Colonial texts on Aboriginal land: the dominance of the canon in Australian English classrooms

Abstract

From its conception in Australia, subject ‘English’ has been considered central to the curriculum. The English literature strand in the curriculum does not stipulate specific texts but is more explicit regarding what should be considered as an appropriate ‘literary text’. Curriculum documents emphasise the need for texts to have cultural and aesthetic value whilst suggesting that English teachers include texts that are chosen by students, texts from Asia, and texts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors. Despite this, the influences of British colonisation manifests in Australian English teachers’ text selection as they continue to choose texts from the 'canon’. This paper is framed by Rigney’s principles of Indigenism and Indigenous Standpoint Theory (1999; 2017) and will draw on my own lived experience—as an Aboriginal student, English teacher, and now researcher—to examine the presence of colonialism in English and the consequent subordination of Indigenous perspectives. This paper will suggest some of the ramifications of prioritising colonial texts while teaching and learning on Aboriginal land and investigate how the construction of subject English could feel assimilative to Indigenous people. I will explore this by using my own experience of learning William Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ as a student and of teaching Doris Pilkington’s ‘Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence’ as a teacher as examples.