“We’re not treated equally as Indigenous people or as women”: The perspectives and experiences of Indigenous women in Australian public relations

Abstract

This paper argues that the public relations sphere needs to have better understanding and more representation and acknowledgment of Indigenous women’s contemporary experiences and contributions. Indigenous Australian women experience multiple oppressions, such as Eurocentric and patriarchal control and, within the broader areas of Indigenous, women’s, and feminist public relations scholarship, their voices are largely absent. To address these issues, this paper, based on Indigenous women’s standpoint theory and an Indigenous yarning method, presents the narratives of five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women employed in public relations. These narratives reflect experiences of marginalization by the Australian mainstream culture of whiteness and patriarchy; they also suggest the incidence of work induced mental distress for the women participants. This study of female Indigeneity within public relations aims to promote understanding of intersectional identities, the long-term effects of whiteness and racism, and may suggest how public relations can play a role in decolonizing efforts.

Rhetoric, Reality and Racism: The Governance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers in a State Government Health Service in Australia

“…54 While not always explicitly described as such, the consistency and repeated nature of A&TSIHWs' experiences of disrespect and exclusion, speak to long-standing racist norms documented since the 1990s, although certainly occurring far earlier. 5,[55][56][57][58] While theories of good governance stipulate the importance of clear leadership and management, and mechanisms that enable participation and feedback, 2 critical race scholarship draws attention to the way race can structure a system such that 'owners' utilise leadership and management structures to protect certain groups while systematically excluding others. Moreton-Robinsone observes of the "pervasiveness of [Australia's] white possessiveness [that it] functions through social institutions such as the workplace, operating in everyday intersubjective relationships between Indigenous and white subjects [such that] [t]he right to be here and the sense of belonging it creates are reinforced institutionally, and socially" (p. 82).…”

Opening spaces for researching feminism and public relations: Perspectives from Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia

“…That is, drawing on US black feminist legal scholar Crenshaw (1989, 1991), who sought to articulate and complexify structural disadvantage beyond gender, intersectional feminism recognises how diverse and interdependent identities – such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and geographic location – operate to amplify inequality. In the last decade, there has been a significant growth in feminist public relations scholarship adopting critical and intersectional perspectives and investigating the combined impacts of gender, race and sexuality (see, for example, Ciszek, 2018; Ciszek and Rodriguez, 2020; Ciszek et al, 2022; Clark et al, 2021, 2022; Edwards, 2018; Logan and Ciszek, 2022; Place, 2015; Tindall and Waters, 2014; Vardeman-Winter and Place, 2017; Vardeman-Winter et al, 2013).…”

“…Aldoory and Toth’s (2021) The Future of Feminism in Public Relations and Strategic Communication maps over four decades of feminist scholarship and the significant shifts from liberal feminism to more critical feminist perspectives. Gender and Public Relations (Daymon and Demetrious, 2014) and critical and intersectional feminist scholarship in this journal (see, for example, Clark et al, 2021; Edwards, 2022; Place, 2015; and Vardeman-Winter et al, 2013) have opened up the field and challenged hegemonic assumptions around gender. The point is, an extant strong body of contemporary feminist public relations scholarship focuses on the ways gender impacts on the lived experiences of women and calls for greater ‘commitment to eliminating masculinist norms or power structures’ (Ciszek et al, 2022: 3).…”

“…Second, Clark’s scholarship takes a decolonial Indigenous feminist lens (Clark et al, 2019, 2021, 2022). Their Indigenous feminist position is influenced by pioneering Quandamooka woman Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s (2013) Indigenous women’s standpoint theory, which critiques and identifies the absence of cultural components in mainstream feminism and gendered/women’s differences in Indigenous contexts.…”

“…Indigenous Australian women's voices are lacking in scholarship on gender and public relations (Clark et al, 2019). There is little Indigenous Australian public relations research, other than a small number of journal articles, book chapters, conference papers and theses (Clark, 2012;Clark et al, 2019Clark et al, , 2021Clark et al, , 2022Fitch, 2021;Johnston et al, 2018;Peterson, 2016). This absence of Australian Indigenous research on public relations and Indigenous women's voices, in both theory, methods and practice, impedes understandings of communication practices for Indigenous peoples, positive representations of Indigenous peoples in media, and insights into public relations activism and social change strategies.…”