ABSTRACT

The presentation will analyse the quantitative findings of a three-year mixed-method research project developed in partnership with six urban First Nations organisations in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW). The research is designed to provide urban First Nations organisations with a space to speak back to state and federal governments and their agencies. As part of this research, a survey was developed based on the observations, questions, and concerns of our partner First Nations organisations and wider First Nations Discussion Circles. The findings speak back to an Indigenous service market ontology, which sees First Nations organisations as service providers, identifying an alternative Indigenous ontology about the distinctive role of urban First Nations organisations in society.

BIOGRAPHY

Associate Professor Howard-Wagner is a sociologist and socio-legal scholar and Senior Fellow in the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR). She is former President of the Law and Society Association Australia and New Zealand and former co-Chief Editor of the Australian Journal of Social Issues (AJSI).

Howard-Wagner has a well-established international research standing and is well-recognised as contributing to the public policy literature attending to the structural and foundational challenges the state presents for Australian Indigenous policymaking (see Nakata and Maddison 2019, 415). It is a specialised body of research advancing knowledge through privileging the voices of First Nations peoples. She has achieved this as the recipient of nine competitive categories 1, 2 & 3 grants, including four as lead CI. DP180103453 (lead CI), DE120100798 (lead CI), ANU Futures Scheme Award (lead CI), OCHRE LDM Evaluation (secondary CI) & OCHRE Accord Negotiation Review (secondary CI) interact in significant ways to consolidate this knowledge in urban localities. Research that is co-designed with First Nations people, communities and organisations and that is beneficial to First Nations peoples, organisations and communities and that reaches end-users (service providers and policy actors).

Howard-Wagner publishes and maintains broad interests in the fields of Sociology and Socio-Legal Studies. Her sole-authored manuscript Indigenous invisibility in the City (2021) is published in the Routledge Advances in Sociology series. Her article Governance of Indigenous policy in the neoliberal age: Indigenous disadvantage and the intersecting of paternalism and neoliberalism as a racial project (2018) is published in a lead international sociology journal Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Working at the intersections of sociology, critical Indigenous political philosophy, Socio-Legal Studies, and critical race and whiteness studies, her publications adopt a critical and analytical lens to understand the Australian Government’s policy approach to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage, justice, service delivery, development, reconciliation, racism, and urban governance. Research published in Q1 and Q2 international and national journals, such as the lead international sociological journal in her field Ethnic and Racial Studies Journal (2018, Q1, 2466 reads & 27 citations) and first article, the first issue for the year in lead international Indigenous policy journal, International Journal of Indigenous Policy (2019, Q1, 193 downloads and 8 citations). Her analysis of and observations concerning Australian Indigenous policy development have been taken up and cited in 426 national/international publications and by scholars in Canada, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, and the Netherlands (see Google Scholar citations).

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