Year
2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
School of Humanities and Social Inquiry
Abstract
This thesis examines the social and cultural significance of the success of Indigenous athletes in elite level sport in Australia. Much of the scholarly and public policy literature focuses on the significance of sport for Indigenous Australians and consists of various historical, biographical and community orientated studies. This thesis, however, adopts a different approach. It is primarily concerned with the significance that Indigenous people playing sport has for non-Indigenous Australians and, specifically, the role that elite-level Indigenous athletes are playing in reshaping Australian national culture.
In adopting this approach, this thesis examines how elite Indigenous athletes have acted, and continue to act, as change agents (whether they have intended to or not) and how their very presence on the global sporting stage exposes the contradictions and tensions of Australia’s settler colonial institutions, norms, and values while at the same time reshaping the very cultural fabric of our society.
By critically examining developments in the Australian Football League, Cricket Australia, and Netball Australia, the thesis demonstrates how sport, particularly at the elite level, has played a critical role in initiating important paradigmatic shifts in Australian national culture, even if sport continues to provide a platform for public outbursts of the most reactionary and racist type. Nevertheless, in this thesis I argue that sport continues to perform a form of ‘cultural work’ that contributes to what I have called, ‘cultural acceptance.’
I argue that we can see this most clearly when we place recent developments in the context of the wider history of Indigenous participation in sport in Australia. First, there have been greater numbers of Indigenous athletes performing at elite levels in high-profile sporting codes in Australia and on the international stage. Second, given the importance of sport in Australian culture, the growing visibility of Indigenous athletes and their successes have been accompanied by greater public recognition and acceptance. Third, sporting organisations have increasingly acknowledged and been pressured to confront laws, rules, traditions, and practices that have excluded, marginalised or at best complicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander involvement in the major sporting codes. Fourth, sporting organisations have more actively promoted the place of Indigenous Australians in their respective sporting codes with programs, initiatives and cultural practices that explicitly acknowledge the significance of Indigenous people, cultures and communities.
As we witness the emergence of Indigenous rounds and the celebration of Indigenous talent in various sporting arenas, it becomes evident that cultural acceptance serves not only as a symbol of progress but also as a catalyst for systemic change, even if that is far from a straightforward journey.
Recommended Citation
Kampers, David Ralph, Hard to Sing without a Voice – Aboriginal Athletes as Agents of Change, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong, 2024. https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses1/1903
FoR codes (2020)
4501 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, language and history, 4505 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, society and community
Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.