Why should Indigenous peoples have anything to do with the western research system and who gets to decide?

Abstract

Recently, the Australian federal government has made several pivotal decisions that will impact Aboriginal research in the Australian context. In research, views of pedagogy, methodology, epistemology, ontology, axiology, impact, governance, and sovereignty continue to privilege and be viewed through a Eurocentric lens. This chapter discusses how Aboriginal Peoples are continually colonised and recolonised in Western research systems. We argue that whilst taking part in Western research processes, we must continue to explain, educate, re-explain, and re-educate the validity of our custodial research ethic and Aboriginal ways of valuing, knowing, doing, and being. Western research systems continue to ignore and silence our autonomy, sovereignty, and self-determination regarding our research practices, thus adding to our workload, time, energy, allostatic burden, and cultural load as Aboriginal researchers. As Aboriginal People and women, we are under-represented in these systems and continually have to pretzel ourselves to fit into a system that, for us, is broken but working for more privileged peoples (usually white and men). We contend the colonial system is working as it was designed to work - a set of systemically racist and violent processes aimed at silencing and eliminating Aboriginal women in the academy. In this chapter, we suggest some more equitable and inclusive ways forward for meaningful decolonisation and de-Westernisation in the academy and the implications this may have for social work in Australia. © The Editors and Contributing Authors Severally 2025. All rights reserved