Abstract
Racism and racialisation can be framed as a threat to one’s ontological security. This article draws from qualitative life history interviews conducted with 11 Aboriginal people who are part of an existing longitudinal health study based in the city of Brisbane. The narratives revealed that perceptions of racism and racialisation were a significant consideration for these people when asked to reflect on their identity and wellbeing over time. Though less frequently overt, racism was often seen to be perpetrated from within one’s social circle, revealing the complicated process of engaging, contesting, rejecting, ignoring, minimising, avoiding and defining racism. The findings highlight the agency of Aboriginal people in adapting their behaviour to avoid or minimise the dread of ontological insecurity.
Racism and Aboriginal people in Australian urban contexts
In 2013, racism towards Aboriginal people was a topic of considerable public debate in Australia, following the legal case of a journalist, Andrew Bolt, who was found guilty of racial vilification for claiming fair-skinned Aboriginal professionals were not ‘real Aborigines’. 1 Historically, Australia has a long and vexatious history of controlling and regulating Aboriginal people and their identities (Bodkin-Andrews and Carlson, 2013). However, there are limited empirical studies that explore the complexities, characteristics and contexts of racism as experienced by Aboriginal people in contemporary Australia (Paradies and Cunningham, 2009: 549).The few studies that do exist have found that Aboriginal people continue to experience high levels of racism (Paradies and Cunningham, 2009; Paradies et al., 2008; VicHealth, 2012), which in turn can have deleterious impacts on health (VicHealth, 2012). Aboriginal people living in urban areas have reported higher levels of discrimination than rural counterparts (Cunningham and Paradies, 2013), and those of higher socio-economic background have been more likely to report experiences of racism (Paradies and Cunningham, 2009). A recent study found most racism was experienced in shops (67%) and public places (59%), with nearly one-third experiencing racism within healthcare settings (Kelaher et al., 2014). Common racialised stereotypes of Aboriginal people focus on fallacies of genetic or cultural inferiority, welfare dependency, alcoholism, dysfunction or the traditional ‘full-blood’ noble savage trope (Dodson, 1994; Mellor, 2003). Boladeras (2002: 135) exposed discrimination based on the misconception that ‘If you’re middle class you can’t be Aboriginal.’ Similarly, high levels of racism have been reported by fair-skinned Aboriginal people (Bennett, 2014; Boladeras, 2002). When confronting racism, however, Aboriginal people are often accused of being oversensitive (Augoustinos et al., 1999: 365). Other research suggests that such accusations are not just isolated events, but rather reflective of a broader social phenomenon that must be navigated daily in an Australian urban context (Brough et al., 2006; Gorringe et al., 2011; Oxenham et al., 1999).
Further exploration of the social experience of racism by Aboriginal people is needed as previous research has been primarily quantitative and undertaken in a health context (Kelaher et al., 2014; Larson et al., 2007; Paradies and Cunningham, 2009; Priest et al., 2011). The few recent qualitative studies that have explored experiences of contemporary racism as narrated by Australian Aboriginal people in an urban setting have been in the fields of public health (Ziersch et al., 2011), human movements (Nelson, 2012), social psychology (Mellor, 2003; 2004), social work (Gair et al., 2015; Bennett, 2014) and anthropology (Cowlishaw, 2004). As yet, sociology as a discipline has been rather silent in relation to this discussion (Butler-McIlwraith, 2006). This article adds to sociological literature and Australian public discourse by using concepts of racialisation and ontological security to explore how Aboriginal people may experience racism in a contemporary urban setting. The narratives presented emerged from qualitative life history interviews conducted with a small group of Aboriginal adults who had taken part in existing longitudinal health study. This study was originally designed to explore social determinants of health; that racism emerged from these life histories relatively unprompted demonstrates its significance for urban Aboriginal people, making the lack of attention to it in sociology even more remarkable.
Racism, ‘race’ and racialisation
Racism is the manifest mistreatment of a group or individual based on their ascribed racialised identity (Modood et al., 2002), commonly focused on phenotype and skin colour (‘colourism’), ancestry, ethnic or cultural background (Hollinsworth, 2006: 81). Historically rooted in misconceptions of genetic inferiority, eugenics and social Darwinism, Australian Aboriginal people have been discriminated against since the arrival of the Europeans, based on classifications ascribed by the White Australian dominant group (Reynolds, 1987).
‘Race’ is now largely accepted as a biological fallacy and is understood as a socio-political construct of the way we use phenotype to interpret, classify and stratify bodies into social groups (Smedley and Smedley, 2005). In an Australian context, ‘race’ refers to ‘those racialised for the purpose of exclusion or discrimination’ (Meekosha and Pettman, 1991), where being ‘White’ is positioned as the invisible race, taken as the norm (Moreton-Robinson, 2000). Racialisation is the process by which others are ‘raced’, that is, ascribed racialised identities based on real or imagined traits or behaviour based on perceived group membership (Ibrahim, 2004; Modood et al., 2002). The power of the dominant group is maintained and reinforced not only through institutionalised power but through tacit and embedded, almost unconscious and everyday social habits (Bourdieu, 1979). Essed (1991: 3) coined the term ‘everyday racism’ to describe a ‘systematic, recurrent, familiar practices’ where ‘socialised racist notions are integrated into everyday practices and thereby actualise and reinforce underlying racial and ethnic relations’ (1991: 145). This process can be sustained by the denial of racism, where ‘the dominant group must protect itself … against the damaging charge of intolerance and racism’ (van Dijk, 1992: 116). Ascribed racial identities can be subtly or bluntly applied, and, irrespective of intention, can lead to the internalisation of expectations of others based on perceived group membership in the form of self-fulfilling prophecies (Merton, 1948), stereotype threat (Davis and Simmons, 2009), internalised racism (Paradies et al., 2008) or identity policing (Brough et al., 2006; Oxenham et al., 1999). Conversely, an individual can reject their ascribed identity, causing status inconsistency which leads to the dominant group perceiving the individual’s identity as problematic (Lenski, 1954).
In Australia, overt racism (also sometimes referred to as ‘blatant’ or ‘old-fashioned’, see Augoustinos et al., 1999; Pedersen and Walker, 1997) has become largely socially unacceptable in public and is a criminal offence under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. However, covert racism (also sometimes called ‘modern’ or ‘symbolic’), a subtler version mostly but not exclusively performed in private, is argued by some researchers to remain ubiquitous and is often hard to prove or police (Augoustinos, 2009; Rowe, 1990; Sue et al., 2007). Experiences of covert racism towards various ethnic minority groups in Australia have been reported, as well as within groups (Dunn et al., 2004). However, caution is needed when dichotomising racism in this way, as there is a risk of ignoring the continuing presence of ‘old-fashioned’ racism, while silencing discussion of institutionalised racism (Leach, 2005; Mellor, 2003) or the complicity of some marginalised people in racism (Cowlishaw, 2004). It can also downplay the insidious and somewhat normalised nature of covert racism towards Aboriginal people in Australian discourse (Augoustinos, 2009; Kessaris, 2006; Pedersen and Walker, 1997; Sanson et al., 1998).
Social identity, ‘trust structures’ and ontological security
Exploring social identity construction can be valuable in understanding how racialisation and racism can be a threat to one’s ontological security. While this study did not purposively set out to explore ontological security, it emerged post hoc as one among a range of conceptual frameworks that may be helpful in interpreting experiences of racism and the way it may shape a person’s lifecourse. Ontological insecurity is the ‘perceived threat to the integrity of the security system of the individual’ (Giddens, 1991: 45). The creation of one’s social identity, or sense of self, is a reiterative process informed by everyday social interaction, with cultural and ethnic identity being a facet of one’s social identity (Giddens, 1991). In the words of Marcia Langton (1993: 3), identity is ‘remade over and over again, in a process of dialogue, of imagination, of representation and interpretation’. Paradoxically, in an existential sense, identity can also be described as a ‘relatively stable and enduring sense that a person has of himself [or herself]’ (Bullock and Trombley, 1999: 413). Drawing on Giddens (1991), Croft (2012: 229) outlines that one’s self-identity is based on biographical coherence (what makes sense in the context of an individual’s life narrative), and is contained within a ‘cocoon of trust structures’ (protective and familiar social actors such as friends or family). In considering people’s responses to racism, we can assume that individuals are most comfortable when they act in a way that is ‘acceptable and appropriate’ within their ontological framework; that is, actions that are congruent with their sense of self or ‘way of being’ (Giddens, 1991: 36). In this literature, individuals aim to avoid the dread of ontological insecurity; the anxiety-like feeling one can experience when exposed to a threat, or people are acting incongruently in relation to one’s sense of self (Giddens, 1991: 37).
In an Australian context, Noble (2006) has used ontological insecurity to frame feelings of discomfort and not ‘fitting it’ due to racism and ‘uncivil attention’ towards people with Muslim and/or Arabic backgrounds post-2001. To date, ontological security has not been explored with regard to the experiences of racism of Aboriginal people in Australia, despite resonating with the notion that imposing racialised identities can challenge one’s ontological security, and even influence identity formation and life outcomes (Brough et al., 2006). As a novel contribution to the way we might interpret experiences of racism among Aboriginal people, this article explores the ways in which agency is used to minimise or avoid the dread of ontological insecurity throughout interviewees’ life histories.
Methodology
Guided by a western-based social constructivist epistemology and an interpretivist theoretical framework, I acknowledge that we construct meaning about social phenomena rather than ‘discover’ it (Crotty, 1998: 42), and that analysis entails ‘culturally derived and historically situated interpretations of the social life-world’ (1998: 67). Thus, it is important to note I am a non-Aboriginal woman in my mid-twenties, born and living in Brisbane, working as a young researcher as part of my doctoral studies. My background has consciously and unconsciously shaped the way I conducted interviews, and how the interviewees engaged with me, what stories they chose to share and also my interpretations of the data (Pezalla et al., 2012; Russell-Mundine, 2012).
The present study analyses qualitative data collected as part of a broader study that explores how social determinants may change and impact the health and wellbeing of a small group of Aboriginal people. Interviewees were sourced from a large quantitative-based longitudinal birth cohort study: the Mater-University Study of Pregnancy (MUSP). MUSP recruited expecting mothers accessing antenatal care at the Mater hospital in inner city Brisbane in 1981–3, with mother and child followed-up at birth (see Najman et al., 2005). This included 226 study-children whose mother had identified herself and/or her partner as ‘Australian Aborigine’ at the first clinical visit. 2
Thirty years later, 30 of the original 226 were able to be followed up, with 15 self-identifying as Aboriginal. 3 This article uses data from 11 participants who agreed to be interviewed, comprising five men and six women aged between 31 and 34 years living in an Australian capital city. All interviewees had both an Aboriginal parent and a non-Aboriginal parent. Compared to the broader Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in Australia (AIHW, 2011), there was a higher level of educational attainment and employment among this group. All interviewees reported having post-secondary qualifications, ranging from trades to Bachelor’s degrees, with four interviewees currently studying at university. Ten out of eleven were currently employed: four in the public service, five in the private sector and one was a self-employed business owner. Only one interviewee reported not currently being employed but was studying. Home ownership was high among this group with three interviewees currently owning their own homes and an additional four indicating they planned to buy a house within the next five years.
In-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews were used to provide interviewees with the opportunity to describe a narrative of their own lives, from their own perspectives. The ‘life history method’ was used to assemble a series of ‘researched, short life stories’ with the interviewees (Atkinson, 2004; Plummer, 2004); hence the stories produced are a ‘circumstantially mediated, constructive collaboration between interviewer and interviewee’ (Atkinson, 2004). At the start of the qualitative interview, I stated interest in how cultural background, social factors and significant life experiences through childhood, adolescence and adulthood may have influenced the person’s mental and physical health and shaped the person towards what they are today. A ‘themes list’ (Liamputtong and Ezzy, 2005) was used to explore the following four life domains: family, education/employment, community/culture and health/wellbeing. This allowed for the exploration of areas that were seen as significant for interviewees that were not covered by previous MUSP surveys, such as racism, cultural identity and participation in the Aboriginal community. Racism was not specifically prompted for in all interviews but rather emerged from many interviewees’ life stories. In cases where interviewees had not yet spoken about experiences of racism, it was prompted. It is my interpretations of interviewee accounts of these experiences that are presented in this paper.
The interviews were conducted between May 2013 and January 2014, two face-to-face in a cafe and nine via Skype. Recorded verbal informed consent was given prior to commencing the interview. 4 Interviews ranged between one to two hours in length, were audio-recorded, then intelligent verbatim transcriptions were made, with some excessive use of fillers omitted to ensure readability. Thematic analysis was used to sort narratives by emerging themes. To maintain anonymity, privacy and confidentiality, certain identifying details have been removed and interviewee pseudonyms have been randomly allocated. The following section will present interviewees’ narratives of navigating racism as they emerged from the life history interviews, often unprompted, permeating across different life domains throughout childhood, adolescence and adulthood. To prioritise the Aboriginal voices within the findings section, the trust of the theoretical discussion will occur in the section following the findings.
‘It’s everyday comments from people you know’
Among the Aboriginal people interviewed, Essed’s (1991) concept of everyday racism punctuated daily life and was often perpetrated from within social circles. Findings revealed the complexities of racism, with interviewees having to regularly engage, reject, contest, avoid, ignore, internalise or redefine different forms of racism in order to maintain ontological security.
The nature of racist encounters
When talking about what it was like growing up in Brisbane in the 1980s as an Aboriginal person, Joshua recounted that ‘life was pretty stable’, though with some exceptions. Here, unprompted by the researcher, Joshua detailed his first experience of racism which occurred when he was ‘really little’, attending an Indigenous kindergarten:
The bus used to pick us all up after kindy and take us home. One day, we were dropping off one of the other kids and there was an old man standing outside his house, watering his grass. When he saw the bus pull up, he came over and started spraying the bus! Spraying it through the windows! He was yelling all sorts of abuse and stuff.
Joshua said that he understood ‘a little bit of what was going on’ from other stories he had heard from family members, ‘But the first time you encounter it, you just think, Whoa! What’s this old dude going on about? I’m not hurting anyone!’ For Joshua, racism was seen as overt and, though shocked, he was able to dismiss it with relative ease when perpetrated by a stranger.
However, the overt racism that featured in Joshua’s story did not constitute the majority of racist encounters described by the interviewees. Instead, the bulk of experiences reported by the interviewees were perceived as an ‘everyday’ insidious racism that would surface at seemingly unexpected times:
It’s not so much in-your-face racism, so much as constant underlying. You just become so attuned to it, it becomes nothing, really. (Isaac)
This sentiment was echoed across all narratives. Racism would occur at work, school or at home, generally in the form of taunts or inappropriate comments, from friends, acquaintances, workmates and family members, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal: ‘often it’s from people you don’t think that would come from’ (Lauren). Incidences of racism reported by interviewees usually consisted of ‘mainly ignorant friends saying stupid shit and not really understanding the scope of what they think is a joke’ (Isaac), and ‘just saying all this stuff that just pops into their head’ (Hayley). One interviewee commented that, ‘a lot of the time it’s not directed at me but it’s stuff I overhear because people don’t realise I have an Aboriginal background so they are more likely to say something in front of me’ (Sarah).
Because the perpetrator was often someone they knew, this complicated the way people engaged with or interpreted racism. If the perpetrator was somebody the interviewee liked, these incidents were sometimes described in a way that would remove direct blame from the perpetrator, in contrast to the previous account with a stranger. For example, Steve defended his friends who said he’s ‘not like other Aboriginals [sic]’, by qualifying that, ‘they’re not being mean or anything’. When recounting his Aboriginal mother’s father saying ‘if you grow up living in Australia, then living Aboriginal is not the way forward any more’, Steve qualified it as being ‘a bit of a weird thing to say’, despite this partially explaining why he did not have much to do with his Aboriginal extended family growing up. Conversely, Jessica’s non-Aboriginal step-father would not let her eat at the dinner table because she was Aboriginal. She was able to reject this racism by describing him as ‘an arsehole’, though eventually left home at an early age because of it. Through the regularity of experiencing racism from people they knew, interviewees described these incidents as if they had come to accept and normalise situations where a certain amount of racism was to be expected.
Minimising, defining, accepting and ignoring racism
While all interviewees reported experiencing some form of racism, there was a tendency to minimise or downplay its effects, either through qualifying, accepting or ignoring it. For example, aside from the spraying incident, Joshua described the rest of the racism he experienced as ‘alright, not bad […] nothing too major. Just little snippy comments, heat of the moment stuff’. Minimising their experiences of racism seemed to occur in juxtaposition to interviewees’ understanding of overt racism. For example, Steve had rationalised his definition of racism to exclude his experiences of being called ‘bad names’ or having the authenticity of his Aboriginality challenged (which others may interpret as covert racism). Rather, Steve saw racism to be the overt ‘you can’t do that because you’re black attitude’. Chris spoke in a similar way: ‘I don’t take some things as racism. I’m used to people always joking around and stuff, but not really taking a joke, sort of thing’, hinting that humour can be misinterpreted from what was perhaps intended. Both rejected this as a form of racism by claiming that ‘I don’t let that sort of stuff bother me. That’s beneath me’ (Steve) or ‘I usually just joke back. It doesn’t affect me’ (Chris).
Similarly, some interviewees proposed generational differences, suggesting that their parents had experienced more overt racism, such as non-Aboriginal family members’ disapproval of mixed marriages. Interviewees made references to a transformative process in Australian society: ‘It was very different then. There was more racism that was obvious. Though it’s still pretty bad today!’ (Jessica). Notwithstanding, interviewees often talked at length about their experiences of racism and racialization, and described the various ways they adapted their behaviour to minimise its effects; acknowledging that, even though it may not take overt forms, it was still a significant part of their life story.
Contesting racially ascribed identities
The majority of racist comments stemmed from stereotypes and ascribed identities others held of Aboriginal people; more precisely, that these interviewees did not fit the preconceived ideas of what others imagined Aboriginal people should be like. For example, Steve elaborated that his friends said he was ‘not a typical blackfella’ because he did not conform to the dysfunctional drunk trope, though he did not think ‘that I’m that special’. Being at risk of confirming a negative stereotype (i.e. stereotype threat) caused Steve discomfort, which can be interpreted as the dread of ontological insecurity. To avoid this, Steve reported working hard, buying a house, and choosing not to drink alcohol. He also appeared to simultaneously acknowledge certain stereotypes about Aboriginal people while personally rejecting them in his life story:
The only thing that hits me hard is when I see drunken Aboriginals standing around, making a bad name. […] I think those stereotypes that are out there are a bit too plain to see. […] I can probably vouch for the stereotype a bit too much myself. There’s been quite a few people who’ve dissuaded that sort of stereotype but not enough to break it completely. […] That’s probably the reason why I’m a better person and don’t do that sort of stuff any more.
Hayley provides a different example of contesting ascribed identities by addressing some of the challenges she experienced with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people for not having the dark skin of a stereotypical Aboriginal body. At school, a darker skinned Aboriginal girl would call the interviewee ‘whitey’, which she found offensive. To combat this, Hayley drew strength from her Aboriginal cultural identity, and confronted the girl by explaining their ‘bloodlines’ (i.e. family backgrounds), asserting that the girl ‘was no more Aboriginal than I was’.
Other interviewees spoke of the (in)visibility of physical racial difference being a potential determinant of whether racism is experienced:
I still hear about this happening to people I know. But a lot of people tell me I don’t look Indigenous. I’ve had people think I was Spanish to European to like all different sorts of things. I have tanned skin, not really dark skin. Maybe people just don’t pick me as being Indigenous, so maybe that’s why I don’t experience much racism? (Joshua)
This contrasts with the previous story focusing on racism experienced for not looking Aboriginal, highlighting that phenotype plays an important though complex role in racism experienced in a contemporary urban setting.
Interviewees voiced accounts of experiencing comments about having mixed cultural backgrounds. This came from both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who would attempt to challenge the authenticity of their Aboriginal identity. Lauren commented:
I do get racism because I’m not fully black and I’m not fully white. Sometimes they call you a coconut because you’re not black-black. I get it both ways. Either you’re stuck up because you’re white and own a house now. Or comments like ‘What are you, white or black?’
Similar to Noble’s (2006) accounts of experiences of ontological insecurity among people of Muslim and/or Arabic backgrounds in Australia, discomfort was a feeling that was felt by interviewees when exposed to racialisation. Having their own Aboriginal identity questioned and being compared to stereotypes sometimes led to dread of ontological insecurity (Giddens, 1991). This was expressed as feelings of doubt, self-questioning and uncertainty, as well as a lack of sense of belonging when rejected from a group: ‘I think we were sitting on the fence. We were in between. Trying to be accepted at the same time but by both sides’ (Jessica).
Importance of context in determining reactions to racism
Through past experiences, interviewees learnt what might be considered as certain rules of engagement with regard to responding to racist behaviour, namely that ‘you can’t pull people out blatantly, unless they are being blatant’ (Isaac). The situational context was an important determinant of how interviewees responded: ‘Every situation was different and it would depend on the group that I was in, who was saying what and things like that’ (Hayley). Isaac commented that it was not always appropriate to intervene: ‘It depends on the situation. If the situation allows for it, I’ll say something. If it doesn’t, I usually try and find that person, if I know them, and just say something quietly to them, aside.’ Considering racism was often perpetrated by friends or workmates, interviewees spoke of the ‘complicated balancing act’ of juggling different social identities:
I’ve found in my role as the owner of this really cool business […], it makes it tough to say something and pull people up. I actually come across as pretty rude or abrupt, but completely also not from that type of scene. […] The context is all wrong. […] [T]hey’ll say something [racist] then I’m like, ‘Yeah, nah dude, that’s not cool […].’ Then they’re like, ‘I’m not at school, bro. I don’t wanna learn about it.’ […] They think they’re open-minded but they’re not! (Isaac).
While it was not always deemed appropriate to intervene, it was not always appropriate for interviewees to simply ignore racism and its perpetrators either, as it was often embedded in their everyday lives.
Racism shaping life choices: avoiding or educating the perpetrator
Interviewees often took action to reduce the chance of experiencing racism in the future. Similar to reports from Aboriginal people in a recent Victorian study (VicHealth, 2012), interviewees explained they would avoid certain contexts where they thought racism would be more prevalent. Sarah changed her workplace because she was fed up with colleagues making racist comments about clients:
[Staff have a] very stereotypical view of people. And it’s not just for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people, but for Indian or Chinese people too. I think it’s made worse by ignorance. People don’t have the opportunity to sit down and get to know people. […]
Another interviewee explained:
I’m not really the type of person who gets into situations where, you know, things like racism or any sort of aggressiveness can really be brought in […]. I’m not down at a bar getting drunk arguing […], those sorts of situations. (Joshua)
Alternatively, if the situation could not be avoided, interviewees sometimes took up an educator’s role with the perpetrator. This consisted of rationally discussing matters one-on-one, in a way that was believed to be most effective in resulting in a change for the perpetrator, such as Hayley confronting the bully at school, or in Lauren’s example:
One of my work mates when I was younger said that she didn’t like Aboriginals because one of her mates got bashed by an Aboriginal in [a country town]. I said to her, ‘[…] you really can’t stereotype just because one person did it. […] I could say that all about white people, if my friend got bashed by a white person.’ So I tried to give her examples.
There was usually a consensus among interviewees that it was good to confront the perpetrator, ‘You do need to speak to them and see what the issue is, and see if you can weed that issue out’ (Isaac) as this could prevent the incident from occurring again. Lauren added, ‘They know not to do anything now! I’m very strong woman so I don’t tolerate any of that stuff any more!’
(Not) talking about it
When asked whether they generally talked about racism they encountered with others, Steve said that he would occasionally have a laugh about it with his Aboriginal friends, but most said they did not often talk to other people about their experiences of racism:
It was an ‘everyone deals with it themselves’ kind of mentality. If you had a problem with something or with someone, that was your problem to deal with. It wasn’t that we weren’t close, I don’t really discuss any problems that come up with anyone. (Joshua)
Similarly, Jordan said, ‘I’ve never seen the point of burdening other people.’ In the words of one interviewee:
I mostly ignore it. I think to myself: Look, I know who I am, I know where my people are from, I know and I love my family and respect them, and that’s all that really matters. (Hayley)
Discussion
The findings encourage new ways of thinking about racism by capturing the nuanced subjectivities of experiences among Aboriginal people in an urban Australian context. The interviews revealed that for some, racism was a persistent and pervasive part of their life stories, permeating across different life domains of school, work, health and family. The closer the perpetrator was in the person’s social circle, the more complicated were interviewees’ engagement with racism. While some refused to acknowledge that racism affected them, the life narratives showed that choices had been made to minimise its impact. The people interviewed exercised agency when responding to various stereotypes, choosing ways to adapt to circumstances to maintain ontological security and reinforce their own distinctive ways of being Aboriginal.
Racism as a threat to ontological security
The narratives presented revealed that racism can be seen as a threat to one’s ontological security in terms of interviewees’ sense of a cultural identity derived from their Aboriginal ancestry. Similar to other studies, racism was often based on interviewees not conforming to some people’s preconceived imaginings of what it is to be an Aboriginal person, for example, by exhibiting ‘dysfunction’, being ‘full-blood’ or ‘looking Aboriginal’ (Bennett, 2014; Gorringe et al., 2011; Mellor, 2003; Oxenham et al., 1999; Ziersch et al., 2011). It is possible that experiences of racism may differ from those of Aboriginal people living in rural areas, and with lower socioeconomic status (Cunningham and Paradies, 2013). Similarly, having both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal parents may have exposed interviewees to social domains where racism may have been more or less prevalent (Trigger, 1986). The Aboriginal people in this study were well-educated and employed ‘functional’ members of society, had mixed ancestry, and for some, their bodies did not conform to stereotypical Aboriginal phenotypes. This led to perceived status inconsistency with others questioning the authenticity of their Aboriginality. However, interviewees themselves did not portray their Aboriginal identities as problematic, understanding them as an inherent part of their life stories. They saw themselves as ‘normal’ and ‘not different’ or ‘not that special’, referring to being a normal Aboriginal person, and interchangeably as part of mainstream Australian society. In a sense this can be seen as enacting ‘strategic hybridity’, or switching between roles of being ‘same’ and ‘different’ (Hollinsworth, 2006: 61), though being positioned as ‘different’ was often imposed rather than selected.
For some, perceptions of racism provoked ontological insecurity. Feelings of ‘sitting on the fence’, or being challenged for not conforming to the ascribed identity resulted in some interviewees feeling a sense of anxiety in their sense of self, a fear of not being accepted, or a lack of sense of belonging; for others such experiences appeared to be relatively easily dismissed by saying they were not affected, though this may have changed with age. Interviewees employed resilient agency through a variety of coping mechanisms to avoid the ‘dread’ of ontological insecurity, from changing their social environment to defining racism so as to exclude their personal experiences to choosing responses to racism based on socially learnt past experiences that were ‘acceptable and appropriate’ to their ontological framework (Giddens, 1991: 36). These responses included minimising, accepting, and ignoring it, defining or reinterpreting incidences, asserting a sense of personal achievement or cultural identity, avoiding situations with a perceived risk of experiencing further racism, and educating the perpetrator. This suite of responses is similar to findings in previous studies with Aboriginal people (Mellor, 2004; VicHealth, 2012; Ziersch et al., 2011), and allowed interviewees to adapt to situations and preserve other aspects of their lives in a way that would maintain ontological security.
The importance of trust structures
As evidenced by the interviewees’ narratives, the influence of trust structures in creating one’s ontology suggests that the opinions and actions of people within a person’s immediate social circle had the greatest impact on informing one’s ontological security (Croft, 2012; Giddens, 1991). Rather than being isolated experiences with strangers, the majority of racism reported was embedded in everyday contexts and relationships, which affected the way interviewees chose to react to incidents. Joshua was able to dismiss the ‘old dude’ who hosed the van because it was a blatant act of racism committed by a stranger. However, for Steve, comments from his family and friends concerning negative stereotypes about Aboriginal people had greater impact on forming his sense of self, because they were from inside his trust structure and led to him to wanting to surpass negative stereotypes. Keen to minimise its role, Steve defined racism to exclude the stereotyping that he experienced in a way that would protect and defend his trust structures, and maintain his sense of ontological security. While jokes from friends or acquaintances may appear minor, they can also operate as ‘subtle insecuritisations’ (Croft, 2012: 228) and can be difficult to deal with because they can come from inside one’s trust structure. This makes them sometimes harder to brush away and they may even come to be considered as ‘appropriate and acceptable’ behaviour (Croft, 2012: 228).
Because incidents of racism were often embedded in everyday lives, interviewees had to constantly navigate social networks and ‘balance’ different facets of their social identities. People talked about making conscious decisions about how they presented themselves, reflecting on how they may be perceived, and the effectiveness this may have in creating an attitudinal change in the perpetrator. Considering perpetrators were often people they knew, it was not realistic to stop socialising with the person concerned every time something happened. Educating played a large role in coping mechanisms, as this can be seen as having agency in attempting to change the social context and the attitudes of others. To convince perpetrators that their behaviour was inappropriate and unacceptable minimised the risk of future incidences and consequently the dread of ontological insecurity.
It is important to note that the use of social support from friends and family to share experiences of racism and diffuse feelings of ontological insecurity was reportedly used sparingly. As suggested by Ziersch et al. (2011: 1049), this hints at a more complicated relationship of not wanting to create more stress or burden for others, especially if they were likely to be having similar experiences themselves or, alternatively, to be the perpetrators. The everydayness of these experiences gave rise to self-doubts about the severity of incidences, so people often did not access support – or perhaps simply did not feel they needed it. Ziersch et al. (2011) have suggested that responses to racism are not always protective but can also be harmful.
Conclusion: Is identity policing the new racism?
By framing racism as a threat to ontological security, and highlighting the subversive ways racism can operate from within one’s own social circle, this article sought to understand how both overt and covert racism operate to potentially cause harm and influence an individual’s life choices. Rather than exclusively focusing on genetic or cultural inferiority, the contemporary experiences of racism described in this article had a particular focus on ascribed racialised identities and identity policing, consistent with previous qualitative studies (Bennett, 2014; Boladeras, 2002; Mellor, 2003). Other academics, such as Song (2014: 22), have debated whether accusations of ‘inauthentic’ racial identities constitute racism by reproducing the ‘structures of domination’, or whether they trivialise racism (Song, 2014: 125). However, the historical context of the regulation of Aboriginal identities in Australia (Bodkin-Andrews and Carlson, 2013) and the fact that interviewees changed their lives to avoid racism suggest that this can indeed ‘actualise and reinforce underlying racial and ethnic relations’ (Essed, 1991: 145). Perceived status inconsistency challenged the authenticity of one’s Aboriginal identity, in some cases led to ontological insecurity and in others an explanatory discourse as to how they coped. The fact that the racism narratives emerged in this study largely unprompted suggests these were stories interviewees wanted to prioritise, that were important to them, but also they believed were important for others to hear.
Hints about generational differences in experiences of racism suggest that Australian society may be perceived to be in a process of gradual social change, becoming more accepting of Aboriginality as a complex and diverse social identity. However, as others have noted (Augoustinos, 2009; Sanson et al., 1998), there may be a switch from overt to covert racism, while some examples of ‘old-fashioned’ racism remain. The pervasive regularity of racism for some interviewees meant that it was not realistic to expect victims to actively combat it every time. While resilience building among vulnerable groups is important, there needs to be greater awareness that racism and identity policing can go beyond simply causing offence – they can impact the way people navigate their life. The underlying consensus that Aboriginal people expect to experience racism as a fact of life of being Aboriginal in an Australian context, speaks a lot for a certain normalisation of an ‘accepted level of racism’ in Australian society. As Hollinsworth (2006:43) states:
we need to focus on this mundane, routine or everyday form [of racism] rather than the exceptional and pathological. This focus is important because when most people claim not to be racist, it is this extreme or exaggerated form which they reject.
From a sociological perspective, it is curious that there has been such limited attention to racism within the discipline given its significance on the lives of Aboriginal people.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the interviewees who gave their time generously to this project. She would also like to acknowledge the valuable comments Professor David Trigger and Dr Chelsea Bond provided on earlier drafts of the manuscript, and the feedback received from two anonymous reviewers.
Funding
The author was in receipt of an Australian Postgraduate Award at the time of writing.