This course examines and critiques the traditional methods and assumptions informing Western social sciences, identifying ways in which they have contributed to misrepresentation and oppressive practices impacting Indigenous and other non-Western worldviews, and presenting means for the creation and use of decolonized understandings and approaches.

It does this by examining the voices and social movements of Indigenous peoples in response to over 500-years of history of colonisation across the Globe. The course closely analyses and critiques the representation and misrepresentation of Indigenous peoples worldwide in historical and contemporary texts such as in museums, in the media and the social sciences, together with Western ideas of social research. It also looks at how these impact on the expectations placed on Indigenous people in their everyday interactions with the broader society. In many instances, as is investigated, this leads to acts of protest with social movements such as 'Black Lives Matter', and in acts of everyday resistance to domination as heard in Indigenous Hip Hop, Reggae and Rock music produced by Indigenous youth.

The course will review local and global Indigenous politics and social movements, from the land rights movement of the 1970s to the creation of socially aware music and performance by Indigenous youth in Australia, North America, New Zealand and elsewhere. In taking an Australian focus, the course will explore the history of the land rights movement and how this has been strongly connected to events in other parts of the world such as the Civil Rights Movement in North America.

To understand how these social practices incorporate uniquely Indigenous ways of seeing and interacting in the world where oppression is a real and present phenomena, the course will scrutinize the development of Indigenous theories of de-colonisation, Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous identities.