In-Conversation - Unmasking the Racial Contract: Indigenous voices on racism in the Australian Public Service (2020)

Tuesday 10 November 2020, 1pm–2.30pm AEST

(2–3.30pm AEDT, 12.30–2pm CST, 11am–12.30pm WST, 3–4.30am UTC)

Online via zoom  

The University of Queensland's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Aboriginal Studies Press invite you to virtually attend an In-Conversation event with author Dr Debbie Bargallie (she/her) and UQ's Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Engagement) Professor Bronwyn Fredericks (she/her)

This dynamic In-Conversation, moderated by UQ's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Associate Dean (Indigenous Engagement) Associate Professor Sandra Phillips (she/her) will take participants inside Unmasking the Racial Contract: Indigenous voices on racism in the Australian Public Service (2020) – from PhD research to published book.

Watch Webinar Recording

 

Dr Debbie Bargallie (she/her)

Dr Bargallie is a descendent of the Kamilaroi and Wonnarua peoples of New South Wales. Debbie is a Postdoctoral Senior Research Fellow with the Griffith Institute for Educational Research, Griffith University and is also an associate of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. Debbie holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the Queensland University of Technology and researches on race and racism.

Debbie also holds a Bachelor of Social Science and a Master of Social Policy and Planning. Debbie has been the recipient of the prestigious Stanner Award for her doctoral thesis manuscript. Her book Unmasking the Racial Contract: Indigenous voices on racism in the Australian Public Service (2020) was published by AIATSIS Aboriginal Studies Press in June 2020. Dr Bargallie's postdoctoral research focusses on fostering critical racial literacy as anti-racist praxis in Australian institutions to enhance understandings of race, racism and power.

Dr Bargallie's book

In an era of reconciliation and cultural diversity, Indigenous peoples in Australia still experience everyday and structural racisms in the workplace. Unmasking the Racial Contract is a study of one such workplace: the Australian Public Service. Bargallie shows that despite claims of fairness, inclusion, opportunity, respect and racial equality for all, Indigenous employees continue to languish on the lower rungs of the Australian Public Service employment ladder. By showing how racism is normalised in institutions, Bargallie aims to help us see and understand — and ultimately challenge — racism.

This original and innovative book, written from an Indigenous standpoint, is the first to use race as a key framework to critically examine the discrimination faced by Indigenous employees in an Australian institution. Bargallie provides an insider’s perspective and privileges the voices of other Indigenous employees, and she applies critical race theory to unmask the racial contract that underpins the ‘absent presence’ of racism in the Australian Public Service.

Read more.