Indigenous Australian women’s colonial sexual intimacies

Positioning indigenous women’s agency

Bibliographic Data

ID15098320
AuthorsCorrinne T Sullivan (0000-0002-7051-8791, Macquarie University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume20
Issue4
Pages397-410
Publication date2018-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCulture Health & Sexuality (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-1058 • E-ISSN: 1464-5351
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13691058.2017.1349930
PMID28747104
OpenAlexW2740924442
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited30

Colonialist views of Indigenous bodies and sexualities continue to affect Indigenous peoples worldwide. For Indigenous Australians, this burden has resulted in repression and oppression of power, sex and desire. Focusing on the sexual intimacies of Indigenous Australian women, this paper provides an account of the dominant Australian historical discourses, finding that Indigenous women were viewed as exotic, erotic, something to be desired, yet simultaneously something to be feared. Our sexualities were described as savage, promiscuous and primitive and we were often viewed as prostitutes with our voices and views constrained by patriarchal and imperial regimes of power. But within this context, Indigenous women fought back through both individual and collective acts of agency. This paper demonstrates how Indigenous Australian women's agency not as a new phenomenon but rather as a position that disrupts the popular discourses of exploitation and victimhood that have been persistently perpetrated against Indigenous women

Agency (philosophy · Colonialism · Context (archaeology · Human sexuality · Indigenous · Oppression · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Social science · Sociology · Australian History and Society · Gender Studies · History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Sex work and related issues · Ecology

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