Nicholas Apoifis’s research while affiliated with University of South Wales and other places

Neoliberal capitalist intrusions into university classrooms are pervasive, incessant, and pernicious. How we perform and enact care in classrooms is shaped by this prevailing ideology. However, its ideological and material reach is not absolute. Using insights from radical pedagogies, militant ethnographic, and narrative approaches, I reimagine and reconfigure care in the classroom by implementing an activist-caring teaching approach. I discuss the ways in which I practice and perform a relationship of care to writers and activists whose work and struggles I teach in my classes, struggles of resistance, emancipation, and revolution. Specifically, I lay out my own classroom strategies that enact this relationship, interactions with people some of whom are dead and many of whom I have never met. I argue that this is important for the practice of solidarity and radical notions of care and offers a novel way to resist and refuse neoliberal intrusions into university teaching spaces.

My dream is to be the first Indigenous Australian Diamonds Netball coach, and I want speak in my Kamilaroi language when doing my first media interview in the role. Ali Tucker-Munro is a Kamilaroi woman and an elite netballer who played over 100 games in the National Professional Netball League between 1997 and 2005. She represented Australia in the National under 21 team that won gold at the Netball World Youth Cup and was a squad member of the Australian National Netball team in 2012. Ali holds an Elite Netball Coaching Accreditation, is the current NSW U/19 Netball Team’s assistant coach, and assistant coach of the Giants Netball Academy. She is a committee member to the Netball Australia Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group and works for the Federal Government.

‘As a coach, I think that the mainstream could learn a great deal in how we coach in Indigenous sport. I’m lucky enough to have been on both sides of the fence and I tell you what, I take a lot more of Indigenous philosophy in how I coach within the mainstream than the other way.’Jeff Cook is a Kamilaroi man whose mob was from the Attunga Tamworth region. He progressed from a professional cricketing career in England to become level 3 Cricket Australia coach who has coached or been involved with a range of Sydney Grade cricket clubs, junior/senior Country representative cricket sides. Jeff is the current Indigenous NSW and Australian men’s cricket coach as well as the Sydney Thunder Indigenous team coach.

‘I think I had a lot of experience. I just think they didn’t want to have an Aboriginal head coach. People say they are not racist, but they don’t want an Aboriginal doing the good position. It is an underlying racism.’ Lloyd Walker is a Bidgigal man who grew up in La Perouse. Lloyd represented Australia in Rugby Union in the early 1980s. He works on the NSW parole board and has coached professionally in Japan, and in Australia, culminating in his role as assistant coach for the Wallabies.

‘I think it’s recognised that everybody wants a crack and one of the key things is having a club that reflects our community, and decision-making mechanisms that represent our community.’ Phil Duncan is a member of the Gomeroi Nation and elected representative of the Gomeroi Nation Native Title Claimant Group. He has a long history working in Aboriginal Affairs across a number of portfolios, including organisational reconciliation, cultural safety training, and natural resource management. He is the president of the Pearlers Netball Club and has had representative coaching roles with the Lloyd McDermott Rugby Union Development Team, NSW Rugby League Koori U16’s and Redfern All Blacks Women’s Team. Phil recently co-founded the Soapy Rowe Aboriginal Rugby League team, a Moree-based community sports program which uses sport to help young people with substance abuse problems.

‘If Basketball Australia, as part of their Reconciliation Action Plan, highlighted the need more Aboriginal coaches, then all of a sudden I start getting called to apply for coaching jobs and fast tracked through the system, I would feel weird about that. Because is this merit based? Or you’re just trying to tick a box?’ Darren is a descendant of the Gudjala people and was born is Sale, Victoria. He has coached basketball for over 25 years and was AFL Queensland’s State Indigenous and Multicultural Engagement Manager. Darren was also an assistant coach at the Sydney University Flames Women’s National Basketball League for eight years, has coached NSW and QLD State basketball teams, representative and State League basketball teams, as well as NSW Indigenous U15 AFL Kickstart teams.

‘But lately it’s been down, hardly any of them have been coming. Anyway, I’m still there and I’ll be there until the day I die I suppose.’ The late Mr Scully was from the Daly River mob but grew up in Darwin. He played rugby league for the Brisbane All Blacks and in the 1950s represented Queensland (QLD) in the Australian Boxing titles. Mr Scully was a boxing coach of 45 years and established a boxing club in Darwin that gave young Aboriginal people a place to train and be mentored.

‘I’m on the executive and I’m the Aboriginal woman, so everybody comes to me.’ Marcia Ella-Duncan grew up in La Perouse, and is the descendant of Gandangara and Walbunja people. Marcia is a Netball Australia Board Member and was recently inducted into the Netball Australia Hall of Fame. She was the Coaching Coordinator at Randwick Netball Association and holds an Intermediate level Netball coaching accreditation. Marcia has also been active in a wide range of Aboriginal Affairs, from sport to child protection, criminal justice, and Aboriginal housing.

‘I’m a person who is passionate about empowering other young females to get up and have a go. Letting them know that they can do other stuff besides staying in one place or becoming a young mum or leaving school early. There is more out in the world for Indigenous females to conquer.’ Shennae Neal is an Aboriginal woman who lives in Yarrabah, Far North Queensland. She founded the Yarrabah Nighthawks Netball Club who play in the Cairns District Netball competition. Shennae is a legal studies graduate and café owner.