Dominic O'Sullivan | Charles Sturt University (original) (raw)
Books by Dominic O'Sullivan
This is a review of my book Indigeneity: a politics of potential -Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.
Indigenous health: power, politics and citizenship examines the contemporary Indigenous Australia... more Indigenous health: power, politics and citizenship examines the contemporary Indigenous Australian health policy as a site of contest over the nature of Indigenous citizenship and 'belonging' to the modern state. This book uses Western and Indigenous political theories to examine politics and public policy as determinants of health and to show the ways in which policy failure is partially explained by dysfunctional political relationships, policy inertia and the poitical system itself. The book considers the claims that Indigenous people can reasonably make on the public health system and examines what these claims mean for contemporary Australian conceptions of citizenship, democracy, and human rights.
What is school reform? What makes it sustainable? Who needs to be involved? How is scaling up ach... more What is school reform? What makes it sustainable? Who needs to be involved? How is scaling up achieved? This book is about the need for educational reforms that have built into them, from the outset, those elements that will see them sustained in the original sites and spread to others.
Using the Te Kotahitanga Project as a model the authors branch out from the project itself to seek to uncover how an educational reform can become both extendable and sustainable.
Their model can be applied to a variety of levels within education: classroom, school and system wide. It has seven elements that should be present in the reform initiative from the outset. These elements include establishing goals and a vision for reducing disparities; embedding a new pedagogy to depth in order to change the core of educational practice; developing new institutions and organisational structures to support in-class initiatives; developing leadership that is responsive, proactive and distributed; spreading the reform to include all teachers, parents, community members and external agencies; developing and using appropriate measures of performance as evidence for modifying core classroom and school practices; creating opportunities for all involved to take ownership of the reform in such a way that the original objectives of the reform are protected and sustained.
This book is an essential read for anyone who is involved in the process of trying to achieve sustainable school reform that addresses the question of how mainstream schools can effectively address the learning needs of students currently not well served by education.
The authors of this book are descended from a number of Mäori tribes in New Zealand. They are part of the growing ethnic revitalisation movement that has seen Mäori people seeking their own solutions to the ongoing social, economic, and political disparities that continue to plague Mäori people in Aotearoa New Zealand. This book focuses on their attempts to work within, and change, mainstream classrooms to include all children in the benefits that education has to offer.
Russell Bishop is the project leader of the large-scale theory-based education reform project Te Kotahitanga, currently running in fifty secondary schools. He is a professor of education at the University of Waikato.
Dominic O’Sullivan is a senior lecturer in political science at Charles Sturt University. Much of his work explores themes in the comparative politics of indigeneity.
Mere Berryman is the professional development director of Te Kotahitanga. As a researcher, she has collaborated extensively with classroom practitioners, communities and other professionals to bring about educational reform. She is the manager of the GSE Poutama Pounamu Education Research Centre in Tauranga.
Beyond Biculturalism is a critical analysis of contemporary Maori public policy. Bicultural polit... more Beyond Biculturalism is a critical analysis of contemporary Maori public policy. Bicultural political theory dominated Maori/Crown relationships during the 1980s and 1990s. Biculturalism inevitably makes Maori the junior partner in a colonial relationship that obstructs Maori aspirations to self-determination. The politics of indigeneity and self-determination are discussed as alternative political ideas for thinking about Maori relationships with the state. Against this background, and by drawing on Australian and Canadian comparisons, the book examines contemporary Maori political issues such as the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004, Maori parliamentary representation, the 'one law for all' ideology, settlements of Maori grievances against the Crown, and Maori economic development.
Turunga Ngatahi - Standing Together is a history of Catholics and Catholicism in the region that ... more Turunga Ngatahi - Standing Together is a history of Catholics and Catholicism in the region that became the Diocese of Hamilton on 27 April 1980. the book celebrates the 25th anniversary of that occasion. It is the story of how Catholics in the region have become an identifiable community and how their ways of looking at the world are played out through their beliefs and practices. Chapters on the early mission to Maori; the settler Church; church, state and politics; evangelisation, ecumenism and sectarianism; education; the sacred landscape; parish life; sport; and the new diocese trace the development from Bishop Pompallier's visit to Tauranga on 11 March 1840 to an organisation that is a vital part of the religious and secular New Zealand community - aspiring to Bishop Edward Gaines' diocesan motto 'Live the Truth in Love'.
Turanga Ngatahi - Standing Together is the Jubilee idea of Bishop Denis browne. It is edited by Dominic O'Sullivan and Cynthia Piper, with contributions from Ken Arvidson, Ross Casci, Hugh Laracy, Pat Lythe and Ann McEwan.
Faith, Politics and Reconciliation compares the stories of the Roman Catholic Church's involvemen... more Faith, Politics and Reconciliation compares the stories of the Roman Catholic Church's involvement in current and historical indigenous policy debate in Australia and New Zealand. They are stories of inconsistent and often confused applications of God's perceived 'constant' truths about humankind to complex and controversial questions of public policy.
The book is a discussion of the relationship between religious ideas and secular political decision making. It explores religious principles relevant to how Australian and New Zealand societies have considered the political implications of ideas about race, the Treaty of Waitangi, biculturalism, title to the foreshore and seabed, land rights, native title and reconciliation.
Papers by Dominic O'Sullivan
Australasian Journal of Information Systems
The International Journal of Community and Social Development
This article describes and discusses the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in Australia, its imp... more This article describes and discusses the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in Australia, its impact on people and the economy and policy responses to these impacts. It discusses the implications of these responses for post-pandemic recovery, though noting that the country’s response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has, thus far, been among the most successful in the world. Australia’s early physical distancing measures, relatively high per capita testing rates, political stability, national wealth and geographic isolation are among the explanatory factors. This article summarises Australia’s socio-economic responses to the pandemic and shows what this means, especially, for vulnerable groups, and thereby for social inequality, which the pandemic has aggravated and which may become more apparent, still, as debates about paths to economic and social recovery are in some respects already polarising. Although it is relatively early to clearly identify lessons learnt...
Ethnicities
Colonial hegemony distinguishes relationships between the Australian state and Indigenous nations... more Colonial hegemony distinguishes relationships between the Australian state and Indigenous nations. British government was violently established and there was no accommodation with the Indigenous populations to allow settlement to proceed, as occurred through treaties in Canada and New Zealand. Indigenous arguments for treaties in Australia are, however, well established. Notwithstanding some Commonwealth and state and territory governments considering such agreements over the past 40 years, none have been concluded, and more modest forms of recognition have been alternatively proposed. In 2015, following extensive Indigenous advocacy, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition appointed a Referendum Council to consult on an amendment to the Commonwealth Constitution to recognise Australia’s first peoples. The recommendation of a Voice to Parliament and a Makarrata Commission to oversee truth telling and agreements to allow ‘coming together after a struggle’ suggested a transfor...
Sharing the Sovereign: Indigenous Peoples, Recognition, Treaties and the State
Politics, Groups, and Identities
Australian Journal of Political Science
Australian Journal of Politics & History
Indigeneity: A Politics of Potential
Indigenous Australian economic practices and aspirations emphasise economic activity’s cultural c... more Indigenous Australian economic practices and aspirations emphasise economic activity’s cultural context and purpose; practices and aspirations that routinely differ from Australian public policy’s instinctive assimilationist presumption. For example, indigenous actors’ repeated attention to trans-generational well-being shows that economic development is understood as part of a complex policy domain closely intertwined with social stability, employment, health and educational opportunities. Culture can explain economic activity’s purpose. It is also preliminary to effective schooling which is, in turn, a determinant of indigenous access to labour markets, utilisation of land rights for material purposes and access to the middle class which can be an important constituent of equal citizenship and participatory parity.
Indigeneity: a politics of potential
Indigeneity is a politics of potential. It allows indigenous peoples to think and pursue politica... more Indigeneity is a politics of potential. It allows indigenous peoples to think and pursue political aspirations beyond colonial victimhood. The politics of indigeneity is a theory of human agency. It is closely intertwined with discourses of reconciliation, self-determination and sovereignty. This book explores these discourses’ significance for contemporary indigenous politics. It uses them to examine just terms of indigenous citizenship in three contemporary post-settler states. The book argues for differentiated liberal citizenship as a way of allowing indigenous peoples to share in the public sovereignty of the nation-state while, at the same time, sharing a meaningful political authority vested in indigenous institutions. It tests neo-colonial understandings of power, politics and justice. The book’s comparative focus is unique. It compares the Australasian states with Fiji to show that historical constraints on political authority are not diminished with the withdrawal of the colonial power alone. Nor does the restoration of collective indigenous majority status, on its own, serve meaningful self-determination. Conversely, negative power relationships in Australia and New Zealand are not simply a function of minority status in majoritarian democracies. The comparison shows that the claims of indigeneity must hold equally well whatever the post-colonial indigenous population status.
What is school reform? What makes it sustainable? Who needs to be involved? How is scaling up ach... more What is school reform? What makes it sustainable? Who needs to be involved? How is scaling up achieved? This book is about the need for educational reforms that have built into them, from the outset, those elements that will see them sustained in the original sites and spread to others. Using the Te Kotahitanga Project as a model the authors branch out from the project itself to seek to uncover how an educational reform can become both extendable and sustainable. Their model can be applied to a variety of levels within education: classroom, school and system wide. It has seven elements that should be present in the reform initiative from the outset. These elements include establishing goals and a vision for reducing disparities; embedding a new pedagogy to depth in order to change the core of educational practice; developing new institutions and organisational structures to support in-class initiatives; developing leadership that is responsive, proactive and distributed; spreading t...
Christian public theology extends reconciliation beyond its principal sacramental concern for rel... more Christian public theology extends reconciliation beyond its principal sacramental concern for relationships between God and penitent to the construction of 'socially just' public relationships for the settlement of intra-national conflict. In theological terms, reconciliation brings public relationships into what Hally calls 'the Christ narrative of passion, death and resurrection' in which the perpetrators of injustice repent and seek forgiveness. This article introduces the conflicts that these discourses aim to resolve in Australia, Fiji and New Zealand and explains and contrasts reconciliation's relative importance in each of these jurisdictions. Moreover, the article's cross-jurisdictional comparison shows reconciliation's limits and possibilities as public theology, and argues that in Australia and New Zealand it has helped to create political environments willing to admit indigenous perspectives on a range of policy issues. On the contrary, however, the article also shows that the Fijian churches have distorted the concept of reconciliation to support political imperatives that are difficult to rationalize theologically, even though they are presented by the churches as being concerned with religious goals.
Indigenous Australian health is distinguished by a median age of death in the order of 20 years l... more Indigenous Australian health is distinguished by a median age of death in the order of 20 years less than that of the non-indigenous population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009). This makes Australia unique among comparable post-colonial societies in failingto make substantive reductions to the indigenous/non-indigenous health differential.
Relatively poor indigenous housing, educational attainment, labour market participation and access to traditional resources for economic purposes contribute to the differential. These contributing variables have an inherently political character which is integral to examining the just distribution of public authority, the purpose of political activity, equal political participation and cultural responsiveness in the provision of health services as important theoretical considerations in reducing cross-cultural inequities in the burden of disease.
MAI Review
... Peer Commentary 1 - Indigeneity and Reconceptualising Māori Education Policy (2007). DominicO... more ... Peer Commentary 1 - Indigeneity and Reconceptualising Māori Education Policy (2007). DominicO'Sullivan. Abstract. This paper discusses indigeneity as a theoretical idea which gives one possible conceptual framework to G. Raumati Hook's model for Māori education. ...
This is a review of my book Indigeneity: a politics of potential -Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.
Indigenous health: power, politics and citizenship examines the contemporary Indigenous Australia... more Indigenous health: power, politics and citizenship examines the contemporary Indigenous Australian health policy as a site of contest over the nature of Indigenous citizenship and 'belonging' to the modern state. This book uses Western and Indigenous political theories to examine politics and public policy as determinants of health and to show the ways in which policy failure is partially explained by dysfunctional political relationships, policy inertia and the poitical system itself. The book considers the claims that Indigenous people can reasonably make on the public health system and examines what these claims mean for contemporary Australian conceptions of citizenship, democracy, and human rights.
What is school reform? What makes it sustainable? Who needs to be involved? How is scaling up ach... more What is school reform? What makes it sustainable? Who needs to be involved? How is scaling up achieved? This book is about the need for educational reforms that have built into them, from the outset, those elements that will see them sustained in the original sites and spread to others.
Using the Te Kotahitanga Project as a model the authors branch out from the project itself to seek to uncover how an educational reform can become both extendable and sustainable.
Their model can be applied to a variety of levels within education: classroom, school and system wide. It has seven elements that should be present in the reform initiative from the outset. These elements include establishing goals and a vision for reducing disparities; embedding a new pedagogy to depth in order to change the core of educational practice; developing new institutions and organisational structures to support in-class initiatives; developing leadership that is responsive, proactive and distributed; spreading the reform to include all teachers, parents, community members and external agencies; developing and using appropriate measures of performance as evidence for modifying core classroom and school practices; creating opportunities for all involved to take ownership of the reform in such a way that the original objectives of the reform are protected and sustained.
This book is an essential read for anyone who is involved in the process of trying to achieve sustainable school reform that addresses the question of how mainstream schools can effectively address the learning needs of students currently not well served by education.
The authors of this book are descended from a number of Mäori tribes in New Zealand. They are part of the growing ethnic revitalisation movement that has seen Mäori people seeking their own solutions to the ongoing social, economic, and political disparities that continue to plague Mäori people in Aotearoa New Zealand. This book focuses on their attempts to work within, and change, mainstream classrooms to include all children in the benefits that education has to offer.
Russell Bishop is the project leader of the large-scale theory-based education reform project Te Kotahitanga, currently running in fifty secondary schools. He is a professor of education at the University of Waikato.
Dominic O’Sullivan is a senior lecturer in political science at Charles Sturt University. Much of his work explores themes in the comparative politics of indigeneity.
Mere Berryman is the professional development director of Te Kotahitanga. As a researcher, she has collaborated extensively with classroom practitioners, communities and other professionals to bring about educational reform. She is the manager of the GSE Poutama Pounamu Education Research Centre in Tauranga.
Beyond Biculturalism is a critical analysis of contemporary Maori public policy. Bicultural polit... more Beyond Biculturalism is a critical analysis of contemporary Maori public policy. Bicultural political theory dominated Maori/Crown relationships during the 1980s and 1990s. Biculturalism inevitably makes Maori the junior partner in a colonial relationship that obstructs Maori aspirations to self-determination. The politics of indigeneity and self-determination are discussed as alternative political ideas for thinking about Maori relationships with the state. Against this background, and by drawing on Australian and Canadian comparisons, the book examines contemporary Maori political issues such as the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004, Maori parliamentary representation, the 'one law for all' ideology, settlements of Maori grievances against the Crown, and Maori economic development.
Turunga Ngatahi - Standing Together is a history of Catholics and Catholicism in the region that ... more Turunga Ngatahi - Standing Together is a history of Catholics and Catholicism in the region that became the Diocese of Hamilton on 27 April 1980. the book celebrates the 25th anniversary of that occasion. It is the story of how Catholics in the region have become an identifiable community and how their ways of looking at the world are played out through their beliefs and practices. Chapters on the early mission to Maori; the settler Church; church, state and politics; evangelisation, ecumenism and sectarianism; education; the sacred landscape; parish life; sport; and the new diocese trace the development from Bishop Pompallier's visit to Tauranga on 11 March 1840 to an organisation that is a vital part of the religious and secular New Zealand community - aspiring to Bishop Edward Gaines' diocesan motto 'Live the Truth in Love'.
Turanga Ngatahi - Standing Together is the Jubilee idea of Bishop Denis browne. It is edited by Dominic O'Sullivan and Cynthia Piper, with contributions from Ken Arvidson, Ross Casci, Hugh Laracy, Pat Lythe and Ann McEwan.
Faith, Politics and Reconciliation compares the stories of the Roman Catholic Church's involvemen... more Faith, Politics and Reconciliation compares the stories of the Roman Catholic Church's involvement in current and historical indigenous policy debate in Australia and New Zealand. They are stories of inconsistent and often confused applications of God's perceived 'constant' truths about humankind to complex and controversial questions of public policy.
The book is a discussion of the relationship between religious ideas and secular political decision making. It explores religious principles relevant to how Australian and New Zealand societies have considered the political implications of ideas about race, the Treaty of Waitangi, biculturalism, title to the foreshore and seabed, land rights, native title and reconciliation.
Australasian Journal of Information Systems
The International Journal of Community and Social Development
This article describes and discusses the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in Australia, its imp... more This article describes and discusses the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in Australia, its impact on people and the economy and policy responses to these impacts. It discusses the implications of these responses for post-pandemic recovery, though noting that the country’s response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has, thus far, been among the most successful in the world. Australia’s early physical distancing measures, relatively high per capita testing rates, political stability, national wealth and geographic isolation are among the explanatory factors. This article summarises Australia’s socio-economic responses to the pandemic and shows what this means, especially, for vulnerable groups, and thereby for social inequality, which the pandemic has aggravated and which may become more apparent, still, as debates about paths to economic and social recovery are in some respects already polarising. Although it is relatively early to clearly identify lessons learnt...
Ethnicities
Colonial hegemony distinguishes relationships between the Australian state and Indigenous nations... more Colonial hegemony distinguishes relationships between the Australian state and Indigenous nations. British government was violently established and there was no accommodation with the Indigenous populations to allow settlement to proceed, as occurred through treaties in Canada and New Zealand. Indigenous arguments for treaties in Australia are, however, well established. Notwithstanding some Commonwealth and state and territory governments considering such agreements over the past 40 years, none have been concluded, and more modest forms of recognition have been alternatively proposed. In 2015, following extensive Indigenous advocacy, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition appointed a Referendum Council to consult on an amendment to the Commonwealth Constitution to recognise Australia’s first peoples. The recommendation of a Voice to Parliament and a Makarrata Commission to oversee truth telling and agreements to allow ‘coming together after a struggle’ suggested a transfor...
Sharing the Sovereign: Indigenous Peoples, Recognition, Treaties and the State
Politics, Groups, and Identities
Australian Journal of Political Science
Australian Journal of Politics & History
Indigeneity: A Politics of Potential
Indigenous Australian economic practices and aspirations emphasise economic activity’s cultural c... more Indigenous Australian economic practices and aspirations emphasise economic activity’s cultural context and purpose; practices and aspirations that routinely differ from Australian public policy’s instinctive assimilationist presumption. For example, indigenous actors’ repeated attention to trans-generational well-being shows that economic development is understood as part of a complex policy domain closely intertwined with social stability, employment, health and educational opportunities. Culture can explain economic activity’s purpose. It is also preliminary to effective schooling which is, in turn, a determinant of indigenous access to labour markets, utilisation of land rights for material purposes and access to the middle class which can be an important constituent of equal citizenship and participatory parity.
Indigeneity: a politics of potential
Indigeneity is a politics of potential. It allows indigenous peoples to think and pursue politica... more Indigeneity is a politics of potential. It allows indigenous peoples to think and pursue political aspirations beyond colonial victimhood. The politics of indigeneity is a theory of human agency. It is closely intertwined with discourses of reconciliation, self-determination and sovereignty. This book explores these discourses’ significance for contemporary indigenous politics. It uses them to examine just terms of indigenous citizenship in three contemporary post-settler states. The book argues for differentiated liberal citizenship as a way of allowing indigenous peoples to share in the public sovereignty of the nation-state while, at the same time, sharing a meaningful political authority vested in indigenous institutions. It tests neo-colonial understandings of power, politics and justice. The book’s comparative focus is unique. It compares the Australasian states with Fiji to show that historical constraints on political authority are not diminished with the withdrawal of the colonial power alone. Nor does the restoration of collective indigenous majority status, on its own, serve meaningful self-determination. Conversely, negative power relationships in Australia and New Zealand are not simply a function of minority status in majoritarian democracies. The comparison shows that the claims of indigeneity must hold equally well whatever the post-colonial indigenous population status.
What is school reform? What makes it sustainable? Who needs to be involved? How is scaling up ach... more What is school reform? What makes it sustainable? Who needs to be involved? How is scaling up achieved? This book is about the need for educational reforms that have built into them, from the outset, those elements that will see them sustained in the original sites and spread to others. Using the Te Kotahitanga Project as a model the authors branch out from the project itself to seek to uncover how an educational reform can become both extendable and sustainable. Their model can be applied to a variety of levels within education: classroom, school and system wide. It has seven elements that should be present in the reform initiative from the outset. These elements include establishing goals and a vision for reducing disparities; embedding a new pedagogy to depth in order to change the core of educational practice; developing new institutions and organisational structures to support in-class initiatives; developing leadership that is responsive, proactive and distributed; spreading t...
Christian public theology extends reconciliation beyond its principal sacramental concern for rel... more Christian public theology extends reconciliation beyond its principal sacramental concern for relationships between God and penitent to the construction of 'socially just' public relationships for the settlement of intra-national conflict. In theological terms, reconciliation brings public relationships into what Hally calls 'the Christ narrative of passion, death and resurrection' in which the perpetrators of injustice repent and seek forgiveness. This article introduces the conflicts that these discourses aim to resolve in Australia, Fiji and New Zealand and explains and contrasts reconciliation's relative importance in each of these jurisdictions. Moreover, the article's cross-jurisdictional comparison shows reconciliation's limits and possibilities as public theology, and argues that in Australia and New Zealand it has helped to create political environments willing to admit indigenous perspectives on a range of policy issues. On the contrary, however, the article also shows that the Fijian churches have distorted the concept of reconciliation to support political imperatives that are difficult to rationalize theologically, even though they are presented by the churches as being concerned with religious goals.
Indigenous Australian health is distinguished by a median age of death in the order of 20 years l... more Indigenous Australian health is distinguished by a median age of death in the order of 20 years less than that of the non-indigenous population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009). This makes Australia unique among comparable post-colonial societies in failingto make substantive reductions to the indigenous/non-indigenous health differential.
Relatively poor indigenous housing, educational attainment, labour market participation and access to traditional resources for economic purposes contribute to the differential. These contributing variables have an inherently political character which is integral to examining the just distribution of public authority, the purpose of political activity, equal political participation and cultural responsiveness in the provision of health services as important theoretical considerations in reducing cross-cultural inequities in the burden of disease.
MAI Review
... Peer Commentary 1 - Indigeneity and Reconceptualising Māori Education Policy (2007). DominicO... more ... Peer Commentary 1 - Indigeneity and Reconceptualising Māori Education Policy (2007). DominicO'Sullivan. Abstract. This paper discusses indigeneity as a theoretical idea which gives one possible conceptual framework to G. Raumati Hook's model for Māori education. ...
Mystics Quarterly, Jan 1, 2005
MAI Review
In 2004 the appointment of a Coordinating Minister Race Relations, signalled a shift in elite Māo... more In 2004 the appointment of a Coordinating Minister Race Relations, signalled a shift in elite Māori policy thinking from a long-standing cautious bipartisan acceptance of self-determination towards a re-emergent assimilationist 'one law' for all discourse. The question simplistically posed ...
groupsthatclick.com
This paper places into historical and theological context the reconciliation as mission which was... more This paper places into historical and theological context the reconciliation as mission which was the hallmark of Pope John Paul IIs interest in the recognition of the rights that his Church claims belong to indigenous Australians. The paper explores the background, and in particular the contribution of the late Pope, to the prominent Catholic involvement in the reconciliation debates which dominated indigenous public policy discourse in the 1990s. The paper provides a brief account of the relative ignoring of indigenous aspiration in nineteenth and earlier twentieth century mission and explains that foundations for change in missionary focus were laid by the Second Vatican Council, as well as by secular political developments in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s. John Paul's speech to indigenous Australians at Alice Springs in 1986 and negative reaction to it is discussed as well as the position of the Synod of Bishops for Oceania that reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous is an important function of mission. The paper concludes that a public religious activism in pursuit of reconciliation is justified not as following a secular political agenda but as a lobbying of the body politic to recognise religious rights belonging to indigenous Australians.
Mathematics Education …, Jan 1, 2011
As a result of a number of government reports, there have been numerous systemic changes in Indig... more As a result of a number of government reports, there have been numerous systemic changes in Indigenous education in Australia revolving around the importance of partnerships with the community. A forum with our local Dubbo community established the importance of working together and developed a model which placed the child in an ecological perspective that particularly noted the role of
