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Racial complaint and sovereign divergence: the case of Australia's first Indigenous ophthalmologist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2020

David Singh
David Singh*
Affiliation:
Faulty of Arts, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland4072, Australia
*
Author for correspondence: David Singh, E-mail: david.singh@uq.edu.au
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Abstract

This is a reflective piece that examines the nature of racial complaint with reference to Dr Kris Rallah-Baker's concerns about the racism that characterised his medical education. It will further examine the anti-racist campaign that sprung up in support of Rallah-Baker with a view to illustrating the limits of conventional critical race theory in understanding the course of events. Using the work of Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Gramsci and Stuart Hall, it will be argued that the Rallah-Baker case illustrates that Australian hegemonic formations can never quite command total legitimacy because sovereign formations, anti-racist in outlook, erupt with a frequency and facticity that lay bare the conceit of settler-colonialism. In so doing the paper will work towards an understanding of the critical Indigenous/race paradigm that goes beyond critical race insights borne of other places and experiences. As will be seen, what followed Rallah-Baker's complaint, the campaign that supported him and the concessions finally won was not, as critical race theory is wont to claim, a case simply of ‘interest convergence’; rather it was, I propose, an example of ‘sovereign divergence’.

Keywords

Anti-racismhigher educationrace
Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 49 , Special Issue 2: Critical conversations on higher education as an enabler to building an Indigenous health workforce , December 2020 , pp. 145 - 152
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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