ everyday attitudes and opinions about Indigenous Australians, we seek to replace accounts that postulate non-Indigenous thinking as a singular edifice. We present popular discourse as the self-aware taking of positions, in known or imagined fields of opinion.' (Publication abstract)

'Positive stories of 19th-century settler–Aboriginal interaction are not generally known or widely referred to by current generations of Australians. Focusing on stories of “the Blacks’ camp” told by descendants of early South Australian settler George Cameron, and information about Aboriginal people published in local written histories, this article demonstrates how a settler-colonial historical epistemology frames and structures settler-descendants’ historical consciousness. By excluding positive stories that contain the potential to disrupt common understandings regarding the outcome of colonisation, this epistemology hinders a deeper understanding of Australia's colonial past and, ultimately, postcolonial future.' (Publication abstract)

'In Reel Men, Chelsea Barnett provides an original interpretation of films of the fifties, that screened different understandings of Australian masculinity, when men felt the responsibilities of breadwinner, father and husband that were not easy to disentangle or reconcile. It is part of Barnett’s innovative approach to argue that films that dealt with Australian personalities, histories and settings conveyed Australian meanings, even when they were co-produced with British or American cinema companies.' (Introduction)

'For the last 30 years, we have been warned that there is a crisis with boys' reading skills. This is usually located within a larger panic about the perceived decline in general academic skills amongst boys. This again often mutates into conservative jeremiads against the “war on boys”, where natural masculinity is being drained away by an ill-defined but nevertheless pervasive conspiracy against clear gender roles. The way to get boys reading again, so these observers argue, is to reintroduce them to “manly” tomes such as Kipling's Captains Courageous, Twain's Huck Finn and Hinton's The Outsiders. As Troy Potter's Books for Boys notes, even governmental agencies are forced into proposing reading matter which it is presumed will interest typical boys—action, mystery, fantasy and detective fiction are mentioned (3). Dealing with the perceived crisis inevitably becomes a policing of gender roles and these genres develop a reciprocal relationship with the reader, both responding to and producing masculinity norms. Problems emerge, however, when these books promote masculine ideals that are white, able-bodied, heterosexual and working class.' (Introduction)