INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S FORUM

THEME: "Breaking Barriers, Shaping the Future of Women"

img2 17-18 Mar 2025
img2 Amsterdam, Netherlands
Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes

Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes

University of Melbourne, Australia

Title: Crossing borders through culturally informed intersectionality: Reflecting on being an Indigenous woman living with disability in higher education


Biography

Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes is a Gomeroi woman who has low vision. She is Lecturer in Indigenous Studies, and Deputy Associate Dean, Diversity and Inclusion – Disability in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. Her research expertise includes sociology of racism, Critical Indigenous Studies, Critical Disability Studies and intersectionality.

Sheelagh is the Chief Investigator of an ARC Discovery Indigenous, 'Improving Life Outcomes for Indigenous People Living with a Disability: Lessons from Australia's Universities' (The BlakAbility Project). This is a multidisciplinary team investigating the experiences of Indigenous staff and students with disability. She is developing a framework referred to as BlakAbility.  

Abstract

In this presentation I reflect upon my experiences of being an Australian Indigenous, disabled and, yes, a woman, who leads a major research project in higher education. More specifically, I will speak of how I navigate the university landscape that largely remains under the leadership of men, the able-bodied and those who are affiliated with the dominant culture. While Indigenous women are increasingly achieving leadership roles in higher education, they are hindered in their undertakings by barriers such as racism and sexism, and for me and many others, ableism. This complex entanglement of identities too often results in multiple sites of exclusion, disempowerment and invisibility. However, such identities can also be sites of opportunity, strength and resistance.

For generations colonisation has enacted a process of disempowerment for Indigenous women. It is essential to understand that my Aboriginality comes first and impacts all that I do. A culturally responsive model of leadership goes beyond being a position or a person. Instead, it involves responsibility and respect in both directions—from the younger to the older and the older to the younger. It is about deep listening, recognizing difference and lived experience, and working from where people are at—not where you would want them to be. It is, undoubtedly, also a gendered practice. Culture also frames disability as a strength and not a deficit. Culture is a way of reclaiming power; about disrupting racialized deficit narratives; resistance and, pushing back against the colonial load. Finally, using the framework of intersectionality reveals both the barriers and opportunities of belonging to multiple categories of inequity and ways in which to work across borders of difference.