The comments, made by The University of Queensland’s pro vice-chancellor Indigenous engagement Bronwyn Fredericks at June’s IET Summit in Cairns, highlighted a growing disparity between the inclusion of Indigenous culture in events and curriculum and actual engagement with people from those cultures.

“Projects [need to be] designed with and for and about Aboriginal priorities”

“Sometimes when international students come over to Australia and are participating in the Australian higher education system, there’s not always that interplay between Indigenous students that perhaps the Indigenous students would like [or] international students,” she told delegates.

“Sometimes international students may go and look at some Australian animals, they may go on the [Great Barrier Reef], they may go and see some Aboriginal dancers, but do they get interplay between them?”

Speaking at a panel on Multiculturalism, Students and Community Impact, Fredericks added while many university events included a Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country, often that was the end of Indigenous peoples’ participation in cultural exchange, preventing them from playing the role of traditional host.

“It also means those people who want to know how to be guests, want as guests to interplay with the host… are left wanting,” she said, continuing that the effects of doing so could have long-term consequences.

“If international students come and simply slot in without understanding the place and the particular First Nations place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country, then they merely subscribe to the social order that also marginalises us and dismisses us and seeks to erase us.”

Fredericks also warned that providers who were looking to improve the international student experience through outreach programs with Indigenous Australians needed to ensure that doing so was in the best interests of the community and not theirs.

“There needs to be care there, too, that those projects are designed with and for and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander priorities,” she said.

“Not necessarily what other groups may see as priorities and then match with those.”

NAIDOC Week is currently underway in Australia, which celebrates the achievements, history, and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.