Maria Raciti

This paper reframes Indigenous student success beyond sector metrics to focus on quality of life while enrolled, which is operationalised as students’ capacity to be, become, and belong. Drawing on mixed-methods data from two universities, the research reveals that peer classroom cultures function as pedagogical infrastructure, significantly impacting Indigenous students’ wellbeing independent of lecturer intent. Culturally ignorant peers substantially harm quality of life, while knowledgeable peers support it. Where cultural safety is compromised, Indigenous-Indigenous connection becomes essential for sustaining wellbeing. This work challenges staff-centric approaches and positions peer cultural competence as foundational to equitable learning environments. The presentation will solicit feedback on cultivating non-Indigenous peer capability without instrumentalising Indigenous students.

This paper reframes Indigenous students’ university experience through the concept of resonance, examining how students navigate institutional alignment through strategic identity positioning and how Indigenous Centres support this navigation in ways that exceed service utilisation metrics. Resonance refers to Indigenous students’ experience of institutional attunement, recognition, and responsiveness. Resonance is Indigenous students’ capacity to find themselves reflected and affirmed within university structures and relations. Drawing on mixed-methods data from two universities, the study first reveals that many Indigenous students strategically foreground professional identity over cultural identity in everyday university contexts. This pattern reflects adaptive navigation seeking resonance with dominant institutional norms. The second key finding challenges conventional assumptions: Indigenous Centres are highly valued by low-use Indigenous students. Thus, Indigenous Centres provide ambient institutional resonance, signalling recognition and responsiveness even without active service engagement by some Indigenous students. These findings reframe understandings of the Indigenous student experience in Australian universities.

Students enter university with expectations shaped by media narratives, social networks and institutional marketing about what university life will be like. These representations often form simplified ‘gist-based’ understandings that shape expectations of the university experience (Reyna, 2021). During the transition to university, students’ lived experiences may diverge from these expectations, creating expectation-experience mismatch. Insights from a national study of over 400 first-year, first-time university students indicate mismatches are common and that students often attempt to reconcile these discrepancies through autonomous self-management, either through action or inaction. These coping responses influence students’ confidence, perceived control and overall satisfaction with the university experience. This paper proposes an emerging initiative that highlights the importance of supporting constructive, action-based coping responses when expectation-experience mismatch occurs.

Indigenous economic sovereignty in Australia remains constrained by colonial labour systems that position Indigenous peoples in extractive relationships. While industrial relations scholarship has examined European settler interaction with Indigenous peoples, the relationships between non-European migrants and Indigenous Australians remain under-examined. Hence, this paper proposes a transcultural employment framework that supports Indigenous economic sovereignty. 

Historical, sociological and policy literatures reveal precedents for Indigenous–non‑European migrant collaboration, including longstanding patterns of reciprocity and solidarity that were later obscured by protectionist and assimilationist regimes. The increasing participation of non-European migrants from post-colonial contexts in Australia’s workforce and entrepreneurial sectors enables the reactivation of these relational legacies.

Three conceptual pillars comprise the framework:

• Pillar #1 Recognising intersecting yet distinct colonial histories as the foundation for solidarity and relational repair;
• Pillar #2 Relational economic justice promotes reciprocal partnerships that deliver mutual benefit, respect Indigenous sovereignty and resist extractive logics; and
• Pillar #3 Transformative policy co-governance positions Indigenous and non-European migrant communities as co-designers of economic participation policy. 

Reframing employment relations through these pillars encourages a shift from deficit-based approaches toward collaborative, culturally responsive models that enhance the agency of both Indigenous and non-European migrant peoples. This aligns with Australia’s Closing the Gap Priority Reforms and the Indigenous Economic Empowerment agenda. Conceptually, the paper extends industrial relations and business scholarship by highlighting transcultural collaboration as a neglected site of innovation and social impact, inviting stakeholders to reimagine industrial relations in an increasingly plural and post-colonial world of work.

As the world faces considerable political, social, cultural and technological uncertainty, it is crucial that we take seriously the need to investigate how we achieve knowledge justice in graduate research for Indigenous and transcultural doctoral candidates in Australia and globally. In particular, we need fresh ways of shaping graduate research that incorporates Indigenous knowledge approaches. This involves transforming how we imagine the agency of Country, the power of Story and iterative, intergenerational and intercultural knowledge creation in doctoral education and supervision (Manathunga et al., 2022). Drawing upon postcolonial/ decolonial theories (Chakrabarty, 2007; Williams et al., 2017), this research paper presents the findings of a large qualitative research project that explored implementing Indigenous knowledge approaches in Australian doctoral education. With the support of an ARC Discovery grant, this nonIndigenous led, First Nations and transcultural project team conducted life history interviews and time mapping with over 100 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and transcultural (migrant, culturally diverse and international) doctoral candidates and their supervisors across 2022-2023. In this 55-minute presentation, the research team will present the f indings of their research which was designed to explore new ways of creating spaces within doctoral education and thesis creation for the histories, geographies, languages and cultural knowledges of First Nations and transcultural communities. The presentation will summarise the findings from the comparative policy analysis of Aotearoa New Zealand, South African and Australian doctoral education policies for Indigenous and black majority doctoral candidates that was conducted as the first phase of the project. It will then present and justify its innovative combination of life history methodologies (Dhunpath & Samuel, 2009) and time mapping before providing information on the overall demographic profile of its participant doctoral candidates and supervisors. 66 Using postcolonial/decolonial thematic analysis approaches, the presentation will illustrate its analysis of how Country, Story and iterative, intergenerational and intercultural knowledge creation strategies are present in the life stories and time maps of selection of First Nations, transcultural and non-Indigenous participants. The paper will conclude with an introduction to the project website, which contains practical resources on how to use life histories in doctoral supervision and how to create time maps that illustrate how candidates’ cultural knowledges, histories, languages and geographies impact upon their research. The website also showcases the brief life histories and time maps of a selection of participants. It is anticipated that this research project and the practical resources it provides will help to foreground relational and respectful approaches to the supervision of First Nations and transcultural doctoral candidates. These transformations have the potential to achieve greater knowledge justice in doctoral education that is likely to help us navigate the changing graduate research landscapes of the future.

This paper centres the storying of Australian First Nations doctoral candidates as powerful counter-imaginaries that challenge colonial norms and remake the possibilities of doctoral education. Drawing on life history interviews with 23 Indigenous candidates and supervisors, we explore how participants mobilise cultural storying to reclaim knowledge systems, assert sovereign identities, and imagine futures grounded in Country, kin, and culture. Storying emerges here not only as a methodology, but as a political and spiritual act of truth-telling, healing, and future-making.

Participants shared how ancestral presence, matriarchal guidance, and intergenerational trauma shaped their pathways into research. Their work speaks to a collective will to restore and renew Indigenous knowledges within institutions that have marginalised them. For many, doctoral research is not an individual journey but a cultural responsibility—an act of resistance and a gift to future generations. Indeed, these emerging scholars are expanding what it means to do research in and for Indigenous futures.

These Indigenous counter-imaginaries unsettle the Western academy’s emphasis on disconnection, individualism and deficit, offering instead an ecology of relationality, reciprocity and resurgence. We argue that doctoral education can become a site of cultural regeneration—if it is reshaped by the storylines, values, and aspirations of First Nations peoples. This paper calls for deep listening to these narratives and a commitment to building futures where Indigenous knowledge systems lead, flourish, and transform the very foundations of higher education.

This presentation explores the relationship between education, employment and entrepreneurship for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. While education is often framed as a key enabler of economic participation, it is also a site where racialised narratives and colonial values persist. These dynamics influence the perceived career opportunities available to Indigenous learners upon completing school and the pathways through which employment and entrepreneurship are imagined and pursued.

Structural racism that remains present in our modern-day education systems and can limit Indigenous students’ aspirations, reinforce deficit discourses, and disconnect formal learning from community and cultural knowledge systems. Likewise, racism in the business landscape, shapes the conditions under which Indigenous employment occurs and Indigenous entrepreneurs operate. Yet, despite these headwinds, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are redefining success on their own terms in workplaces and in the marketplaces around Australia.

Education, when responsive to Indigenous sovereignty and identity, can support employment goals and entrepreneurial efforts that are grounded in community wellbeing, cultural continuity, and economic justice. This presentation argues for an approach that recognises and addresses racialised structures across education, employment and entrepreneurship ecosystems, while also amplifying Indigenous strengths, leadership and innovation. By doing so, it contributes to the manifestation of bright, self-determined and thriving Indigenous futures.