Rosanne Quinnell

Why does the notion of imposter syndrome persists in higher education, who acknowledges feelings of imposterism, and how does imposter phenomenon affect work practices? The inquiry is framed empirically through participant narratives from an ‘insider’ research study carried out in a research-intensive university in Australia exploring relationships at the so-called teaching-research nexus. Critical auto-ethnographic reflections  influenced by Archers’ notion of reflexivity are included. A playful adoption of mythic archetypes suggests that imposterism is better viewed as agile, malleable or mercurial tendencies, where feelings, position the ‘imposter’ in a diversity of liminal spaces, thereby, creating a critical awareness of strategies for academic staff.

Language lies at the heart of cultural identity. Prior to colonisation in 1788, there were more than 250 Indigenous Australian languages in Australia (Walsh, 1993; Walsh, Marmion, & Troy, 2014). Up until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, prohibitions were in place that banned most Aboriginal people from speaking their own languages (Maier, 2010; Reid, 2010). Many of the “sleeping”1 pre-contact languages are undergoing revitalisation (Hobson et al., 2010), a process that requires respectful action and acknowledgement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s deep connection to the cultural, philosophical and spiritual concepts of land and land tenure. In 2016, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) made this declaration:
It is through language that we communicate with the world, define our identity, express our history and culture, learn, defend our human rights and participate in all aspects of society, to name but a few. Through language, people preserve their community’s history, customs and traditions, memory, unique modes of thinking, meaning and expression. They also use it to construct their future. (UNESCO, 2016)
To highlight the importance of Indigenous languages in strengthening the position of Indigenous cultures on a global scale, UNESCO declared 2019 the year of Indigenous languages. At the University of Sydney, like institutions in other parts of Australia, we are recognising our responsibility to acknowledge and preserve Aboriginal Australia’s heritage. At the local level, the focus on Indigenous languages on our campuses provides opportunities to connect the higher education community with Indigenous culture. We offer these connections to Indigenous language through the creation of interdisciplinary collaborations across the arts and the sciences, spanning linguistics, botany, art and museum studies. The University grounds cover urban areas (inner-city and suburban) and regional areas across Australia (e.g. Broken Hill, Lismore, Dubbo, Orange, Camden, Nowley and Narrabri). The “Sydney Language” is the language of the Gadigal people, the traditional custodians of the University of Sydney’s main inner-city campus. The Sydney Language, spoken for tens of thousands of years pre-colonisation, is in revival, and the survival of this language is a proactive declaration of the strong living presence of the Gadigal people in the University’s community.