An Indigenous Perspective of the Australasian Marketing Academy

Abstract

This paper is a provocation, and its purpose is to give voice and visibility to Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples in the Australasian marketing academy. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the First Australians and, like other marginalised groups, are largely invisible in marketing’s discourse. This paper is unapologetic in its truth-telling. The marketing academy in Australia is monocultural. In pursuit of generalisability, marketing research has silenced those outside of the ‘mainstream’; relegating articles by, with and for Indigenous peoples to special section enclaves (like this) at best, but it is more likely editors direct such papers to non-mainstream outlets because they cannot find reviewers with expertise outside of the dominant culture. These practices in and of themselves speak volumes of the Northern/Western knowledge system that dominates marketing. It exemplifies epistemicide, being the non-inclusion or dismissing of Indigenous knowledges and perspectives and foregrounds the need for the decolonisation of marketing in Australia. This paper asks you, the reader, to become uncomfortable and be brutally honest, if only with yourself, as to your blind spots, assumptions, avoidance, rhetoric and essentialist understandings of Australia’s First Nation peoples that furnish your professional perspective and practice. Furthermore, this paper challenges the ANZMAC Executive Committee, Fellows and community to elevate their professional practice voluntarily and authentically with regards to Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander peoples.