Hi Dom,

My wife's nephew :) My father-in-law and Lester's grandfather were brothers.

Do you mean this:

"INTERNATIONALISATION OF AN INDIGENOUS ANTICOLONIAL
CULTURAL CRITIQUE OF RESEARCH
METHODOLOGIES: A GUIDE TO INDIGENIST RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY AND ITS PRINCIPLES."

Have you tried reading it ? It's a masterpiece of Indigenist postmodernism, quite brilliant in its own way. And what did it actually say ? Anything substantial ? I couldn't tell. Perhaps you could enlighten us :)

Anything else in those years since 1999 ? I know there are a number of theses exploring 'Whiteness" and colonialism, but not too many exploring domestic violence, the impacts of lifelong welfare, addictions, diabetes rates, how to get people to eat decent food and get some exercise, that sort of thing. But I live in hope.

Joe

The job of a professor is, generally, to carry out research and teach. If they can solve real world problems, that is a bonus. Some of the professors I know are working on combating global warming, providing low cost education on-line, working out what type of submarines Australia should buy, helping design Microsoft's next search engine and protecting Australia from cyber-war.

Applying innovation to the real world is not something which comes naturally, or is normally part of a university eduction. From January 2015 I am teaching the Australian Computer Society's "New Technology Alignment" (NTA) on-line postgraduate course. This is offered directly by ACS and through Open Universities Australia: http://www.acs.org.au/professional-development/cpe-program/subject-enrolment/event-details?eveID=60301789929193

In August I met Philippe Kruchten at UBC Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Universality of British Colombia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. UBC's "New Venture Design" course (APSC 486), has engineering and business students learn to produce a business plan for a product. The students are encouraged to enter a innovation competition or program as part of the course. After looking at courses on innovation in Canberra, I created "Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship in Technology" which can be undertaken by students as a special topic: http://cecs.anu.edu.au/projects/pid/0000001104

Hi Tom,

Yes, there have been some inspirational professors and lecturers at universities over the years. From fifty-odd years ago, I recall John Buxton, a brilliant lecturer at Western Teachers' College here in Adelaide - killed in a Moscow air crash in about 1968. Lovely man, clear, articulate, his lectures packed with information and ideas.

At Flinders, I had some wonderful lecturers, Graeme Hugo in Demography, Judy Kapferer in Education, Lionel Orchard in Politics - the key factor seems to have been their willingness to engage students in tutes, to quickly grasp where they were coming from and guide them further.

There are lecturers and even professors who you never forget. They give you an enthusiasm for lifelong learning in the best sense.

Joe

Joe, an example of recent research on indigenous issues is Bielefeld (2014) on the government's income management policy.

To find research papers there is a specialized Google Scholar search. For example, you can find about 10,000 documents using the phrase "Indigenous research": http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=%22Indigenous+research%22

Note that Google Scholar only finds formally published academic work. So, for example, my blog posts about indigenous education are not included: http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/search/label/Indigenous%20education

Reference

Bielefeld, S. (2014). Compulsory Income Management and Indigenous Peoples—Exploring Counter Narratives Amidst Colonial Constructions of ‘Vulnerability’, 36(4), 695-726. from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2536692

Hi Tom,

I'm certainly not saying that there is no research or commentaries on Indigenous issues, simply that there isn't a hell of a lot of it written by Indigenous researchers. That was my point :) Why do the hundreds of Indigenous academics doing 'Indigenous research' NOT doing research into Indigenous issues ? Crucial issues ? Why is that left up to non-Indigenous researchers ?

My perception is that new Indigenous staff at universities really want to do something for their people, but something happens and they start to focus on just their career prospects, and for many, that means doing 'research'. It seems that many seem to perceive that that means something esoteric, obscure, deeply meaningful but to be honest, pretty useless. That seems to be the perception of what it means to be an academic researcher: obscure, deep, esoteric, ultimately not only obscure but simply a new way to say what has already been said many times before.

My field of interest, my obsession, is mainly the fortunes of Indigenous students, MASS Indigenous tertiary education, and the implications of that for the advancement and benefit of Indigenous people. I don't really care about the people who want to stay on lifelong welfare, only on those Indigenous people who want to put some effort into their education and future ability to contribute. If some people want to stay unemployed, hustle their grandmothers and aunties and hit the piss, that's up to them: they don't have to, so many other Indigenous people have made that effort and it will be them who make a difference, not the skivers. Of course, I care about their children, but there's not a hell of a lot I can do about that. Again, that's up to those parents and the 'elders'.

So in my mind, there is a great deal that Indigenous academics could be doing, but aren't. I hope I'm wrong, I really do :)

Joe

Joe, I searched for "indigenous researcher" at Australian academic websites and found about 900 documents, including schemes to encourage indigenous researchers, plus papers and presentations by indigenous researchers. This suggests there is at least some work in this area: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22indigenous+researcher%22+site%3Aedu.au

Research can be useful. In particular, "action research" allows the researcher to be involved in what they are researching, being an agent for change, rather than a passive observer.

It is not my area of work, but for an education course I did do a short study of education in remote communities in Northern Australia earlier in the year and produced a short blog version of some of the results: "Blended Multi-lingual Schools for All Australians": http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2014/03/blended-multi-lingual-schools-for-all.html