Shifting the terrain, enriching the academy: Indigenous PhD scholars’ experiences of and impact on higher education

Abstract

In Australia, much like other colonized locations such as Canada, New Zealand, and the USA, the colonial legacies embedded within higher education institutions, including the history of exclusion and the privileging of Western epistemologies, continue to make universities challenging places for Indigenous PhD scholars. Despite this, and while the numbers of Indigenous PhD scholars remain well below population parity, they are carving a space within the academy that is shifting the academic terrain and enriching the research process. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Indigenous PhD scholars working in the field of health and a qualitative survey of doctoral Supervisors and Advisory Committee Chairs, this paper explores the doctoral experience of Indigenous scholars. What becomes apparent, through this research, is that despite ongoing experiences of racism and alienation, these scholars are finding ways to circumvent inadequate supervisory processes, systems support, and research paradigms, to carve a path that centers Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing.