On tokenism and white people writing about indigenous peoples

Two weeks ago, the Australian Parliament held an event to show its official institutional support for the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution. A link to a short video of the event is here, and contains brief glimpses of indigenous individuals speaking about their hopes and aspirations for the recognition process. Is this tokenism? Well, to a certain extent, it is. Most of the people that appear on this video are both indigenous and part of a “white-person-relatable” middle class. Which begs the question: why should their views matter, if they are to a certain extent assimilated (and, therefore, no longer “truly” indigenous)?

For one, there is no such thing as “truly” indigenous. Just like there is no such thing as “authentic” culture or cultural heritage. To think of indigeneity, or culture more broadly, in terms of authenticity implies a degree of essentialization that, to be quite honest, is counterproductive at its best, and plain evil at its worst. Allow me to explain that a bit further: by allowing people to be divided along lines of “authentic” and “non-authentic”, one necessarily creates the other, thereby playing into the hands of the racist policies one should be countering. Identity is not, by any standard, a watertight category, it is fluid, constantly evolving, multi-faceted. The fact that, back in the 1980s, Sandra Lovelace, and indigenous woman from Canada, got married to a white man, meant she lost her indigeneity, for legal purposes. Is that the way things should go? The UN Human Rights Committee said “no” back then, and it is surprising that things have not changed that much in the past 30 years, despite that forceful statement about identity not depending on one single factor, and one facet of identity not meaning the exclusion of others. But I digress.

Back to tokenism in the Australian process, the second reason why those peoples’ opinions should matter is precisely because, as Aboriginal peoples who got, for one reason or another, to be part of both worlds (the Aboriginal and the settler society), they are in a better place to mediate tensions, to understand both languages, to be themselves the catalysts for this important change. Without their presence, the whole process might be jeopardized simply by the inability to find a common language, or by finding a shadow of a common language that is plain condescending and paternalistic (reminiscent of early indigenous recognition processes in many Latin American constitutions).

So, these participants in the process are at least every bit as important as the “real” Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, if not more so. This in turn relates to one of Sarah’s recent posts, about her place as a white person writing about indigenous issues. While I am in the same position (a non-indigenous person wildly interested in indigenous issues), and I am very careful not to essentialize, not to be paternalistic, and not to assume that I can any way fully comprehend the depth of the indigenous experience (just as I don’t think indigenous individuals can fully grasp the non-indigenous experience), I think my attempts at it are valid, precisely because of this “bridge” capacity of my interventions (however modest). Plus, it is by trying to step into one’s shoes that we develop empathy, something that is clearly in short supply in so many areas of human activity.

Written by Lucas Lixinski.

Tokenism and the Purpose of Academic Research on Indigenous Issues: More Questions than Answers

Where are we going??

At the beginning of this blog, I posted about some of the concerns I have on writing about indigenous issues because I am not indigenous. There are many pratfalls to be avoided in writing about indigenous issues as an outsider—at least in my mind. There is the need to avoid missionary zeal, the cloak of a rescuer, of suggesting that indigenous peoples lack a voice or that the voice of an outsider has more relevance, insight or knowledge. Some days I question whether it is appropriate to blog and research on indigenous issues at all, with those clouds of unease circling constantly. I try to be mindful of the pratfalls. There seems to be a surge in academic interest in indigenous issues. Is this a good thing? In many ways, I would think so, and yet that in itself perhaps comes laden with dangers and pratfalls. I wonder sometimes if indigenous issues have simply become a very fashionable subject for academic inquiry, in the way that other international law issues have come and gone based on the latest international instrument to be created or the latest political conundrum or conflict. The rise and fall in the popularity of topics no doubt could be traced around those parameters. At some point, something else will grab the collective attention of academia, researchers will swarm off to the next big topic, and indigenous issues will no longer perhaps have its current popularity.

But indigenous issues were around long before they became of interest in mainstream academia and no doubt they will be around long after. More to the point, indigenous peoples were around long before and will be around long after, and to what degree does academic inquiry and attention harm or help? Or does academic attention matter at all? It has been suggested in many places that the only people who read academic articles are other academics as they create their own articles—a sort of system of taking in each other’s washing. What is the value of academic writing on indigenous issues? What ought it strive to be?

To what extent should non-indigenous writing on indigenous issues be inclusive of indigenous voice? Does this simply become tokenism, or is it something that adds to the meaning and relevance of the work? Today, I have many questions, and not many answers.