Recolonizing the decolonizers

decolonization, n., the process of freeing an institution, sphere of activity, etc. from the cultural or social effects of colonization.

Decolonization is a popular movement in the academic area of Indigenous Studies, none more so perhaps then in Australia, where, since the Bicentennial year of 1988 - marking two hundred years since the British invasion - there has been a explosion in books, articles, audio and video on topics such as the Frontier Wars, the Stolen Generations, and all those elements of cultural genocide practiced by the British empire locally. For example, under the reign of Governor Lachlan Macquarie between .... massacres of innocent people were officially condoned (viz. Appin 1816), cultural practices were banned (e.g. the carrying of spears), children were taken from families, traditional custom and lore was supplanted by British law, death and disease ravage the society unchecked, and the policy of Assimilation (i.e. cultural genocide) was practiced. The impact of British colonization on the Aboriginal civilisation of Australia was therefore horrific and horrendous, with an unstated move towards extinction openly spoken about during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Clearly, it had to go.

When the present writer encountered Henry Reynold's The Other Side of the Frontier and Eric Wilmot's Pemulway in 1987, during the lead up to the Bicentennial, he was shocked. Born in 1956, and raised in the northern suburbs of Wollongong - a town located on the east coast of Australia approximately 50 miles south of Sydney - he had no real knowledge of Indigenous society or history. Once, at primary school, the Aboriginal man Laddie Timbery had visited from La Perouse and showed the students boomerang throwing. Apart from that, and a stamp featuring the head of an Aboriginal man from central Australia, there was nothing really. All the history books he encountered spoke of brave explorers "discovering" Australia, from Captain Cook through to Burke and Wills and beyond. The fact that the Aboriginal people had been living there for hundreds of thousands of years was totally ignored. As the writer grew up he therefore became interested in the early colonial period history of where he lived. As a result, he was bewildered when, in 1987, a fellow local historian and friend said to him, "You are so racist!" This caused the writer to read Reynold and Wilmot and spend that year and the following trying to rid himself of a deep ignorance of Aboriginal society, culture and the impact of the British invasion. The result was the publication in 1989 by the University of Wollongong Aboriginal Education Unit of a 640 page compilation of archival and published records entitled Illawarra and South Coast Aborigines 1779-1850 followed four years later by a second, 480 page volume (Organ 1989 & 1993). The writer had became a decolonizer, though he was unaware of this at the time, and only during 2025 did he seek to understand the scope and implications of that term.

So is there a problem with that? Well, no and yes. You see, in 2025 academia promotes not only the integration of Indigenous input into its ongoing analysis of history and culture - a good thing - but also rewrites and censors history, and excludes non-Indigenous individuals from its free and open study and analysis - a bad thing. A reverse racism has appeared over the previous decade, and that is also not a good thing. The writer is therefore conflicted. As an avid and active decolonizer since 1987, the question now arises in his mind: Quo vadis?, i.e., where to from here? So, what brought this questioning about?

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2. Reconsideration 

In 2025 the subject of decolonizing research came up. What, precisely, did it mean? The following 2022 definition was both helpful and linguistically ambiguous for the academically uninitiated. :

Decolonizing research practices question Western cultural normativity and work to expand the perspectives of academic research through inclusion of First Nations ontological, epistemological, axiological, and methodological perspectives in research design, enactment, and outputs. Indigenist Research frameworks necessitate that research is carried out with, not on, First Nations Australians. The use of methodological tools, such as yarning and storying, that aim to disrupt the researcher/research power dynamic and emphasize relationality are critical to decolonizing research efforts. These Indigenist Research approaches can also be brought into conversation with new materialist and posthuman theoretical approaches to develop decolonizing research practices that are attentive to multispecies and multisensorial entangled encounters. (Somerville ....)

This text highlighted some of the concerns the writer held with the direction research and promotion of Indigenous cultural heritage and history had taken, for amongst the improvements, there was also new and worisome restrictions. To the uninitiated and non-academic public it was word salad, a largely unintelligible and impenetrable mass of words and statements understood at a glance by only a few who, for example, are aware of the meaning of words such as ontological, epistemological, axiological and especially yarning in the Indigenous context. Sure, it was included in a peer-reviewed article, and was not meant for the general public. But if students are being taught such material, then its defining elements should be known and readily accessible to the general public who, at the end of the day, will be the recipients of its outputs.

Whilst the writer accepts the importance, and indeed nobility of the above description of the scope of decolonizing research, it also has some problematic elements. These will be addressed below, and with the help of a dictionary the new regime presented therein will be unravelled in Idiots Guide format, alongside a critical assessment made in order to work out the best way forward in supporting the research endeavour and the vision of people such as Henry Reynolds to reveal the truth of the past and the richness of an Indigenous culture that was never appreciated by the invaders. 

As an historian long focussed on the early colonial period of Australian history, the writer was interested in its application to what he had done in that area over the years since 1984, and what he would do, going forward. To be frank, the precise meaning, and impact of the phrase decolonization, especially in the academic context, was not understood prior to the 2025 revelation. It quickly appeared, however, that despite his 1987 epiphany, he was obviously still somewhat of a perpetrator, enmeshed to a degree in Western cultural normativity. Not up on the precise meaning of the term, he was content with his 1970s era learnings and directions from University of Wollongong academic historians. He thought he was doing the right thing, but that 1970s right thing was now no longer right in 2025. In essence, the writer agreed with the intention and vision of the decolonization agenda, but wondered about the practical implementation of some of its elements. To assist with the process, the above defining paragraph was rewritten in simpler language, as follows:

Decolonizing research practices question and address past practices which excluded Indigenous people from participation in, and ownership of, the outputs. This new regime aims for inclusion of First Nations perspectives in research design, enactment, and outputs, in order to expand the perspectives arising out of ongoing academic research. This requires such research to include First Nations Australians. It should not be carried out on them, or exclude them. The use of Indigenous directed yarning and story telling, which aims to disrupt the traditional, exclusionary research power dynamic controlled by non-Indigenous researchers, is critical to decolonizing research efforts. It will introduce a greater degree of truth and accuracy to the process. Such practices will be more inclusive and revelatory of practical realities across the board.

The majority of the original paragraph is acceptible theoretically and practically. However, the problematic statement here is: 

Indigenist Research frameworks necessitate that research is carried out with, not on, First Nations Australians.

This was rewritten by the present writer as:  

This mandates that such research include First Nations Australians as equal partners. It should not be carried out on them, or exclude them.

This statement is problematic because it is racist and censorial. 

To say that the only people who can study a specific culture are members of that culture is racist. Implementation of such a policy could in turn lead to bias and censorship of such research. Of course, the non-inclusion of members of that race has, in the past, lead to bias and censorship. So, what is the solution?

In the opinion of the present writer, it is clear that ideally research into racially specific aspects of culture and history should be open and broad, but also include input from members of the race being studied. This input should be a normal part of the process, but not mandatory. If it excludes such input, then the resultant outputs must be judged accordingly. Such analysis applies to any cultural study and historical assessment, and is not simply limited to that of the Australian Aborigines. One of the major failings of colonization has been the openness of its dealings with Indigenous cultures and civilizations. Governor Macquarie not only hid his actions against against the local people, but also lied about them to authorities back in England. As a result, it took some two centuries for the truth to be revealed to the general public, with Henry Reynolds one of the pioneers in achieving that.

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References

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Last updated: 12 August 2025

Michael Organ, Australia