Maria Raciti

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.

Indigenous employment is a key priority in Australia’s pursuit of economic justice and equity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Despite various policy efforts, including Closing the Gap Target 8—which aims to increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 25–64 who are employed —progress remains. At the same time, Australia’s labour market is fast evolving and expanding. Transcultural businesses, being those established and operated by culturally and racially diverse migrants are emerging as significant yet underexplored employers of Indigenous Australians.

This presentation shares preliminary insights from the literature and business data that maps current understandings of Indigenous employment, with a focus on participation in transcultural business contexts. While existing literature has often centred on mainstream labour force integration or Indigenous-led enterprises, little attention has been given to how Indigenous Australians are engaging with transcultural businesses that operate across non-Western cultural logics and values.

This work offers a new conceptual lens for understanding employment trends, proposing that transcultural business engagement represents a distinct and potentially generative space for Indigenous workforce participation. By bringing Indigenous and migrant experiences into relational view, this research invites further exploration of how employment can be shaped by shared aspirations for self-determination, mutual respect, and economic inclusion. In doing so, it highlights the need to move beyond inclusion rhetoric toward employment models that reflect the diverse ways Indigenous Australians contribute to, and thrive within, Australia’s evolving economic landscape.

Abstract:

Background: Supervision is a complex enactment of research identity formation as well as the production of new knowledge and provides opportunities for the mutual research growth of candidates and supervisors.

Aims: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how relationality across difference can be developed in supervision that seeks to learn from First Nations commitments to reciprocal relationality and inter-generational and intercultural pedagogies (Manathunga et al., 2025; Manathunga et al., 2022; Keane et al., 2023)

Theory and methods: Drawing upon a combination of postcolonial and decolonial theory (Chakrabarty, 2007; Smith, 2020; Maldonado-Torres, 2011) and life history (Dhunpath & Samuel, 2009; Goodson et al, 2017) and visual time-mapping methodologies (Manathunga et al., 2021), we seek to illustrate how entangled relationality in supervision amidst candidate and supervisor diversity operates. In this paper, life history and time mapping methodologies were used with 4 supervisors and 2 candidates to articulate their intellectual and cultural life journeys that have led them to research and form the basis of deep relationality between doctoral candidates and supervisors.

Findings: The research uncovered how understanding more about each other’s intellectual and cultural life journeys and motivations for engaging in research creates opportunities for mutually trusting and respectful relationality in supervision. We also found that cultural differences can act as key generator of learning and growth for candidates and supervisors. This paper discusses the implications of using life history and time mapping methodologies to build greater relationality between candidates and supervisors.

Implications, Impact and Relevance: The application of First Nations commitments to reciprocal relationality and inter-generational and intercultural pedagogies to doctoral supervision provides a unique lens through which to create additional opportunities to build relationality in doctoral supervision. This is likely to improve the supervision of Indigenous and culturally diverse candidates and to work towards epistemic and social justice.

Background: Transformative services intended to improve consumer well-being can paradoxically result in harm (co-destruction), especially during vulnerable life transitions. Limited research examines the antecedents and processes underlying the shift from co-creation to co-destruction, and how this contributes to consumer ill-being and lasting regret.

Aim: This study investigates the mechanisms triggering co-destruction within transformative services and explores the enduring psychological effects, particularly life regret, among consumers navigating life transitions.

Methods and Approach: The research draws from theoretical developments in transformative service research and value co-destruction, which identify personal and systemic factors contributing to consumer ill-being (see Anderson et al., 2013; Gummerus et al., 2024; Lumivalo, Tuunanen & Salo, 2024). Given the personal nature of co-destruction and ill-being, qualitative methods were employed. Semi-structured convergent interviews captured nuanced lived experiences from 30 Australian consumers who engaged transformative services across multiple contexts. Thematic analysis using Braun and Clarke’s (2022) approach identified key personal and systemic triggers of co-destruction, tracing their impact on consumer decision-making, ill-being and life regret outcomes.

Results and Findings: Lingering ill-being in the form of life regret was evident in 27 cases. Co-destruction stemmed from personal behaviours (intentional ignorance, decision deferral) interacting with systemic factors (time pressure, information withholding, siloed communication, gaslighting), exacerbating consumer vulnerability during a life transition.

Conclusions, Implications and Real World Impacts: The findings provide service providers with clear entry points for intervention, pointing to strategies for enhancing organisational transparency and relational trust to mitigate co-destruction and improve outcomes for consumers experiencing vulnerability.

Population parity rates are useful for holding governments and universities to account for their inclusion of diverse groups of students that have traditionally been underrepresented within higher education (Naepi, 2021). They assist governments and universities to redirect resources and support to these students. However, using population parity as the only key measure of equity avoids critical questions about ongoing Northern dominance of knowledge production in various disciplines (Ahmed, 2021; Smith, 2021). It also avoids questions about how we might achieve epistemic justice and better recognition of the cultural knowledge, skills, networks and resources people from equity groups bring into higher education (Singh et al., 2006). This paper focuses on the most recent Australian federal government commissioned review of doctoral education by the Australian Council of Learned Academics (2016). The bulk of the report focused on the need for greater links between industry and doctoral education but there was an additional section on under-represented groups in HDR training. Particular attention was paid to the very low participation rates of Indigenous candidates in doctoral education. This remains a highly significant issue in Australian doctoral education that requires a great deal more urgent consideration that our research team has explored in other publications (e.g. Raciti et al., 2024). There have been no other significant reviews or policy documents focusing on doctoral education since that time. The recent Australian University Accord (AUA) (2024) focuses primarily on the need for industry PhDs and for scholarships for First Nations PhD candidates. This document continues the pattern of policy silence regarding domestic culturally diverse doctoral candidates. Domestic transcultural candidates’ enrolment and completion rates no longer appear in any government reporting of ‘equity groups’ in higher degree by research (HDR) programs. The 2019 Student Equity in HDR Report only considers the themes of financial support, gender in some disciplines, socioeconomic status, regional and remote status and candidates with disabilities. Migrant and culturally diverse candidates may only feature incidentally if they also happen to be part of these other equity groups. There is no recognition that using ‘language spoken at home’ is an inadequate proxy for cultural diversity within Australia, despite much research (eg. Padilla, 2004). There is no acknowledgement of the highly uneven participation, experiences and outcomes of transcultural candidates in doctoral education. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, this paper suggests that an overwhelming focus on counting avoids addressing vital epistemological questions about the diverse knowledge transcultural candidates bring to Australian research. We highlight the ways doctoral policies do not capture the significant diversities within transcultural communities. We recommend the use of Nancy Fraser’s concept of participatory parity instead of population parity in government policy as a way of incorporating three elements of social justice – redistribution, recognition and representation. Focusing on the element of recognition, we extend Fraser’s notion of cultural recognition to include valuing diverse cultural knowledge systems which might create the conditions for epistemic justice in Australian doctoral education policy. References available on request