O''Sullivan
Biographic Data
| ID | 7557 |
|---|---|
| NAME | O''Sullivan |
| FAMILY NAME | O''Sullivan |
| SIGNATURE | SULLIVAN O |
| AFFILIATIONS | Macquarie University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2952-4732 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Sport has never been binary: Fragments of a provocation
Over the last two centuries, sports have become one of the most powerful sites for the public imposition, regulation, and maintenance of the rigid colonial binaries of men and women, as well as boys and girls. As part of this, sports have become a site of increasingly hostile debate and intervention regarding the participation of trans women and trans girls. Nonbinary athletes have received far less attention. Yet a focus on those people who are …
Nonbinary on screen (on stolen Land): Reading television representations for the colonial project of gender
Trans-nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, and otherwise gender divergent folks are increasingly present on contemporary television screens and streaming platforms. Characters such as Sabi Mehboob (Sort Of), Cal Bowman (Sex Education), and Darren Rivers (Heartbreak High), as well as Casey (All My Friends Are Racist) and Willie Jack (Reservation Dogs), variously explore facets of gender fluidity and nonbinary gender expressions and experiences. This p…
Goanna Walking: A Rubric to Measure Transformation in Critical Indigenous Studies Students
By Madi Day, Percy Lezard & 19 more. This rubric is designed for Indigenist and anti-colonial approaches to teaching. It was created in collaboration with more than 20 Indigenous scholars from so-called Australia, Aotearoa and Turtle Island
Playing the Colony: Queer Indigenous Masculinities vs the Colonial Project of Gender
The colonial project of gender (and everything else) (O’Sullivan, 2021) insists upon an unchanging masculinity signifying domination, control, rigidity, physical force, and violence. In this article, we challenge the reliability of these colonial impositions, and the fixedness of masculinities and femininities, by considering the fluidity and changeability of masculinities expressed in the work of queer Indigenous creative artists from the Lands …
The colonial project of gender: Trans joy, queerness in practice, coloniality in turmoil
Stories of country women: Advancing feminist intersectionality for climate change adaptation in Australia
Drought has always had a historical presence in 'rural' Australia and is predicted to intensify in frequency and duration due to climate change. We argue here that the creeping havoc drought visits upon humans, animals and ecosystems in an Australian context is a form of 'slow violence' . Such harm and hardship are often obscured because they are more challenging to conceptualise and symbolise than sudden, spectacle-creating disasters. Furthermor…
Queer As: A Deep Dive Into Complex Queer Television
As a team working on the ‘Queer As...’ database and audit, we have approached the issue of queer Indigenous representation by pondering the role of all queer representation. The audit focuses first on Indigenous representation, radiating out to include the complexity of identity at large. In doing so, we have discovered systemic similarities, but as is often the case with the colony, we have also discovered ways in which Indigeneity cannot either…
Queer Indigenous screen representation: Beyond a Gift From the Past or a Problem to Be Solved
Indigenous characters on screen have often been positioned as a gift from the past with innate heroic characteristics, or a problem to be solved in the form of the sad Indigenous person who cannot rise above colonial rule. That these archetypes are framed as positive in their representation is at odds with the need to have representations of the complexity of First Nations peoples. With queer Indigenous representation, characters become reduced t…
The Museum of the Imagination
In delivering a future where Indigenous peoples determine and shape our own paths, what practices resist colonial trappings that narrow representations by creating instead an expansive recall of both past and present realities? This chapter draws on an examination of First Nations representation in museums to understand strategies, pathways and ongoing barriers to promoting the complexity of who Indigenous peoples are, and through a casting of Vi…
Indigiqueer futures: A conversation between Indigenous non-binary academics
This chapter is a conversational piece with Dr Percy Lezard and Dr Sandy O'Sullivan focused on their careers and work as Indigenous queer, non-binary academics enduring two different settler colonial nations - Australia and Canada. Centered on questions about the relationships between activism and academia, and gender and colonialism, and the conversation considers the realities and complexities of queerness and Indigeneity in higher education. T…
The Routledge Handbook of Australian Indigenous Peoples and Futures
Fucking up, fixing up, and standing up (to the colonial project of gender and sexuality)
As a Wiradjuri person living on stolen Kabi Kabi Land, I begin this article by framing Yindyamarra Winhanganha as an ethos of my life, and therefore of the research I conduct. Yindyamarra Winhanganha is a complex Wiradjuri philosophy of designing a world that is made better through our actions. It forms the starting point of my relationality and centers my aspirations as a researcher. Wiradjuri is my Aboriginal language group and community, locat…
The role of Australian First Nations’ Knowledges and the arts in “inclusive” regional and remote development: A narrative review
Lifelines: Reaching out in a pandemic
Please note that there is a discussion of suicidal ideation in this article. Take care with reading this if you are feeling vulnerable. If you need support, please contact a helpline (like Lifeline) or a healthcare professional. I was finally getting my work on an even keel when the pandemic hit. Last year had been difficult across my work and personal life, serving as a reminder that these two realms are, for many Aboriginal people in the academ…
The Colonial Project of Gender (and Everything Else)
The gender binary, like many colonial acts, remains trapped within socio-religious ideals of colonisation that then frame ongoing relationships and restrict the existence of Indigenous peoples. In this article, the colonial project of denying difference in gender and gender diversity within Indigenous peoples is explored as a complex erasure casting aside every aspect of identity and replacing it with a simulacrum of the coloniser. In examining t…
Saving Lives: Mapping the Power of LGBTIQ+ First Nations Creative Artists
In 2020, I was funded by the Australian Research Council to undertake research that examines the ways in which queer Indigenous creative practitioners create impact and influence. With a program titled “Saving Lives: Mapping the Influence of LGBTIQ+ First Nations Creative Artists,” the mapping is currently underway to explore how creativity has been used to demonstrate our reality and potential as queer First Nations’ Peoples. The title of this c…
An ecological approach to mapping remote creative practices: Insights from an Australian Desert region
There is increasing recognition that the creative arts sector has a crucial role to play in supporting and sustaining communities in remote contexts. However, there are still major gaps in understanding how this sector functions in such settings, and few resources to support the design and delivery of arts research in these contexts. To help address these gaps, this article draws on findings from a three-year project, Creative Barkly, the first s…
Desert Harmony: Exploring the Cultural, Social, and Economic Value of a Multi-Arts Festival in the Remote Barkly Region
This article examines the role that the arts sector plays in supporting and sustaining communities in one of Australia’s remotest regions, the Barkly (Northern Territory). Drawing on findings from a three-year Australian Research Council Linkage project, ‘Creative Barkly’, the article outlines how artistic and creative activities in very remote regions, such as the Barkly, constitute significant cultural, social, and economic value. To illustrate…
Medical and Psychological Effects of the Threat of Compulsory Relocation for an American Indian Tribe
The Colonial Project of Gender (and Everything Else)
The gender binary, like many colonial acts, remains trapped within socio-religious ideals of colonisation that then frame ongoing relationships and restrict the existence of Indigenous peoples. In this article, the colonial project of denying difference in gender and gender diversity within Indigenous peoples is explored as a complex erasure casting aside every aspect of identity and replacing it with a simulacrum of the coloniser. In examining t…
The Routledge Handbook of Australian Indigenous Peoples and Futures
Fucking up, fixing up, and standing up (to the colonial project of gender and sexuality)
As a Wiradjuri person living on stolen Kabi Kabi Land, I begin this article by framing Yindyamarra Winhanganha as an ethos of my life, and therefore of the research I conduct. Yindyamarra Winhanganha is a complex Wiradjuri philosophy of designing a world that is made better through our actions. It forms the starting point of my relationality and centers my aspirations as a researcher. Wiradjuri is my Aboriginal language group and community, locat…
Medical and Psychological Effects of the Threat of Compulsory Relocation for an American Indian Tribe
The colonial project of gender: Trans joy, queerness in practice, coloniality in turmoil
Saving Lives: Mapping the Power of LGBTIQ+ First Nations Creative Artists
In 2020, I was funded by the Australian Research Council to undertake research that examines the ways in which queer Indigenous creative practitioners create impact and influence. With a program titled “Saving Lives: Mapping the Influence of LGBTIQ+ First Nations Creative Artists,” the mapping is currently underway to explore how creativity has been used to demonstrate our reality and potential as queer First Nations’ Peoples. The title of this c…
Stories of country women: Advancing feminist intersectionality for climate change adaptation in Australia
Drought has always had a historical presence in 'rural' Australia and is predicted to intensify in frequency and duration due to climate change. We argue here that the creeping havoc drought visits upon humans, animals and ecosystems in an Australian context is a form of 'slow violence' . Such harm and hardship are often obscured because they are more challenging to conceptualise and symbolise than sudden, spectacle-creating disasters. Furthermor…
Queer Indigenous screen representation: Beyond a Gift From the Past or a Problem to Be Solved
Indigenous characters on screen have often been positioned as a gift from the past with innate heroic characteristics, or a problem to be solved in the form of the sad Indigenous person who cannot rise above colonial rule. That these archetypes are framed as positive in their representation is at odds with the need to have representations of the complexity of First Nations peoples. With queer Indigenous representation, characters become reduced t…
Medical and Psychological Effects of the Threat of Compulsory Relocation for an American Indian Tribe
Desert Harmony: Exploring the Cultural, Social, and Economic Value of a Multi-Arts Festival in the Remote Barkly Region
This article examines the role that the arts sector plays in supporting and sustaining communities in one of Australia’s remotest regions, the Barkly (Northern Territory). Drawing on findings from a three-year Australian Research Council Linkage project, ‘Creative Barkly’, the article outlines how artistic and creative activities in very remote regions, such as the Barkly, constitute significant cultural, social, and economic value. To illustrate…
Lifelines: Reaching out in a pandemic
Please note that there is a discussion of suicidal ideation in this article. Take care with reading this if you are feeling vulnerable. If you need support, please contact a helpline (like Lifeline) or a healthcare professional. I was finally getting my work on an even keel when the pandemic hit. Last year had been difficult across my work and personal life, serving as a reminder that these two realms are, for many Aboriginal people in the academ…
The Colonial Project of Gender (and Everything Else)
The gender binary, like many colonial acts, remains trapped within socio-religious ideals of colonisation that then frame ongoing relationships and restrict the existence of Indigenous peoples. In this article, the colonial project of denying difference in gender and gender diversity within Indigenous peoples is explored as a complex erasure casting aside every aspect of identity and replacing it with a simulacrum of the coloniser. In examining t…
Saving Lives: Mapping the Power of LGBTIQ+ First Nations Creative Artists
In 2020, I was funded by the Australian Research Council to undertake research that examines the ways in which queer Indigenous creative practitioners create impact and influence. With a program titled “Saving Lives: Mapping the Influence of LGBTIQ+ First Nations Creative Artists,” the mapping is currently underway to explore how creativity has been used to demonstrate our reality and potential as queer First Nations’ Peoples. The title of this c…
An ecological approach to mapping remote creative practices: Insights from an Australian Desert region
There is increasing recognition that the creative arts sector has a crucial role to play in supporting and sustaining communities in remote contexts. However, there are still major gaps in understanding how this sector functions in such settings, and few resources to support the design and delivery of arts research in these contexts. To help address these gaps, this article draws on findings from a three-year project, Creative Barkly, the first s…
The role of Australian First Nations’ Knowledges and the arts in “inclusive” regional and remote development: A narrative review
The Museum of the Imagination
In delivering a future where Indigenous peoples determine and shape our own paths, what practices resist colonial trappings that narrow representations by creating instead an expansive recall of both past and present realities? This chapter draws on an examination of First Nations representation in museums to understand strategies, pathways and ongoing barriers to promoting the complexity of who Indigenous peoples are, and through a casting of Vi…
Indigiqueer futures: A conversation between Indigenous non-binary academics
This chapter is a conversational piece with Dr Percy Lezard and Dr Sandy O'Sullivan focused on their careers and work as Indigenous queer, non-binary academics enduring two different settler colonial nations - Australia and Canada. Centered on questions about the relationships between activism and academia, and gender and colonialism, and the conversation considers the realities and complexities of queerness and Indigeneity in higher education. T…
The Routledge Handbook of Australian Indigenous Peoples and Futures
Fucking up, fixing up, and standing up (to the colonial project of gender and sexuality)
As a Wiradjuri person living on stolen Kabi Kabi Land, I begin this article by framing Yindyamarra Winhanganha as an ethos of my life, and therefore of the research I conduct. Yindyamarra Winhanganha is a complex Wiradjuri philosophy of designing a world that is made better through our actions. It forms the starting point of my relationality and centers my aspirations as a researcher. Wiradjuri is my Aboriginal language group and community, locat…
Queer As: A Deep Dive Into Complex Queer Television
As a team working on the ‘Queer As...’ database and audit, we have approached the issue of queer Indigenous representation by pondering the role of all queer representation. The audit focuses first on Indigenous representation, radiating out to include the complexity of identity at large. In doing so, we have discovered systemic similarities, but as is often the case with the colony, we have also discovered ways in which Indigeneity cannot either…
Queer Indigenous screen representation: Beyond a Gift From the Past or a Problem to Be Solved
Indigenous characters on screen have often been positioned as a gift from the past with innate heroic characteristics, or a problem to be solved in the form of the sad Indigenous person who cannot rise above colonial rule. That these archetypes are framed as positive in their representation is at odds with the need to have representations of the complexity of First Nations peoples. With queer Indigenous representation, characters become reduced t…
Goanna Walking: A Rubric to Measure Transformation in Critical Indigenous Studies Students
By Madi Day, Percy Lezard & 19 more. This rubric is designed for Indigenist and anti-colonial approaches to teaching. It was created in collaboration with more than 20 Indigenous scholars from so-called Australia, Aotearoa and Turtle Island
Playing the Colony: Queer Indigenous Masculinities vs the Colonial Project of Gender
The colonial project of gender (and everything else) (O’Sullivan, 2021) insists upon an unchanging masculinity signifying domination, control, rigidity, physical force, and violence. In this article, we challenge the reliability of these colonial impositions, and the fixedness of masculinities and femininities, by considering the fluidity and changeability of masculinities expressed in the work of queer Indigenous creative artists from the Lands …
The colonial project of gender: Trans joy, queerness in practice, coloniality in turmoil
Stories of country women: Advancing feminist intersectionality for climate change adaptation in Australia
Drought has always had a historical presence in 'rural' Australia and is predicted to intensify in frequency and duration due to climate change. We argue here that the creeping havoc drought visits upon humans, animals and ecosystems in an Australian context is a form of 'slow violence' . Such harm and hardship are often obscured because they are more challenging to conceptualise and symbolise than sudden, spectacle-creating disasters. Furthermor…
Sport has never been binary: Fragments of a provocation
Over the last two centuries, sports have become one of the most powerful sites for the public imposition, regulation, and maintenance of the rigid colonial binaries of men and women, as well as boys and girls. As part of this, sports have become a site of increasingly hostile debate and intervention regarding the participation of trans women and trans girls. Nonbinary athletes have received far less attention. Yet a focus on those people who are …
Nonbinary on screen (on stolen Land): Reading television representations for the colonial project of gender
Trans-nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, and otherwise gender divergent folks are increasingly present on contemporary television screens and streaming platforms. Characters such as Sabi Mehboob (Sort Of), Cal Bowman (Sex Education), and Darren Rivers (Heartbreak High), as well as Casey (All My Friends Are Racist) and Willie Jack (Reservation Dogs), variously explore facets of gender fluidity and nonbinary gender expressions and experiences. This p…
Sociology (13 works) · Political science (12 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Indigenous (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Art (6 works) · Colonialism (6 works) · Queer (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Psychology (5 works)