Racial and Cultural Passing in the Academy

Racial and cultural passing enables Indigenous people with lighter skin to enter realms usually unavailable to those with darker skin complexions. In the academy, where Whiteness theory is becoming more dominant, and Indigenous people have been historically excluded or exoticized for scientific and literary purposes, it is worthwhile exploring how academia limits specific spaces for Indigenous people in Australia. Critics have claimed that Indigenous people are actively removing themselves from the cultural closet to benefit from the pathways only available for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at universities. This chapter will argue that the ephemeral nature of passing enables people to jettison identities, navigate the university space, hide when necessary, and explore opportunities, while the politics of Indigenous identity assertion and denial in the academy, aided and abetted by White Theory, contributes to injustice for those Indigenous people whose affirmation of identity has been denied by the administration of the legal definition of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person.