Leading from Between: Indigenous Participation and Leadership in the Public Service

by Catherine Althaus, Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh

Overview

Since the 1970s governments in Canada and Australia have introduced policies designed to recruit Indigenous people into public services. Today, there are thousands of Indigenous public servants in these countries, and hundreds in senior roles. Their presence raises numerous questions: How do Indigenous people experience public-sector employment? What perspectives do they bring to it? And how does Indigenous leadership enhance public policy making? A comparative study of Indigenous public servants in British Columbia and Queensland, Leading from Between addresses critical concerns about leadership, difference, and public service. Centring the voices, personal experiences, and understandings of Indigenous public servants, this book uses their stories and testimony to explore how Indigenous participation and leadership change the way policies are made. Articulating a new understanding of leadership and what it could mean in contemporary public service, Catherine Althaus and Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh challenge the public service sector to work towards a more personalized and responsive bureaucracy. At a time when Canada and Australia seek to advance reconciliation and self-determination agendas, Leading from Between shows how public servants who straddle the worlds of Western bureaucracy and Indigenous communities are key to helping governments meet the opportunities and challenges of growing diversity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773559646
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	12/26/2019
Series:	McGill-Queen's Indigenous and Northern Studies , #94
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Catherine Althaus is deputy dean at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government and associate professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh is full professor in the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University in Queensland.

Table of Contents

Tables and Figures xi

Acronyms and Abbreviations xiii

1 Indigenous Peoples in Public Services: Leadership, Culture, and Bureaucracy 3

2 History and Context: Indigenous Marginalization and Survival 23

3 Indigenous Employment in the Queensland and British Columbia Public Services, 1991-2015 50

4 Research on Public Sector and Indigenous Leadership 74

5 Indigenous Understandings of Leadership: Personal, Community, and Bureaucracy 98

6 Barriers to Indigenous Participation and Leadership Practice 134

7 Indigenous Participation and Leadership: Facilitators and Impact 174

8 Conclusion: Indigenous Participation and Leadership in Public Services 214

References 233

Index 249

Editorial Reviews

"Leading from Between offers numerous insights of great importance to those engaged in Indigenous studies, public administration, and policy studies in Australia and Canada. It will stimulate a new line of inquiry into the promise and the challenges of reconciliation. The authors lay down an evidence-based challenge to public services to fundamentally rethink how to advance and support Indigenous participation and leadership." Michael J. Prince, University of Victoria

From the Publisher