Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Introduction

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Aboriginal Sports Coaches, Community, and Culture

Part of the book series: Indigenous-Settler Relations in Australia and the World ((ISRAW,volume 2))

  • 230 Accesses

Abstract

Here we discuss the story behind Aboriginal sports coaches, community and culture, the very first book to be published with Indigenous sports coaches, in any language, in any settler-colonial context. We share some of the cultural, social, political, methodological, and ethical considerations that underpin this deeply moving and achingly human collection of stories, sharing insights into a changing sporting landscape, and the role that Aboriginal coaches have played in shaping it.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The term Indigenous is used here to refer to First Nations peoples in Australia and other settler-colonial contexts. We use this term to maintain consistency with terminology most commonly used in the research fields we are engaging with in this book. However, we acknowledge variances between First Nations populations within and across countries around the globe, and recognise that there is no official definition of ‘Indigenous’ peoples (United Nations, n.d.). When referring specifically to the coaches involved in this book, we use the term Aboriginal. Although ‘Aboriginal people’ is a colonial term and can viewed as insufficient to wholly capture the multiplicity and uniqueness of First Peoples’ cultures in Australia, it was the preferred term used by most of the coaches. Further, we have not used ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’ because all of the coaches in this book identified as Aboriginal, from mainland Australia, rather than as Torres Strait Islanders. Where possible we use the language group or Country that the coach identifies with. Finally, when reviewing academic literature we have only used ‘Indigenous’ when the author has used the term to refer to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

  2. 2.

    Adopted by the Australian Federal Government in 2008, the Closing the Gap framework aims to bring together State and Territory governments to improve the health and well-being of Indigenous Australians.

  3. 3.

    Snowball sampling (Atkinson and Flint 2001) is a recruitment method where existing contacts introduce and suggest other contacts.

  4. 4.

    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sport Coaching Forum, Barramatagal Country, Western Sydney University, 2016. https://logincms.westernsydney.edu.au/sports/home/news/featured_stories/aboriginal_and_torres_strait_islander_sports_coaching_forum/_nocache.

  5. 5.

    All proceeds from the sale of this book go to Coaching Unlimited: https://www.coachingunlimitedaustralia.com/.

  6. 6.

    The other authors, Nick and Andrew, are non-Indigenous.

References

  • Adair, D., & Stronach, M. (2011). Natural-born athletes? Australian Aboriginal people and the double-edged lure of professional sport. In J. Long & K. Spracklen (Eds.), Sport and challenges to racism (pp. 117–134). Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Apoifis, N., Marlin, D., & Bennie, A. (2018). Noble athlete, savage coach: How racialised representations of Aboriginal athletes impede professional sport coaching opportunities for Aboriginal Australians. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 53(7), 854–868. https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690216686337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem, J., Lee-Moragn, J. & De Santolo, J. (2019). Introduction. In Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem, Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan & Jason De Santolo (Eds) Decolonising research: Indigenous storywork as methodology. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atkinson, J. (2002). Trauma trails: Recreating song lines. North Melbourne: Spinifex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atkinson, R., & Flint, J. (2001). Accessing hidden and hard-to-reach populations: Snowball research strategies. Social Research Update, 33, 1–4.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics (2012) Employment in sport and recreation, Australia. (no. 4148.0). Retrieved March 25, 2016, from http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4148.0August%202011?OpenDocument.

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016) Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Retrieved December 19, 2019, from https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3238.0.55.001Main+Features1June%202016?OpenDocument.

  • Australian Football League (AFL) (2014) AFL Reconciliation action plan 2014–2016. Retrieved Jan 5, 2020, from http://www.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL%20Tenant/AFL/Files/AFL-2014-RAP.pdf.

  • Australian Rugby League Commission Reconciliation Action Plan 2014–2017 (ARLRAP) (2014). Retrieved Jan 5, 2020, from http://www.nrl.com/portals/nrl/RadEditor/Documents/Indigenous%20Round/NRL-Stretch-RAP-2014-2017.pdf.

  • Bachelard, G. (1964). The poetics of space. New York: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bamblett, L. (2011). Straight-line stories: Representations and Indigenous Australian identities in the sports discourse. Australian Aboriginal Studies, (2), 5–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bamblett, L. (2013). Our stories are our survival. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Behrendt, L. (2019). Indigenous Storytelling: decolonising institutions and assertive self-determination: implications for legal practice. In Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem, Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan & Jason De Santolo (Eds.), Decolonising research: Indigenous storywork as methodology. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennie, A., Apoifis, N., Marlin, D., Caron, J. G., Falcão, W. R., García Bengoechea, E., et al. (2017). A guide to conducting systematic reviews of coaching science research. International Sport Coaching Journal, 4, 191–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bennie, A., Apoifis, N., Marlin, D., & Caron, J. G. (2019a). Cultural connections and cultural ceilings: Exploring the experiences of Aboriginal Australian sport coaches. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(3), 299–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676x.2017.1399924.

  • Bennie, A., Marlin, D., Apoifis, N., & White, R. (2019b). ‘We were made to feel comfortable and … safe’: Co-Creating, Delivering, and Evaluating Coach Education and Health Promotion Workshops with Aboriginal Australian Peoples. Annals of Leisure Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Broome, R. (1980). Professional Aboriginal boxers in eastern Australia 1930–1979. Aboriginal History, 4(1), 49–72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Browne-Yung, K., Ziersch, A., Baum, F., &Gallaher, G.(2015). On and off the field: A Bourdieuian perspective on the significance of sport to urban Aboriginal Australians, Sport in Society, 18(6), 717–733. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2014.985211.

  • Dalton, B., Wilson, R., Evans, J. R., & Cochrane, S. (2015). Australian Indigenous youth’s participation in sport and associated health outcomes: Empirical analysis and implications’. Sport Management Review, 18, 57–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evans, J. R., Wilson, R., Dalton, B., & Georgakis, S. (2015). Indigenous participation in Australian sport: The perils of the ‘Panacea’ Proposition’. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: an Interdisciplinary Journal, 7(1), 53–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, A. (1998). Just listening: Narrative and deep illness. Families, Systems and Health., 16(3), 197–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frank, A. (2000). The standpoint of the storyteller. Qualitative Health Research, 10(3), 354–365.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frank, A. (2001). Can we research suffering? Qualitative Health Research, 11(3), 353–362.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Game, A., Metcalfe, A., & Marlin, D. (2013). On bondi beach. Melbourne: Arcadia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gardiner, G. (1999). “Levelling the playing field …”: Indigenous footballers, human hights and the Australian Football League’s racial and religious vilification code. In T. Taylor (Ed.), How you play the game: The contribution of sport to the promotion of human rights (pp. 152–158). Sydney: UTS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Godwell, D. (2000). Playing the game: Is sport as good for race relations as we’d like to think? Australian Aboriginal Studies, 1(2), 12–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, N. (1988). Writing down the bones. Boston: Shambala Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gorman, S., Judd, B., Reeves, K., Osmond, G., Klugman, K., & McCarthy, G. (2015). Aboriginal rules: The black history of Australian football. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(16), 1947–1962.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hallinan, C. (1991). Aborigines and positional segregation in Australian rugby league. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 26, 69–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hallinan, C. (2015). Assessing the sociology of sport: On indigeneity, politics of identity and Australian sports. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 50(4–5), 448–453.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallinan, C., & Judd, B. (2009a). Race relations, Indigenous Australia and the social impact of professional Australian football. Sport in Society, 12(9), 1220–1235.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hallinan, C., & Judd, B. (2009b). Changes in assumptions about Australian indigenous footballers: From exclusion to enlightenment. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 26(16), 2358–2375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hallinan, C., & Judd, B. (2012). Indigenous studies and race relations in Australian sports. Sport in Society, 15(7), 915–921.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallinan, C., & Judd, B. (2014). Indigenous people, race relations and Australian sport. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallinan, C. J., Eddleman, K. S., & Oslin, J. L. (1991). Racial Segregation by Playing Position in Elite Australian Basketball. Australian Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 23(4), 111–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallinan, C., Bruce, T., & Coram, S. (1999). Up front and beyond the centre line: Australian Aborigines in elite Australian rules football. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 34(4), 369–383.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, N., & Mclean, R. (2017). Getting yourself out of the way: Aboriginal people listening and belonging in the city. Geographical Research, 55(4), 359–368.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hearn Mackinnon, B., & Campbell, L. (2012). Warlpiri warriors: Australian Rules Football in Central Australia. Sport in Society, 15(7), 965–974. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2012.723357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Judd, B., & Butcher, T. (2015). To play Papunya: the problematic interface between a remote Aboriginal community and the organization of Australian Football in Central Australia’. Sport in Society, 18(5). doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2014.976004.

  • Kickett-Tucker, C. (1997). Urban Nyoongar children’s sense of self in sport. Studies in Western Australian History, 18, 81–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, K., & Mirraboopa, B. (2003). Ways of knowing, being and doing: A theoretical framework and methods for Indigenous and Indigenist research. Journal of Australian Studies, 27(76), 203–214.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maynard, J. (2012). Contested space—the Australian Aboriginal sporting arena. Sport in Society, 15(7), 987–996.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCoy, B. (2008). Holding men: Kanyirninpa and the Health of Aboriginal men. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCoy, B. F. (2012). Bridging the indigenous health divide: Football and men engaging. Sport in Society, 1(7), 952–964. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2012.723356.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McNeill, D. (2008). `Black magic’, nationalism and race in Australian football. Race & Class, 49(4), 22–37. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396808089285.

  • Moreton-Robinson, A. (2013). Towards an Australian indigenous women’s standpoint theory. Australian Feminist Studies, 28(78), 331–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moreton-Robinson, A. (2016). Relationality: A key presupposition of an Indigenous social research paradigm. In C. Andersen & J. M. O’Brien (Eds.), Sources and methods in indigenous studies. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, A. (2009). Sport, physical activity and urban Indigenous young people. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2, 101–111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norman, H. (2006). A modern day Corroboree: Towards a history of the New South Wales Aboriginal Rugby League Knockout. Aboriginal History, 30, 169–186. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24046904.

  • Roe, P., & Meucke, S. (1983). Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley. Freemantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, C. (1989). Carl Rogers: Dialogues. In Conversations with Martin Buber, Paul Tillich, B. F. Skinner, Gregory Bateson, Michael Polanyi, Rollo May, and others, eds. H Kirschenbaum and V Henderson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rossi, T. (2015). Expecting too much? Can Indigenous sport programmes in Australia deliver development and social outcomes? International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 7(2), 181–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2014.971125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rossi, T., & Rynne, S. (2014). Sport development programmes for Indigenous Australians: innovation, inclusion and development, or a product of ‘white guilt’? Sport in Society, 17(8), 1030–1045. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2013.838355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rynne, S. (2016). Exploring the pedagogical possibilities of Indigenous sport-for-development programmes using a socio-personal approach. Sport, Education and Society, 21(4), 605–622. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2015.1107830.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sheppard, L. K., Rynne, S. B., & Willis, J. M. (2019). Sport as a cultural offset in Aboriginal Australia? Annals of Leisure Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/11745398.2019.1635895.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stronach, M., & Adair, D. (2010). Lords of the square ring: Future capital and career transition issues for elite Indigenous Australian boxers. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, 2, 46–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stronach, M., Adair, D., & Taylor, T. (2014). Game over’: Indigenous Australian sportsmen and athletic retirement. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2, 40–59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stronach, M., Maxwell, H., & Taylor, T. (2016). ‘Sistas’ and Aunties: Sport, physical activity, and Indigenous Australian women. Annals of Leisure Research, 18(1), 7–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stronach, M., Maxwell, H., & Pearce, S. (2019). Indigenous Australian women promoting health through sport. Sport Management Review, 22(1), 5–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2018.04.007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tatz, C. 1987. Aborigines in sport. Bedford Park, S. Aust: Australian Society for Sports History.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tatz, C. (1995). Obstacle race: Aborigines in sport. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tatz, C. M., & Adair, D. (2009). Darkness and a little light: ‘Race’ and sport in Australia. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2(2), 1–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Terkels, S. (1992). Race: How blacks and whites think and feel about the American Obsession. New York: New Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomson, A., Darcy, S., & Pearce, S. (2010). Ganma theory and third-sector sport-development programmes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth: Implications for sports management. Sport Management Review, 13, 313–330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2012). Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2nd ed.). New York: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tynan, M., & Briggs, P. (2013). How culturally competent is the Australian Football League (AFL)? The International Journal of Sport and Society, 3, 191–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United Nations, N.D. Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Voices: Factsheet. Retrieved October 21, 2014, from https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/5session_factsheet1.pdf,

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Demelza Marlin

  2. University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Nicholas Apoifis

  3. Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia

    Andrew Bennie

Authors
  1. Demelza Marlin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nicholas Apoifis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Andrew Bennie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Demelza Marlin .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Marlin, D., Apoifis, N., Bennie, A. (2020). Introduction. In: Aboriginal Sports Coaches, Community, and Culture. Indigenous-Settler Relations in Australia and the World, vol 2. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8481-7_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8481-7_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-8480-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-8481-7

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation