Papers by Sandy O'Sullivan
The Creative Barkly team would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on whi... more The Creative Barkly team would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we live and work, and the lands on which we conducted this research. We also pay our respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations' Peoples.
A Lived Experience of Aboriginal Knowledges and Perspectives: How cultural wisdom changed my life
Practice Wisdom: Values and interpretations, 2019
I was invited to write a chapter on practice wisdom from two perspectives: my Indigenous culture ... more I was invited to write a chapter on practice wisdom from two perspectives: my Indigenous culture as practice, and my life as an individual experience of this culture in my living practice. Each of us brings many perspectives and experiences to how we practise; and none of us fail to bring our unique selves as well as our community belonging into our life and work practices. I take this opportunity to uncover wisdom from within my culture and celebrate the way this wisdom has helped me and others face challenges in our life practices.
I’m a queer Aboriginal person who performs drag. That is, drag king, rather than the better-known queen. I am also, what has become known in recent years, as genderqueer. I deploy the term because it assists in challenging a binary gender assignation that has proven problematic. I am also a lesbian. Are you confused yet? You shouldn’t be; across all of our cultures, the body individually experienced is complex and formative regardless of our outward facing behaviours and societal commitments. The impact of the colonial project cast First Nations’ Peoples as objects to be managed by the state and church. This external management has frequently denied us the subtle complexities of sexuality and gender claimed by mainstream culture in Australia over recent decades (O’Sullivan, 2015).
Employability and First Nations’ Peoples: Aspirations, Agency and Commitments
Education for Employability I: The employability agenda, 2019
This chapter focuses on some of the inroads to change that are being made in higher education in ... more This chapter focuses on some of the inroads to change that are being made in higher education in order for us to shape our futures and create an imaginary world? that supports aspiration, agency and participation across all aspects of our lives. Changes to Indigenous inclusion in higher education have been led by our own academics. Alongside our allies within the system, these new approaches encourage the voices from our communities, understanding that students can, and should, be participating across the academy in every way (including academic governance as well as learning and course design), and by reshaping and replacing the tools of colonisation to tell our national story in education, aspiration and self- determination.
Challenging future practice possibilities, 2019
As a major site of colonial invasion, Australia has struggled with goals and actions aimed at sup... more As a major site of colonial invasion, Australia has struggled with goals and actions aimed at supporting Indigenous aspirations and agency (Nakata, 2010; Pascoe, 2016). The most sympathetic reading of the colonial project would be that its goal was to ensure that assimilation and dominance was complete with the colonised (people) only being sustained if we followed the colonial path of least resistance. As with other First Nations’ Peoples the policies that enacted colonisation have led to successive generations of poorer social determinants for our peoples, than for our non-Indigenous counterparts (Fforde et al., 2013; Pascoe, 2018).
Spearing the Governor
Natural History Museum (video, November 2012)
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Papers by Sandy O'Sullivan
I’m a queer Aboriginal person who performs drag. That is, drag king, rather than the better-known queen. I am also, what has become known in recent years, as genderqueer. I deploy the term because it assists in challenging a binary gender assignation that has proven problematic. I am also a lesbian. Are you confused yet? You shouldn’t be; across all of our cultures, the body individually experienced is complex and formative regardless of our outward facing behaviours and societal commitments. The impact of the colonial project cast First Nations’ Peoples as objects to be managed by the state and church. This external management has frequently denied us the subtle complexities of sexuality and gender claimed by mainstream culture in Australia over recent decades (O’Sullivan, 2015).