Writing themselves in: Indigenous gender and sexuality diverse Australians online

Abstract

There has been limited exploration into the online engagements of people who are Indigenous and gender and sexuality diverse. There are, however, two separate bodies of literature that provide substantial insights into the digital involvement of Indigenous Australians, and gender and sexuality diverse people. Each has identified a myriad of complex negotiations, interactions and resistances that take place through the affordances of digital spaces, along with identifying impacts on well-being. This scoping review discusses dominant themes within existing research on these topics, and documents research that discusses an online blog entitled Archiving the Aboriginal Rainbow that is designed to foreground representations of Indigenous gender and sexuality diverse people. To contextualise this discussion, the paper begins with a review of scholarly literature that articulates and challenges the ongoing colonisation of Indigenous peoples’ gender and sexuality. The literature reviewed exposes new research directions. Namely, the importance of exploration into Indigenous gender and sexuality diverses peoples’ online engagements, and their interrelationship with well-being.

Indigenous knowledge and creativities online: TikTok as a relational tool within the Indigenous art process

“…This research contributes to the field of Indigenous subjectivities and online engagements as explored by Carlson (2020, 2021). There is potential for further research on Indigenous LGBTQIA+SB (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual or aromantic, Sistergirl or Sistagirl, and Brotherboy or Brothaboy) relationalities in both online and offline spaces, through the current and future works of Day (2019, 2021), Farrell (2017, 2021), O’Sullivan (2021a, 2021b), Sullivan and Day (2019), and Coe (2022).…”

“…Aboriginal scholars such as Carlson (2020, 2021a, 2021b), Farrell (2021), and Kennedy (2018) have made extensive contributions to research on Indigenous Peoples’ interactions with digital technologies and online spaces. Social media platforms can be sources of empowerment, connection, and activism for Indigenous Peoples, while also functioning as sites of online and offline colonial violence (Coe, 2022). Indigenous social media users—both those who openly identify as Indigenous and those who “look” Indigenous (Carlson & Kennedy, 2021, p. 2)—experience consistent abuse and harassment based on their Aboriginality, especially if they exist at the intersections of multiple marginalised identities based on sex, gender, sexuality, class, and so forth (Farrell, 2021).…”