Beware Restorative Justice Advocates Bearing Gifts: A Commentary on the Glorification of Family Group Conferencing

The following is a commentary on the glorification of the family group conference (FGC) forum, motivated by a reading of Carolyn Henwood and Stephen Stratford's book A Gift to the World: The Youth Justice Family Group Conference, published by The Henwood Trust (2014).

Introduction

Thus planetarised, or globalised in a strictly geographical sense, by this uprooting at the same time as they are de-particularised by the effect of false rupture effected by conceptualisation, these commonplaced of the great new global vulgate that endless media repetition progressively transforms into universal common sense manage in the end to make one forget that they have their roots in the complex and controversial realities of a particular historical society, now tacitly constituted as model for every other and as a yardstick for all things.

                                                                                Bourdieu and Wacqaunt (1999: 42).

The quote from Bourdieu and Wacquant came to me part way through my first reading of Carolyn Henwood and Stephen Stratford’s offering A Gift to the World: The Youth Justice Family Group Conference.  The sentiments expressed in the quote neatly summarise their stance on the purpose of the FGC forum, and the place they believe it has in New Zealand’s youth justice system  In short, Henwood and Stratford’s text represents a recent edition to the growing lexicon that is providing the ideological fuel that has been driving the globalisation of the FGC forum since the mid-1990s (see Richards, 2007; Tauri, 2014).  I will return to the links between the quote and the book under review later, but first I wish to provide a brief overview of the focus and aims of the book.

The Aims of ‘A Gift to the World’

Early on, the authors of A Gift to the World make it clear that the book is intended as a celebration of the FGC forum, a justice process they believe “can be a life-changing process for all involved and for New Zealand” (Henwood and Stratford, 2014: vii). The aims of Henwood and Stratford’s book are fairly straightforward: a) to provide a detailed description of how FGC’s ‘work’ (as in the process and the impact of the forums); b) give voice to the experiences of youth, their family members and professionals involved in the process, and c) challenge a number of ‘myths’ associated with the forum, including that it is “an indigenous, Maori response to offending”, that “ it is a soft [sentencing] option”, and that it “doesn’t work” to reduce crime (ibid: 85).

To achieve these aims the author’s utilise a combination of methods including analysis of FGC plans, and interviews with participants and justice practitioners.  This material was in turn used to construct seven case studies that are employed to inform the reader of the types of offences, offenders, victims and families an FGC forum can deal with, and the sorts of ‘outcomes’ the process leads to.  While the case studies appear to have been purposely selected to provide positive stories about FGC practice, nevertheless they represent one of its key strengths by providing critics and advocates alike with detailed descriptions of the FGC process that has till now been largely absent from the literature. 

I wish now to return briefly to the quote from Bourdieu and Wacquant that introduced this piece, before I launch into the substantive commentary:  This quote came to mind because the Henwood and Stratford present the FGC forum as a gift not just for New Zealander's, but to the world.  It is true the forum has been uprooted and planitarised; transferred across and into numerous jurisdictions over the past two decades.  It has been globalised to such an extent that advocates readily describe it as one of the most innovative and popular justice products developed during the 20^th century (Maxwell, 2008).  Policy makers and advocates alike wax lyrical about the crime reduction potentialities of the forum, and the ability of practitioners to create communities of concern that can work together to find meaningful ways of restoring social harmony, whilst holding youth offenders accountable for their behaviour (see Cary, 2000; Consedine, 1995; Zehr, 2002). 

However, in some instances advocates, including Henwood and Stratford, make such claims largely in the absence of empirical evidence derived from critical engagement with population groups most often impacted by the practice of the forum; including Maori in New Zealand, and Indigenous peoples residing in settler-colonial jurisdictions into which it has been transferred (Tauri, 2014).  In doing so, advocates create supposed ‘common sense’ understandings of the purpose and impact of the forum that “make one forget that they have their roots in the complex and controversial realities of a particular historical society” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999; 42).  What is often written out of the history of the FGC forum and similar interventions (such as Sentencing Circles), is the fact that it was introduced at a time when it was commonplace for policy workers in settler-colonial jurisdictions to respond to Indigenous justice ‘issues’ by creating and/or importing indigenised justice forums that utilised ‘acceptable’ (meaning civilised) elements of Indigenous cultural practice.  Often shaded from view, is the part played by interventions like the FGC in the settler-colonial states multi-pronged strategy for blocking Indigenous attempts to attain a measure of jurisdictional autonomy (Lee, 1997; Tauri, 2004; Victor, 2007). 

FGC Advocacy and the Silencing of  the Critical Indigenous Perspective

Like many academics, upon receiving a new book or journal article that falls within my research interests primary areas of research - driven as much by a concern that the material reflect the Indigenous experience as to replenish my  ego - I turn to the bibliography to see if the authors have engaged meaningfully with the work of critical scholars.  For example, when reading a text that claims to offer an in-depth discussion of myths associated with the FGC, one can reasonably expect to find that the authors have engaged with the work of Shad Maruna, Chris Cunneen, Kelly Richards, to mention but a few.  Similarly, it is eminently reasonable to expect that when an author claims that their book or article on the FGC forum engages with Maori/Indigenous ‘issues’, to find the work of Wenona Victor, Harry Blagg, Chris Cunneen, Gloria Lee and myself, given a dismissive mention in a footnote at the very least.  Tellingly, none of the critical Indigenous material appears to have been on the reading list of the authors when they were contemplating writing ‘A Gift to the World’. 

A ‘Gift to the World’ suffers from one of the common weaknesses the FGC-related advocacy literature; namely that research and critical perspectives of Indigenous scholars, practitioners and community members is largely missing.  Instead, ‘expert’ commentary on issues of importance to Indigenous peoples is almost entirely based on the views and experiences of middle class justice professionals,  While members of this group have a right to be heard, one can also reasonably argue that they have a significant stake in presenting the forum in the best possible light. 

What is largely missing ‘A Gift to the World’ is the critical lived experiences of Maori/Pacifica professionals or participants whose experience of the forum have been less than positive, or that expose the mythology that sits behind many of the ‘truth claims’ of FGC advocates, such as the belief in the ability of the forum to accommodate any and all ‘difference’, be it based on class, gender, sexuality of ethnicity (more on this issue below).  As indicated above, it is no longer possible to contend that materials that report the negative experiences of Maori and Pacifica participants, or Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial jurisdictions that have imported the forum, are rare or difficult to source.  The work of Love (2002), Moyle (2013) and my own work (Tauri, 1998; 1999; 2004; 2014) on the New Zealand context, and Rudin, Lee, Victor, Cunneen and others I mention above who report on the experiences of Indigenous peoples in other jurisdictions, leaves little room for advocates to justify ignoring these perspectives. 

In failing to engage with the critical research and literature, the authors create an interesting contradiction, in that they end up lending weight to some of the myths they seek to discredit.  For example, on page 89 they attempt to debunk the myth that “the family group conference is an indigenous, Maori response to offending”.  Given that a lot of my own work in the FGC forum focuses on this issue, it was heartening to see that Henwood and Stratford were willing to tackle it head on.  Unfortunately their approach to this issue reinforces key issues identified earlier, including failing to engage meaningfully with the extant, critical literature, and an over-reliance on the views of justice practitioners.  Furthermore, their argument that while the FGC is not a Maori justice form, it nevertheless “promote[s] participation… by a young Maori who has offended” by offering Maori participants “the opportunity to have the conference in chosen familiar surroundings, including on marae (traditional meeting area) (Ibid: 89) is severely compromised by a lack of engagement with research that contradicts this position. 

A cursory glance at the critical literature and government sponsored reviews of the process demonstrates that Maori whanau and communities are rarely ‘offered’ the gift of holding FGC’s in “familiar surroundings” (see for example, Morris and Maxwell, 1993; Maxwell, Robertson, Kingi, Morris and Cunningham, 2004; and Tauri’s 2011 analysis of their research in demonstrating the failure of the implementation of the FGC to enhance Maori ability to ‘practice justice’).  The failure to critically engage with the relevant research underlines the importance of distinguishing between what advocates and policy makers claim to be the aims of particular interventions, and the actual outcomes that result from practice.  In this instance, practice does not match the rhetoric that the FGC is a forum that offers Maori the opportunity to ‘lead’ the justice systems response to  the offending of their own (Tauri, 2014). 

Another key myth of the FGC supported by the authors of ‘A Gift to the World’, is that the forum responds easily to the cultural values and practices of diverse ethnic groups.  On pages 15-20 the authors replicate the oft-told myth of the forums ability to accommodate any and all ‘cultures’.  In comparison, a number of Indigenous and critical non-Indigenous scholars argue that the forum is more accurately described as a Eurocentric, standardised youth justice process that utilises fragments of Indigenous cultural practice others, but does little to empower us (see Blagg, 1997, 1998; Cunneen, 1997, 2002; Lee, 1997; Moyle, 2013; Tauri, (1998; 1999; 2004; 2014) and Victor, 2007).  I employ the term ‘standardised’ to describe the FGC forum with intent, for it is one of the great self-deceptions of justice practitioners and policy makers in settler-colonial jurisdictions is that justice forums derived from western criminal justice and criminological paradigms, can work for everyone or anyone regardless of ‘race’, differences in social or historical context (Tauri, 2009). 

To add gravitas to their portrayal of the cultural flexibility of the forum, Henwood and Stratford (2014: 20) cite Judge Fred McElrea who claims that “[t]he family group conference model is receptive to different cultural influences and can accommodate indigenous, European, and immigrant cultures with little  difficulty”.  Unfortunately for Henwood, Stratford and Judge McElrea, critical literature that exposes the diversity of Maori experiences (and of Indigenous peoples in other settler-colonial jurisdictions), says otherwise.  For example, what are we to make of the Judge’s comment in light of the experiences of Maori social work practitioners and whanau participants surveyed by Paora Moyle (2014; forthcoming) for her Masters and Doctoral research, who state that:

The family group conference is about as restorative as it is culturally sensitive... in the same way Pākehā [European] social workers believe they are competent enough to work with our people... Pākehā think they’re the natural ordinary community against which all other ethnicities are measured (participant 19).

In the FGC we were talking about how ‘Pākeha’ the caregiver training was when most kids in care are Māori.  The social worker said, “our training teaches all prospective parents how to be culturally sensitive... culture is important to us (to child protection) but the health and wellbeing of a child must come first.”  Like, being Māori is secondary, an add-on, or a choice!

And finally participant 21, a kaumatua (respected elder) who pointedly stated that:

CYF (Child Youth & Family) said I couldn’t attend the FGC because I wasn’t whānau [family].  But the whānau wanted a tikanga [philosophy] process and I was the kaumatua. Then the next week CYFs ring and ask me to attend a different FGC... talk about ‘dial a kaumatua.’

The material drawn from Moyle’s research demonstrates that the FGC forum does not always meet our specific cultural and social needs.  In particular, it highlights that in some instances justice officials actively work against whanau in ways that contradict claims that the forum responds to the needs of all ethnic groups with ‘little difficulty’. 

A Gift to the World?

If, as Henwood and Stratford infer in the title of their book, the FGC forum is New Zealand's ‘gift to the world’, then it would be a good idea to find out how it is being experienced ‘out there’.  And, being a critical Indigenous scholar and given  the propensity for RJ advocates to over egg the ‘Maoriness’ of the forum (see Richards, 2007), by ‘the world’ I am referring to indigenous individuals, communities and organisations residing in settler-colonial jurisdictions, and not members of the judiciary or government agencies, or FGC/RJ advocates motivated at least in part to ensure the forum is marketed as positively as possible (Tauri, 2014). 

For example, engaging with the critical work of the Stolo First Nation criminologist Dr Wenona Victor (2007) or the Cree scholar Gloria Lee (1999), reveals a world in which the cross-jurisdictional transfer of the forum is experienced less as a gift, and more as the imposition of a Eurocentric, standardised crime control process that impedes the development of Indigenous-led initiatives (Tauri, 2011).  Furthermore, engaging with the work of Kelly Richards (2007) reveals that the transfer of the FGC forum from New Zealand and Australia out to ‘the world’, was made possible in large part because policy makers and RJ advocates purposely exaggerated the Maori/Indigenous basis to the forum, especially to jurisdictions such as as the U.S and Canada that were also experiencing high level of Indigenous over-representation in the criminal justice system (see also Tauri, 2005; 2014). 

If the authors  of ‘A Gift to the World’ took time to engage with the critical research of Indigenous and our critical, non-Indigenous collaborators, they would find a world in which the FGC is a gift of the Trojan Horse variety.  They would find a world where once you dig through the thick veil of rhetoric about the cultural appropriateness of forums like the FGC, there lies a different reality.  They will find a situation where the forum is being experienced by some participants as an orientalised, state-dominated processes that has been imposed on Indigenous peoples, and impedes their attempts to develop responses to social harm based on their own cultural contexts (Tauri, 2004, Victor, 2007). 

Overall, the lack of attention given by the authors’ of ‘A Gift to the World’ to the range of experiences of Indigenous peoples of the FGC forum, detracts from the powerful stories revealed through the case studies.  In particular, the lack of attention to the negative impact the cross-jurisdictional transfer of the FGC has had on Indigenous people around the world, provokes me to conclude this commentary by paraphrasing a well known Indigenous dictum that underlines why Indigenous peoples should be wary of works that glorify the FGC forum: ‘Indigenous peoples everywhere, beware RJ advocates bearing gifts’. 

References

Blagg, H (1997) A Just Measure of Shame?  Aboriginal Youth and Conferencing in Australia, British Journal of Criminology, 37(4): 481-501.

Blagg, H (1998) Restorative Visions and Restorative Justice Practices: Conferencing, Ceremony and Reconciliation in Australia, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 10(1): 5-14.

Bourdieu, P and Wacquant, L (1999) On the Cunning of Imperialist Reason, Theory, Culture and Society, 16(1): 41-58. 

Cary, M (2000) Restorative Justice – A New Approach with Historical Roots: Corrections Retrospective 1959-1999.  St Paul: Minnesota Department of Corrections. 

Consedine, J (1995) Restorative Justice: Healing the Effects of Crime.  Wellington: Ploughshare Publishing.

Cunneen, C (1997) Community Conferencing and the Fiction of Indigenous Control.  The Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 30: 292-311.

Cunneen, C (2002) Restorative Justice and the Politics of Decolonisation, in E. Weitekamp and H. Kerner (Eds.), Restorative Justice: Theoretical Foundations.  Devon: Willan Publishing: 32-49.

Henwood, C and Stratford, S (2014) A Gift to the World: New Zealand’s Family Group Conference.  Wellington: Henwood Trust.

Lee, G (1997) The Newest Old Gem: Family Group Conferencing, Justice as Healing, 2(2): 1-3.

Love, C (2002) Maori Perspectives on Collaboration and Colonisation in Contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand Child and Family Welfare Policies and Practices, paper presented at the Policy and Partnerships Conference, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo.

Maxwell, G. (2008) Crossing Cultural Boundaries: Implementing Restorative Justice in International and Indigenous Contexts, Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, 11: 81-95.

Maxwell, G, Robertson, J, Kingi, V, Morris, A and Cunningham, C (2004) Achieving Effective Outcomes in Youth Justice.  Wellington: Ministry of Social Development. 

Morris, A. and Maxwell, G. (1993) Juvenile Justice in New Zealand: A New Paradigm, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 26(1): 72-90. 

Moyle, P (2013) From Family Group Conferencing to Whanau Ora: Maori Social Workers Talk about their Experiences, unpublished Masters thesis, Massey University.  

Moyle, P and Tauri, J (2015) Indigenous Peoples and the Mystifications of the Restorative Justice Movement, unpublished paper. 

Richards, K (2007) ‘Rewriting History’: Towards a Genealogy of ‘restorative justice’, unpublished PhD thesis. Penrith: University of Western Sydney.

Rudin, J (2003) Pushing Back – A Response to the Drive for the Standardisation of Restorative Justice Programmes in Canada, paper presented to The 6^th International Conference on Restorative Justice, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, 2 October. 

Tauri, J (1998) Family Group Conferencing: A Case-Study of the Indigenisation of New Zealand’s Justice System, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 10(2): 168-182.

Tauri, J (1999) Explaining Recent Innovations in New Zealand’s Criminal Justice System: Empowering Maori or Biculturalising the State, Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 32(2): 153-167.

Tauri, J (2004) Conferencing, Indigenisation and Orientalism: A Critical Commentary on Recent State Responses to Indigenous Offending (key note address), paper presented at Qwi: Qwelstom Gathering: ‘Bringing Justice Back to the People”, Mission, B.C, 22-24 March.

Tauri J (2009) An Indigenous Commentary on the Standardisation of Restorative Justice, Indigenous Policy Journal, 20(3), online.

Tauri, J (2011) Indigenous Perspectives (reconfigured chapter), in R. Walters and T. Bradley (Eds.), Introduction to Criminological Thought (2^nd ed.).  Auckland: Pearson Longman: 187-210.

Tauri, J (2014) Criminal Justice: A Colonial Project in Settler-Colonialism?  African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies, 8(1): 20-37.  

Victor, W (2007) Indigenous Justice: Clearing Space and Place for Indigenous Epistemologies, research paper for the National Centre for Indigenous peoples Governance. 

Zehr, H (2002) The Little Book of Restorative Justice.  Scottsdale (PA): Good Books. 

'I, Too, Am Auckland' and Racism in the Academy

In the past few weeks 3 video's have appeared on Facebook produced as part of a research project on racism in the academy.  Motivated by a project on racism in the U.S Academy called 'I, Too, Am Harvard', ' I, Too, Am Auckland' is a project undertaken by Maori and Pacifica students at the University of Auckland and guided by a member of the Department of Sociology, Dr David Mayeda.  The project also involved a number of Pacifica and Maori members of staff, some of whom appear in the third video that deals with perceptions of  targeted admission schemes. 

As someone currently researching the topic of racism within the Academy, and particularly within my discipline, criminology, the material produced by Dr Mayeda and his research team is a godsend.  To my knowledge, the project represents the first significant social science research on academic racism in Aotearoa/New Zealand; well at least one that goes out of its way to share the lived experiences of participants.  The videos that are embedded below provide details of the many and varied micro-aggressions utilised by racist assholes (my interpretation and expression, not those involved in the project!) to belittle and disempower their fellow students; descriptions enriched with the lived experiences of the participants. The decision to use video to transmit the experiences of participants was inspired as reading about them on the printed page, while important, does not have the same impact as being able to see people speak for themselves.    

One of the issues raised by participants was that academics were also responsible for behaviour they experienced as disempowering. This comes as no surprise to me, having experienced racist conduct at various points in my career, and having recently conducted research that involved Indigenous colleagues in New Zealand, Australia and North America recount numerous stories of racist, unethical conduct they had experienced during their time in the Academy.  But it does trouble me greatly that Maori and Pacifica students are also experiencing this type of behaviour from people who are meant to be working to create a safe environment for their learning.

The fact that students involved in 'I Too, Am Auckland' project reported experiencing disempowering conduct by academics, places recent statements by a spokesperson for the University of Auckland, in an interesting light.  On the weekend media asked for the University's response, which pretty much followed the standard, 'dot point', 'drag sh*t from the strategy document' response institutions rely on in the face of criticism or research that does not present the organisation in the positive light it prefers: the response was of the 'if racism occurs students should report it' and 'the University supports Maori and Pacifica students', etc, etc, kind... well for me the experiences of the students presented in the videos kinda makes these 'strategic statements' appear a little vacuous.

If the micro-aggressions and racist conduct are being perpetrated by staff, what are the chances that students will feel empowered enough, or safe enough, to report it?  After all, we are talking about students having to go up against the weight of an institution that, in my experience, will be hell bent on killing off the issue as quickly as possible.  And often 'killing off the issue' involves turning the problem back on the Maori or Pacifica student or academic, in a process that can involve a whole range of silencing strategies, from dismissives like 'you are being too sensitive' to 'your response was angry and/or aggressive'.  In other words, the focus moves from the racist act, to our response, or even (as reported by academics in my research) on the fact that we actually made a complaint, as in 'your complaint makes the institution look bad'! Seriously, this shit happens; I'm not making it up.

Anyway, back to 'I, Too, Am Auckland'.  There are so many things about the project and those involved in it to praise, including the fact that it provides further evidence of the widespread racism that occurs at academic institutions; grounded in the lived experiences of Maori and Pacifica students and academics.  But what I find most impressive is that the research took place at all given the increasing corporatisation of the tertiary education sector.  The neo-liberal education policies of recent governments have created tertiary institutions that are hyper-sensitive to research, publications and dialogue that throws anything less than a positive light on their business.  If you think about it, this situation is kind of funny given that so much of the research activity of said institutions involves critical analysis of a whole range of external institutions and their activities, including government agencies... but turn your critical gaze towards the universities themselves and sit back and watch the dummy fly across the room... but I digress: 

I am calling the research for what it is... bold, powerful and heartening. 

Bold - because it takes guts to stand up and be heard.

Powerful - because the methodology that drives the project empowers the participants to speak for themselves, thus ensuring their experiences and perspectives are the focus of the work, and not, as often occurs in academic research, mediated through the interpretative lens of an academic.  This is Indigenous Emancipatory Methodology, or Kaupapa Maori Research, or whatever term you prefer, at its best.

Heartening - because despite dealing with serious issues that can and do negatively impact Maori and Pacifica students, the project highlights a number of positives, including a) the aroha (love) and support the students give to each other, b) the depth of their strength and resilience in the face of adversity, and c) the commitment Maori and Pacifica (and no doubt some non-Maori and Pacifica) staff have to support them to succeed.

I am thankful to all those involved in the project for their wonderful, insightful work.  I am especially thankful to the students involved, and in awe of them, because if they are willing to stand up and speak out while they are STILL enrolled in their studies, given the power institutions can weld over them, just imagine what they will do when they graduate.  

Despite the racism and micro-aggressions, the students (clearly supported by Maori and Pacifica staff, and each other) are getting on with their mahi ('stuff') and succeeding.  Now imagine how much easier things would be if the White Privileged Academy got over itself, and responded meaningfully and with purpose, to the racist assholes that exist in its midst.  

The videos are inserted below:

The Death Penalty and the 'Bali 2'

Let me start by stating that I do not support the use of the death penalty as a response to crime.  The reasons for my position can be summarised as follows:

1. I find it difficult to trust the settler-colonial state to use the ultimate punishment against its citizens 'fairly', given its use of genocide against Indigenous peoples, and the propensity for the formal justice system to deploy state-sanctioned violence against the poor.
2. The state's exhortation that we 'shalt not kill' is contradicted somewhat when it gives itself the right to do so.
3. There is little evidence that the death penalty has a deterrent effect on serious offending. Research on the impact of the death penalty in the US has shown that in some of the states using this form of punishment over the past 2 decades, the rates of serious offending have either not changed or in fact increased.
4. Because the use of the ultimate, irreversible penalty requires that the 'system' be perfect.  And no justice system is perfect; not the various jurisdictions here in Australia (where I live), or New Zealand (where I grew up). These so-called 'civilised' systems of justice routinely get it wrong, as recent exoneration's demonstrate. The same can be said for the justice system of our neighbour, Indonesia.

Dominating media and political commentary right now is the possible execution of the Bali 2 Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. As a New Zealander living in Australia the massive amount of commentary on the situation has highlighted a number of interesting contradictions and patterns of behaviour on the part of Australians, particularly members of the mainstream media, political class and the much broader group of 'social commentators' (namely those who write letters to the editor or engage with talk back radio). A number of recurring 'themes' are present in a lot of their rhetoric on this issue, including:

Indonesia's justice system is barbaric

While Australia does not use the death penalty as a response to crime, it is nevertheless difficult for some international observers like myself to take seriously claims made by some Australian's that the Indonesian justice system is barbaric and uncivilised. After all, Australia is the country that incarcerates Indigenous peoples at higher rates than anyone else, and the upward trend is not, as some argue, related solely to increases in serious offending by Indigenous peoples (see discussion below). It is the jurisdiction that suspends the legislation giving all Australian's the same protections against racial discrimination so it can deploy discriminatory policies against the Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory. It is the jurisdiction where police corruption and racist practice has long been established via research and formal enquiries. It is the jurisdiction that currently avoids its international obligations by processing 'illegal immigrants', including children, in off-shore detention centres; not to mention imprisoning under-age Indonesian youth for people smuggling in contravention of international covenants against such practices. It is time that many Australian's woke up to the fact that your country's 'way of doing justice' is not viewed by some as the exemplar of western, civilised practice that you think it is.      

Australian's have contradictory attitudes towards the use of the death penalty

It appears that the majority of Australian's are opposed to Indonesia putting the Bali 2 to death by firing squad.  As someone opposed to the death penalty I am happy that this is the case. But I do wonder where all the anti-death penalty Australian's were when Indonesia used the death penalty against the Bali bombers back in 2008? At the time there were a few commentators, those consistently against the death penalty who expressed opposition to the executions on the grounds of their opposition being a moral absolute (see for example, the editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald, March 2015 and the 2 editorials that commentary refers to in the same newspaper back in 2008). In the main, the majority of the media and political commentary was of the 'Indonesia is a sovereign nation and has the right to determine what they believe is the appropriate way to respond to crime' kind. Or, as expressed by John Howard and repeated by many Australian commentator at the time, the bombers were simply 'getting what they deserved'. In other words when Indonesia's use of the death penalty suited the response some Australian's wanted to the killing of 202 people in Bali, there was little talk of the barbarism of the Indonesian justice system or criticism of its use of the death penalty. And before people email me to say it is not appropriate to compare the Bali bombings to drug smuggling let me just say that a) the death penalty is either barbaric and an inappropriate response to all offences or it is not - the moral absolute referred to in the Sydney Morning Herald editorial mentioned above - and b) remember the devastation wrought against the Indonesian population by the drug trade, the reason why, whether we agree with them or not, many Indonesians support the use of the death penalty in drug smuggling cases.  

The mainstream media and political class routinely express condescending, colonialist attitudes towards our South Pacific and Asian neighbours

Certain attitudes support the aforementioned 'themes', in particular a slightly racist condescension on the part of some members of the mainstream media, political class and 'social commentators' towards our nearest neighbours in the South Pacific and Asia. Colonialist ideals of the inherent social and racial superiority of the 'Australian way' stinks up much of the rhetoric about Indonesia's political and justice systems. Belief in the superiority of the 'western way' lurks behind the smirks that often accompany comments about police and judicial corruption, and the barbarity of Indonesia's prison systems and use of the death penalty. Is there some truth to these allegations/attitudes? Yes, corruption of the judiciary occurs, and anecdotal evidence of the need to bribe police in order to avoid being charged is so vast that it simply cannot be ignored.

But, this country is hardly in a position to cast such dispersion's at its neighbours. Putting aside the usual response that while your own justice system is not perfect it is not as bad as others as a) an exaggeration of how 'just'  your justice system is and b) ignorance of the degree to which the system is classist, racist and misogynist, let us highlight a few home truths about the 'Australian way' (and the same can be said of the New Zealand way as well): first, as I intimated above you have probably the worst record of incarceration of Indigenous peoples in the world, and while you continue to drive up their rate of incarceration through - in part - the biased application of police discretion, implementation of racist legislation like the NTER, and through arrests related to driving offences (in the Northern Territory) and imprisonment for non-payment of fines (Western Australia) you have little justification for intimating that other country's justice systems are 'uncivilised". Similarly while you continue to incarcerate refugees including children in contravention of UN conventions, many of whom are fleeing war zones that your country was involved in creating, you don't get to condemn anyone else for unethical conduct. And lastly, while your political class is more concerned at stopping potential 'terrorists' from returning from Middle East conflicts than doing something concrete about the 'gendered terrorism' occurring every day in this country, then it is increasingly difficult to accept the inferences many of you make that country's like Indonesia are 'less civilised'. And Mr Abbott, announcing the 'strategy/taskforce or whatever photo opportunity your advisers devised recently to make you and your government look serious about domestic violence doesn't nullify my argument, given that your government recently cut funding for the community-centred DV-related services required to support survivors of domestic violence.

The last point I want to make on this issue relates to the tendency of the mainstream media, political class and social commentators to 'feign outrage' - to look for reasons to make disparaging, negative comments about Indonesian officials involved in the row over the fate of the Bali 2. A classic example of this strategy occurred recently in response to the massive police and military deployment when the Bali 2 were transferred to another prison. It was reported that up to 700 personnel were deployed during the exercise, along with numerous armoured vehicles, jet fighters, etc. Yes, the response was completely over the top and unnecessary. But the outrage from some media and Abbot et al is hard to take seriously when a similar situation recently occurred here.  I am referring to police and 'security' institutions across Australia deploying up to 800 personnel in an anti-terrorist exercise, called Operation Appleby, that netted a massive total of... 2 arrests. The Australian Federal Police and others involved were heavily criticised by the Muslim community and so-called 'lefties' (as they were described by mainstream media) for the excessive force deployed against their communities. They were accused of political opportunism; of carrying out an exaggerated response to the situation in order to display - through media, an exaggerated level of threat. The official response, that the number of people involved was required to ensure 'safety' etc, simply didn't stack up. My point is that the political class and justice officials of this country are not above using exaggerated responses  to 'threats' for political purposes in order to gain positive media headlines, any less than their Indonesian counterparts are. In the case of Operation Appleby the population of convenience for an exercise in exaggerated moral panic were Muslims; Australia's current 'go to' community for the expression of exaggerated outrage, fear and risk.  In the Indonesian context what better community to target for an exaggerated response than Australian drug smugglers, a target group officials know is easy to justify due to decades of condescending rhetoric and behaviour towards that country from Australia's politicians and populist media. And for those New Zealander's reading this, it wouldn't pay to get too cocky; you might care to recall the massive deployment of police against the Tuhoe peoples in the Bay of Plenty to arrest all those 'terrorists' a few years back - you know the ones that were eventually charged with firearm offences?

As for the Bali 2, Andrew and Myuran, I hope current attempts to halt their execution are successful. I hope that one day they can return to Australia and demonstrate to their families, friends and communities the extent of their rehabilitation, and to teach young people here the price that can be paid for getting involved in the drug trade. I only hope that the ham-fisted, condescending and colonialist rhetoric that spews forth from this country's mainstream media, politicians and 'social commentators' has not pissed Indonesian officials off so much that Andrew and Myuran's chances of avoiding the ultimate punishment have in any way been diminished.  

Breaking the Criminal Justice-Criminology Nexus - Empowering Indigenous Communities

Introduction

I want to begin by telling two stories in order to provide context for the issues I will cover in this presentation:

The stories

The 2013 European Criminology Conference: (see description of this case study included in the Indigenous Criminologist post of 29/10/2013).

Drivers of Crime: In 2008 New Zealand's Ministry of Justice organised a 1 day hui (meeting) with a range of service providers, researchers, academics, and community members as part of the consultation process for the development of what is now called the Drivers of Crime project.  In the lead up to the hui various government agencies 'bargained' with the Minister of Justice (and by extension, senior officials at MoJ) to ensure that the list of invitees represented a cross-section of the 'community'.  Te Puni Kokiri (the Ministry of Maori Development) was one of those agencies, and attempted to have added to the list myself and other 'critical Maori commentators', and current and past gang members who worked with this particular community to deliver social services.  Officials from the Minister's office and MoJ attempted to block our inclusion on the list and if not for Te Puni Kokiri officials standing their ground and persuading the then Minister for Maori Affairs (firmly supported by Dame Tariana Turia) were we eventually invited, thus ensuring a range of Maori voices were heard on the day.  But it would be wrong to think that 'we' won: when MoJ summary of the main points of discussion was released some weeks later the vast majority of issues raised by the critical Maori caucus was excluded; including repeated concerns expressed about the lack of Maori input into the development of crime control policy, racist/biased policing, overuse of imprisonment, and other significant, structural failures on the part of the formal justice system.

Since then a number of other similar incidents have been experienced by Indigenous scholars residing in Settler-Colonial jurisdictions with whom I am in regular contact.  These individuals have discussed a number of incidents, some historical, some more recent, that mirror my own experiences.  Our common experience of the white privileged, arrogant conduct of some members of the Policy Industry and criminology, has made me realise that in all our critical analysis of the many and varied Colonial Projects that are deployed in Settler-Colonial contexts to subjugate Indigenous peoples, one that requires our urgent empirical attention on our part, is the criminal justice/criminology nexus.  The rationale for this claim, this empirical call to arms, so to speak, is quite straightforward: it is essential that we expose the nefarious effects of the parasitic relationship between members of Western, Authoritarian Criminology and members of the Policy Industry, given the hegemony this nexus has on the development of empirical knowledge about Indigenous crime.

The Provocations

• The parasitic relationship between Eurocentric Criminology and the Policy Industry is one of the most affective, ‘subtle’ colonial projects deployed in settler-colonial contexts to subjugate Indigenous peoples.

And

• We must become more aggressive in our critique of, and challenge to, this relationship if we are to decrease the damage it does to our communities.

What follows represents the tentative explorations of two questions that are of increasing concern to Indigenous scholars (and our critical, non-Indigenous colleagues), namely:

• What role, if any, does the Criminal Justice-Criminology nexus (or relationship) play in the Settler Colonial subjugation of Indigenous peoples?

And

• What should we do about it?

Part of the rationale for privileging empirical analysis of the nexus between white criminology and the policy industry, is historical – the historical relationship between a) coloniality, b) criminal justice and c) the academy.  Biko Agozino has effectively exposed that the discipline of criminology developed significantly under colonialism, and was an essential player in the colonial states subjugation of Indigenes.  You cannot explain the contemporary moment; the ways in which peoples are subjugated, without reference to the past.  In the words of Hayden (2004):

"Rather than distance ourselves from the past, as the centrist amnesiacs would counsel, perhaps we should finally peel back the scabs and take a closer look at why all the wounds haven’t healed". 

Colonial Projects in the Neo-Colonial Context
As the Nigerian criminologist Biko Agozino has demonstrated, criminal justice is one of the most potent Colonial Projects the Settler Colonial state utilises in its ongoing subjugation of Indigenous peoples.  One of its key functions is in assisting the state to ‘control’ what it defines as significant wicked problems, i.e., Indigenous over-representation, which is invariable portrayed in governmental discourse as a ‘fact of criminal justice life’.  It is a ‘social fact’ so significant that that it poses a threat to social order that requires meaningful, authoritative, indeed at times violent, intervention in relation to the practice of crime control.

And if you think my use of the term ‘violent’ is perhaps overstating things a little, all I need say in response is ‘the Tuhoe raids’. 

In New Zealand the ‘Maori problem’ is described in governmental and media discourse as being so significant that our crime problem would disappear if we could significantly reduce it, because, according to an ACT party member quoted in the Otago Daily Times in 2012, we are “full of crime”. 

If I may I would like to interrupt the flow of my analysis to divert to an interesting argument I heard posited by a young Maori scholar at an International Indigenous law conference held in Brisbane in June last year: Kiritapu Allen made what I think is a highly provocative, but accurate statement that given the violence and disfuntionality that permeates criminal justice in New Zealand, perhaps including the term ‘system’ in its title is somewhat misleading.  Instead, we should view it as a series of inter-linked incidents of violence, coated in the stink of colonialism. 

Much of the criminal justice system response to the ‘wicked problem’ of Maori over-representation comes in the form of structural violence, including, but not exclusively

• militaristic-style policing strategies;

• biased application of public disorder offences and discretionary powers;

• the criminal justice-led large-scale removal of Indigenous children and youth to detention centres; and

• and of Indigenous adults to the prison system – a form of displacement and confinement that O’Connor calls the ‘New Removals’ and Chris Cunneen ‘the new stolen generation’, with reference to the Australian context. 

I consider these ‘strategies’ as examples of overt violence perpetrated by the criminal justice sector against Indigenous peoples. 

Then we have a range of subtle, insidious strategies of containment and control, including:

• the aforementioned strategy of blocking Maori participation in forums that impact the design of policy;

• reliance on in-house Maori ‘experts’ to direct the development of policies for Maori, in place of meaningful engagement with Maori communities and Maori ‘experts’

• meaningless consultation exercises undertaken after policies and interventions have been designed and signed off by a CE, Minister or Cabinet;

• reliance on Maori/Aboriginal strategies that have no impact on an agencies bottom-line, and that make little or no reference to the socio-economic marginalisation of Indigenous peoples and used by agencies to market themselves as ‘culturally aware’;

• restricting or blocking access to sites of justice and undertaking independent, empirical research, and blocking research on criminal justice issues of importance to Maori, including bias, experiences of policing and imprisonment;

• arrogant dismissal of Maori knowledge and programmatic response to social harm in preference for importing theories, policies, legislation and interventions from western, high crime contexts;

• privileging academic literature and research on Indigenous issues and peoples carried out by white, western, administrative/authoritarian criminologists, whilst ignoring the Indigenous research lexicon; and

• indigenisation, or the inappropriate utilisation of Indigenous symbols, language and cultural artifacts to ‘sex up’ imported, ineffective crime control policies, like boot camps or Multi-Systemic Therapy, that are then forced upon our communities, and which do little to alleviate our over-representation in the criminal justice system. 

The white privileged criminological academy isn’t much better.  The range of disempowering behaviours perpetrated by its members is just as extensive, including:

• confine their critical criminological gaze to issues relating to state-defined problem populations, more often than not people of colour and working class youth, without significant engagement with individuals or communities from these populations – in other words they privilege the use of non-engaging methodologies; a reliance on statistical analysis and restrictive surveys at the expense of actually talking with brown people;

• confine their uncritical criminological gaze to state-run justice processes, policies, legislation and issues that the state deems important, for which they receive generous remuneration via the establishment of parasitic contractual relations;

• limit their ‘critical analysis’ of state systems and policies on programme effectiveness and evaluation largely devoid of historical context and the wider political economy of the state’s dominance of ‘justice’ in the neo-liberal moment – in other words their research and analysis is devoid of critical consideration of minor issues like genocide, coloniality, land grabs, destruction of key social and political institutions, biological and cultural warfare, etc; and

• empower themselves through the veil of scientism, an ideological construct that privileges the Eurocentric, supposedly ‘enlightened’ approach to measuring the Indigenous life-world, whilst denigrating Indigenous (and other) forms of knowledge that seek to explain the social world from the perspective of the Other.

Doing Imperialism Quietly?  The Criminal Justice-Criminology Nexus as Structural Violence

No longer able to attain political legitimacy by deploying overtly racist, assimilationist strategies such as the forced removal of our children in militaristic fashion, least it results in international condemnation, or banning our language and cultural practices through legislation, or replicating the physical genocide of the Indian Wars carried out in Canada and the U.S, or the killing times in Australia, the neo-liberal settler state and its supporting institutions of the body politic, in particular the white privileged academy, nevertheless continues to deploy structural violence against Indigenous peoples.  This comes in the form of  the development and application of racist criminological knowledge and interventions, made possible via collusion between white privileged academics and the policy sector.

This brings me full circle, to the stories I told at the beginning of the presentation.  How is it that policy workers and white privileged criminologists continue to produce bullshit about Maori and other Indigenous peoples?  More importantly, how is it that this bullshit still holds sway with the policy sector?  Answering these questions in full would require a whole presentation of its own.  So I’ll restrict myself to just 2 key reasons: a) because of their arrogance, related to a) because we are too nice. 

Doing Things for Ourselves

There are a number of practical, administrative responses either underway or that should be considered, including:

Research Project – Racism in the Academy;

International Journal of Indigenous Justice (IJIJ);

International Congress of Indigenous Justice (ICIJ);

All of these activities were discussed in the Indigenous Criminologist blog released on 31/7/2014.  

We urgently require a major change in our approach to the trash the Policy Industry and its parasitic partner, Authoritarian Criminology, produce about Indigenous peoples.  We need to become more aggressive in our approach to exposing the racism and white, colonial privilege that underpins their approach to the ‘Indigenous problem’.  Only by challenging the criminal justice-criminology nexus in an aggressive manner, and through the development and application of a Critical Indigenous Criminology, will we challenge the hegemony the members of this 'axis of bullshit' hold over the development of supposedly ‘legitimate’ knowledge about 'the Indigenous experience'.  Perhaps then we might finally have a say in the development of policies, legislation and interventions that reflect our approaches to dealing with social harm and our lived experiences, rather than the exotic fantasies of white privileged policy workers and academics. 

Second New Zealand Criminology Symposium - AUT University

Hi all

A reminder that AUT University is holding the 2nd New Zealand Criminology Symposium on Monday 9 February 2015.

For more information and to register go to the following link:

http://www.aut.ac.nz/study-at-aut/study-areas/social-sciences/events

Speakers include:

Associate Professor Tamari Kitossa - Brock University (Ontario)

Associate Professor Tracey McIntosh - Auckland University

Dr Tara McGee - Griffith University (Brisbane)

Dr Mike Ruguski - independent researcher (Wellington).

In a welcome departure from the norm for academic events the convenor, Dr Antje Deckert has invited people who work with/in communities and 'hard to reach' groups to talk about issues with crime control, including:

Harry Tam, Edge TeWhaiti and Michael Osborne, and

Holly Mortimore and Vicki Letele.

The speakers will cover a range of topics from obstacles to desistance from offending, strategies for engaging with 'hard to reach communities' such as gangs and their whanau (families), and effective responses to reducing crime. 

See you there.

Juan

A Comment on the Epistemic Violence of White Academic Privilege - Part 2

Blind Spots

During a presentation at a conference in Oslo in 2014 anthropologist Richard Wilk discussed the topic of 'the negative terrain of discipline' and in the process exposed significant weaknesses in the discipline of anthropology. Richard made three arguments pertinent to this discussion:

1. What we do not study can be more informative than comfortable and conventional topics.
2. Sometimes the hardest thing to see is what is right in front of your face; what D. Miller calls the 'blindingly obvious'. And
3. These zones of wilful blindness are always worth investigating (because 'open fields' are liberating).

In this blog I want to focus on the first statement, but before I do so I want to deal briefly with statement 2:

In previous blogs I have dealt with the Eurocentrism and white privilege that provide the ideological and epistemological basis of much of western criminology's engagement with Indigenous peoples and their 'issues'. The evidence of racism and the practice (and its effects) of white privilege within the Academy is extensive (see Aguirre, 2000; Cobb-Roberts, 2011; Iverson, 2007; Jeffries, 2006; Johnson-Bailey and Cervero, 2008; Miller, 2008; Moreton-Robinson, 2002; Myers, 2002; Smith et al, 2006; Stanley, 2006; Takara, 2006; Ward and Weems, 2010) - it is an empirical reality for many 'scholars of colour' who work in the academy. The racist, white privileged conduct of members of the academy touches on significant social (justice) issues including racism, discrimination, disempowerment, sexism and unethical conduct. All these 'issues' receive significant attention by criminologists and other academics; except it seems when their own colleagues conduct themselves in ways that disempower Indigenous scholars. In my experience members of the white privileged academy are much less interested in turning their critical gaze to a) the historical and contemporary role their discipline plays in the subjugation of Indigenous peoples, and b) exposing the racist, white privileged conduct of their colleagues. In my view:

the issue of racism and white privilege within academic criminology is one of the significant empirical blind spots of the discipline.

This blog utilises preliminary results of recent and ongoing research project to offer insights into the racist and white privileged strategies deployed by members of the western academy, and especially of members of the discipline of criminology, against Indigenous scholars.  

The Academy's Approach to Indigenous Peoples: Ignorance or Arrogance?

"One of the significant features of white [privileged, academic] ignorance is that it involves not just knowing but not knowing what one does not know and believing that one knows" (Applebaum, 2010: 13).

I recently engaged with work by non-Indigenous scholars on research they conducted in Indigenous communities. Two issues stood out from their work:

1. The researchers had little background in researching on or with Indigenous peoples, and needed to engage Indigenous advisers on how to research Indigenous communities. And
2. The advisers seemed to know little about the communities in which the research was being conducted, and so most of the information given to the principal researchers before entering the communities was inaccurate.  As a result they had to learn how to appropriately research in these communities post-entry.

First of all, hats off to the academics for recognising they had issues and needed to do better in the future. However, two thoughts came to mind while I engaged with their work:

1. Why would white middle class academics with no meaningful experience of researching with Indigenous peoples believe they have the right to apply for this contract and carry out the research?  And
2. Why would the contracting government agency give them a contract when they demonstrably lacked the necessary experience and knowledge?

The short answer to question two is that officials from contracting institutions often go for the 'familiar' when deciding who can/should do research on their behalf; meaning they go for academics who look, think and talk like they do.  In the majority of research funding situations, Indigenous academics and the research institutions they work for are less likely to be trusted with sensitive, politically charged topics, unless they are overseen by members of the white, privileged academy. It is also likely that contracting officials lack the critical knowledge and experience to be able to recognise that the individuals involved are not suited to carrying out the research.

The answer to question one is much more complex: How do you explain the fact that a group of non-Indigenous academics lacking both experience and knowledge, still apply for the research contract?

We could start to answer the question by acknowledging that people working in the contemporary academy are expected to apply for grants as part of performance management. The increasing commercialisation of the tertiary education sector means that applying for (and hopefully attaining) commercial monies is a key performance indicator for contemporary academics. The fact that the pool of contract research monies in many western, neo-liberal contexts is steadily diminishing, and the political nature of the grant decision-making process makes the chances of success minimal, are largely ignored. Most of the academics and university administrators involved know this to be the case, but pretty much everyone ignores it and so the act of simply applying becomes the key measure of success. Therefore, one could argue that the fiscal imperative is such that academics apply for grants they are wholly unsuited to because the pressure of being 'seen' to be attempting to fulfil the required performance measure means they apply for any grant regardless of their suitability. On paper it reads like a tidy rationale, but in my experience it is rarely the reason for applying for grants they are unsuited for.  

Perhaps the academics in question don't realise they are the wrong people to be carrying out research in Indigenous communities? Maybe they are so blind to their weaknesses that they genuinely believe themselves to be appropriate, when in reality they are not? In which case perhaps we should be forgiving and gently take them by the hand, sit them down for a quiet chat about their inadequacies and offer to help them to achieve the knowledge necessary for carrying out the research?

Sorry, but that excuse simply won't fly either, although I acknowledge having dealt with a number of academics in the past 20 years who were totally ignorant of their shortcomings in engaging with Indigenous people. No, the main reason why they apply is not ignorance but arrogance; an arrogance born of their white privileged position as members of an institution and of a discipline (in this case, criminology) that too often treats 'coloured folk' as methodological, financial and reputational cannon fodder; as sources of research grant monies to enhance their chances of promotion.  

In my experience, white privileged academics, especially those from the discipline of criminology, apply for research contracts on Indigenous issues for which they are unsuited because they genuinely believe they are entitled to do so. In this situation obvious personal shortcomings in method, methodology, theory, epistemology, etc, are overcome by seeking advice from one of their brown mates, regardless of that persons suitability for the role, or by simply reading a methods text book (although it is unlikely the book will be Linda Smith's 1999 Decolonising Methodologies!). The philosophical framework that emboldens these academics can be summarised in two words, white privilege - a state of mind and being that fosters their belief in the inherent superiority of the western, middle class academic environment; one that provides them the right to research brown people and their issues despite their lack of knowledge and experience. Having worked for a number of years in the academy, and carrying out research on the experiences of other Indigenous academics of working in this environment, none of this surprises me - the academy is replete with racist, white privileged conduct.

This brings me to the preliminary results of my ongoing research on racism in the academy, and especially within criminology.  In 2015 and 2016 I will be seeking to publish journal articles and book chapters that provide more detailed discussion of my findings.

Racism - the Epistemological Foundations of the Western Academy

Throughout my academic career I have experienced or observed a number of acts of racism and disempowerment perpetrated by white colleagues against Indigenous scholars. Over the past 18 months I've had discussions with 12 Indigenous scholars in Australasia and North America on the issue of racism and the academy as part of an ongoing research project. From this research I have discerned a half dozen or so actions/behaviours that commonly occur when white academics are seeking to empower themselves and, as a result, disempower 'colleagues of colour'. In the following section I discuss three of the 'actions' identified so far:

We own your name, we own you

One of the most common racist and disempowering acts is to place our name on research funding proposals without our consent.  I've experienced this behaviour in the past, as have four of the scholars I have spoken with thus far. In all instances white colleagues added our names to research grant applications without our permission. Why? Because the research topic either touched on Indigenous issues or the application form instructed them to explain how they will ensure their research is "culturally appropriate" (note that such forms rarely if ever ask the applicant if they will ensure their research is culturally grounded and empowering). How to deal with this? Simple - add a brown name.  

One of my research participants who works in a New Zealand university, recounted how one of his colleagues informed him his name had been added to a grant application as they were passing in a hallway with the words 'just thought I'd let you know that I'm doing research on such-and-such so I included your name on the application because I thought you'd be interested and we need a Maori presence'.  

Can you imagine the sh*t that would hit the fan if I as a male academic walked past a female colleague and said 'hey, I'm doing some research on Maori and since it might involve Maori women I added your name cause, you know, we need a female presence'. How long do you think it would take for the formal complaint paperwork to come through; at the very least you can expect the HoD to have a quiet but firm word in your ear?  So let me ask the obvious question: why do white academics, both male and female (2 of the perpetrators of this conduct reported during my research were women) act as if they have the right to conduct themselves in such a condescending, patronising way? Surely it is because they believe they are empowered to conduct themselves in this way by their white privileged colleagues, the discipline they belong to, and the institution they work in?

Any person of colour will do - as long as I get out of work

Another disempowering behaviour consistently reported involved colleagues using Indigenous colleagues to get themselves out of work. A number of the academics I interviewed reported receiving emails from colleagues or the chair of the workloads committee, informing them that 'wouldn't it be good for you, an Indigenous scholar, to sit on such and such a committee because it would be useful to have an Indigenous perspective', etc, etc. Now, this argument probably stands up for a teaching and learning committee which oversees what is taught and how (to ensure units or courses cover Indigenous issues), but academics I spoke to for this project reported being placed on four or five committees for which a specific Indigenous perspective was not paramount - it was simply a case of colleagues using the 'Indigenous perspective' argument to get themselves moved off committees they had no interest in attending.

If you disagree with me you are angry, aggressive and violent

This was one of the most powerful strategies identified by participants, one that most of the eight men I spoke with had experienced, or observed another Indigenous/black scholar experiencing. If you are an academic of colour and you disagree with white colleagues, and especially if you pull them up for unethical or racist conduct, there is a good chance this strategy will be used to silence you. Participants spoke of being accused of being verbally aggressive for calling out colleagues for racist conduct - regardless of the 'tone' in which they delivered their rebuke, and two found themselves placed under surveillance by university security because colleagues they had challenged subsequently reported feeling 'threatened'; a strategy WIlliams (2001) discusses with some vigour in her piece entitled The Angry Black Women Scholar. Two Australian scholars I discussed this strategy with made interesting observations that are pertinent to this discussion: one said in response this issue "aren't we always angry? No matter how we respond, or what language we use, it will be represented as anger; it is a simple a way of turning attention away from their conduct". While his colleagues response was "so what? Sometimes we have the right to be angry when we are faced with racism. Why are we expected to keep our cool in the face of white privileged arrogance".  

An interesting aside to this issue is the fact all bar one of the participants who discussed this issue reported that senior officials at the institution where they worked failed to do anything significant when they reported the white privileged, racist conduct of their colleagues. Instead, the institutional response focused on their response to the racist conduct, or officials tried to channel the complaint away from the formal disciplinary process and into informal 'mediation'.  

We decide when you are Indigenous and when your work is important
Another strategy employed by white privileged academics to 'own' us is to control when we can/cannot speak or work as Indigenous scholars. In two instances participants related how they had been redefined as non-Indigenous so that work they had previously been doing could be offered to someone else. 

Three of my respondents reported experiencing what can only be described as non-Indigenous colleagues deciding when they can speak as an Indigenous person, and proscribing when they can no longer do so. In two instances respondents reported being stopped from giving a lecture on Indigenous perspectives so a colleague could instead lecture in their place. One incident involved an Indigenous scholar being stopped from giving a lecture on the topic of Indigenous women's experiences of prison, an issue they had actually done research on, and replaced by a white colleague who had not. 

Another reported debating with a colleague on the suitability of people shortlisted for a lecturing position. The colleague argued that it was imperative that increasing the number of women be the top selection criteria. The Indigenous scholar described the resulting interaction thus:

"I responded by pointing out that as I was the only Indigenous scholar on staff it is equally important to consider increasing the Indigenous quota.  Her response was 'I'm surprised you say that, I've never heard you speak as a Maori before'.  Initially I was shocked, but then asked her 'I'm surprised you say that; have you actually read my research, my publications?' To which she replied 'well ok, but you've never spoken openly here about Maori issues'. I got the feeling that I was supposed to earn my Indigenous badge everyday; everyday I need to wear the Tino Rangatiratanga t-shirt and lecture everyone on Maori issues, just to remind them of my ongoing commitment to Maori issues".

Concluding Comment
It is my experience and that of the majority of my participants, that institutions rarely live up to the marketing rhetoric of their 'Aboriginal Strategy' or code of conduct, by holding white academics formally accountable for the types of conduct discussed in this blog. In relation to the criminal justice system Cunneen (2008: 37) argues that "the current direction of the criminal justice system is one that could be regarded as criminogenic to the extent that it fosters and compounds Indigenous anger". I argue that a similar statement can be made about the way in which academic institutions often fail to safeguard Indigenous scholars and hold academics accountable for employing racist strategies like the purposeful construction of Indigenous resistance per se as acts of aggression and violence, using our names and CV's to enhance grant applications without our permission, or redefining us as non-Indigenous in order to remove work from us and empower themselves. Andrea Smith (2011) once gifted us an Indigenous Feminism Without Apology. In similar fashion I offer this blog and future publications resulting from this research without apology, as part of an evolving Indigenous (Warrior) Criminology, in the hope that one day Indigenous scholars are able to participate in the academy free of the disempowering, unethical conduct discussed here.    

References
Aguirre, A (2000) Women and Minority Faculty in the Academic Workplace: Recruitment, Retention, and Academic Culture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Applebaum, B (2010) White: On the Possibility of Doing Philosophy in Good Failth, in G. Yancy (Ed.) The Centre Must Hold: White Women Philosophers on the Whiteness of Philosophy. Lanham (MD): Lexington.  
Cunneen, C (2008) Indigneous Anger and the Criminogenic Effects of the Criminal Justice System, in A. Day; M. Nakata and K. Howells (Eds.), Anger and Indigenous Men. Leichhardt: Federation Press: 37-46. 
Iverson, S (2007) Camouflaging Power and Privilege: A Critical Race Analysis of University Diversity Policies, Educational Administration Quarterly, 43: 586-611. 
Jeffries, M (2006) Centering the Edge: Addressing Institutional Racism and Habitual Exclusion in the Academy, Du Bois Review, 3(2): 481-484. 
Johnson-Bailey, J and Cervero, R (2008) Different Worlds and Divergent Paths: Academic Careers Defined by Race and Gender, Harvard Educational Review, 78: 311-332. 
Miller, D (2008) Shades of Grey: An Autoethnographic Study of Race in the Academy, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 21: 347-373. 
Moreton-Robinson, E (2002) Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. 
Myers, L (2002) A Broken Silence: Voices of African American Women in the Academy. Westport: Bergin and Garvey. 
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