INDIGENOUS
Indigenous issues
Aboriginal women and leadership in the Academy Frances Wyld University of South Australia
T
he Aboriginal woman as sovereign survives the colonising structures through determined struggle, raw pain, thoughtful strategy, diplomatic negotiations, resistance, resourcefulness, a use of black humour and a culturally confirmed sense of location in this land and through the practise of long-held spiritual beliefs. (Bunda 2007:78) This article is dedicated to the many Indigenous women who provide leadership in tertiary education, in particular Tracey Bunda, Nereda White, Bronwyn Fredericks and all the Tiddas (sisters) who support each through the hard times with humour and understanding. In 2006, Tracey Bunda and Nereda White won an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) grant to hold a series of residential workshops for Indigenous women titled Tiddas Showin’ Up, Talkin’ Up and Puttin’ Up: Indigenous Women and Educational leadership (Bunda and White 2009). Overall four workshops were held and I was lucky enough to attend three of them. Nereda White and Bronwyn Fredericks were successful in winning an ALTC grant this year to hold another workshop titled Tiddas Writin’ Up: Indigenous Women and Educational Leadership, which I also attended. I want to speak to my workshop experiences, the reasons for why such events are needed and why I am still struggling to put what I learnt into practice. 14
frontline
vol.18, September 2010
Indigenous women in the Academy not only want to succeed (and survive) in a colonised structure they also want to follow traditional protocol as a study by Nereda White affirms: Although they [Indigenous women] acknowledged that being colonized had disrupted traditional forms of leadership and that it was not possible ‘to turn back time’, the women believed that we could learn much from ‘the old ways’. (White 2010:22). It is really important for Indigenous women to take leadership not just for themselves but to impart a better understanding to all Australians about the first culture of Australia. The Tiddas workshops were an empowering process that I couldn’t wait to put in to practice back at my university. In a previous Frontline, Bronwyn Fredericks (2009a) talked about the difficulties that Indigenous women endure and I have experienced much of this myself as an Indigenous academic. She has also outlined examples of how we are treated in some of her other writings (see Fredericks 2009b; 2011).