International Indigenous Perspectives
Overview
This unit expands students’ fundamental knowledge of Indigenous Australian peoples and cultures, and the ongoing impacts of colonial invasion. Students engage with Indigenous Knowledges at a multi-disciplinary level to explore issues in Australia’s national identity, and Australian socio-politics regionally, nationally, and internationally. Learning and teaching encourages critical analysis of Australia’s claims as a politically progressive, culturally inclusive society by considering the extent to which comparable societies such as Canada, New Zealand, and the US continue to address the colonial legacy of Indigenous dispossession. Comparative techniques and analytical skills enable students to critically examine and reflect on the impacts of systemic racism, understand the significance of Indigenous Human Rights, and unpack how postcolonial, democratic societies whose contemporary economic wealth and political freedoms continue to flow from the historic dispossession of First Peoples.
Requisites
50 credit points
02-November-2025
Learning outcomes
Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:
- Accurately articulate an understanding of European imperialism in a global context, and ongoing impacts on Australian First Nations peoples and the wider society.
- Critically examine their own role and positionality as an individual in contemporary Australian society and the global community.
- Clearly define and critically discuss the key concepts of colonialism and imperialism and how these profoundly shape the relationships between First Nations and 'settler' peoples across the former British Empire.
- Identify and discuss the diversity of First Nations peoples’ experiences of colonisation, and how this diversity informs culturally responsive terminology.
- Discuss the various ways that First Nations peoples resist colonisation and assert self-determination, and describe the formation of socio-political alliances.
- Participate in critically informed discussion on First Nations rights through global comparative understandings.
Teaching methods
Hawthorn
| Type | Hours per week | Number of weeks | Total (number of hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online Lecture |
1.00 | 12 weeks | 12 |
| On Campus Class |
2.00 | 12 weeks | 24 |
| Specified Activities Various |
3.00 | 11 weeks | 33 |
| Unspecified Learning Activities (Phasing out) Independent Learning |
6.75 | 12 weeks | 81 |
| TOTAL | 141 |
Assessment
| Type | Task | Weighting | ULO's |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research Essay | Individual | 40% | 1,3,4,5,6 |
| Journal and Review | Individual | 30% | 1,2,3,4,5 |
| Presentation and Report | Individual/Group | 30% | 1,3,4,5,6 |
Content
- The global Landscape of Imperialism and Colonialism
- European Imagination – Colonial Representations of the “Other”
- Colonial Doctrines – Myths, Linear histories, and racially-based Superiority
- Systemic Racism – Policy-based Assimilation, systemic violence, corporate authority
- Human and Indigenous Rights - global and national frameworks
- Legal systems and intersectionalities with Indigenous experiences and priorities
- Decolonisation of Education - rethinking Pedagogy and Curricula
- Cultural safety in workplaces, professions, and community
- Critical self-reflection and becoming culturally responsive
- Privileging Indigenous values, perspectives and approaches in Research
- Self-determination - recognising traumas, and enabling self-governance
- Truth-telling and Reconciliation, Maturity of a Nation
Study resources
Reading materials
A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.