Indigenous Women Academics in Higher Education

I commence by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the region in which I am formally speaking this morning. I acknowledge the other Indigenous people in the room. I also acknowledge the non-Indigenous women who are also present. I ask that you not only hear the words I speak this morning, but that your minds, hearts and spirits feel my words, so that you might move from a position of being aware of our issues on your campuses to knowing, understanding, speaking and doing with and for us. I accept the words of some Indigenous scholars when they say that we must speak back to education (Nakata, 1998:4). I also know that the only way we can speak back is to have the tools with which to speak back and to have the forums in which to speak within. In order for Indigenous Australians to gain some of these tools we need to enter higher education institutions and learn the theories and the knowledge contained within disciplines and the way business is done. In order to speak back within higher education institutions we need to be more than just within them, being within them is not enough. We need to be more than ‘window dressing ’ (Mihesuah 2004: 44), that is where universities and/or particular university units, schools, and departments, want us but not our opinions