Black and white, both and none: Critical reflections on the limits of positionality discourse in Australia

Abstract

The decades since the seminal writings of Aileen Morton-Robinson on whiteness (2000, 2000/2021, 2013, 2015) are marked with a significant body of contributions by Australian scholars that can be broadly summarised as a call to acknowledge Indigenous sovereignty—to expose the subtle ways in which racism operates to maintain the dominance of whiteness across Australia’s political, social, cultural and academic spheres. Yet, inherent in the indispensable work against the invisibility of whiteness as an essentialist position, the use of binary terms such as coloniser/colonised and black/white have become standard reference points of positionality demarcation for non-Indigenous scholars. While academics who identify as non-white and non-Indigenous are indeed complicit in ‘whiteness’ in the Australian context (Pugliese, 2010), either/or binaries based on ‘black or white’ co-ordinates can in fact reinforce ‘whiteness’ as an essentialist position, threatening to obscure the complexities of cultural biography and foreclosing further discussion. We argue that the value in making (our) invisible outsider/insider, color-elastic positionalities visible is in making room for authentic reflection on positionalities from which to ‘fall out of perspective’ and into the space of Indigenous self-determination within research (Nicoll, 2004b: 17; Shim, 2018). What we share reflects our own struggles in understanding and articulating our place, role and responsibilities in contemporary Australia, and is part of ongoing exploration into identity and positionality in the context of contemporary academic conventions.