Gatekeeping (forum at the launch of 'ab-Original' magazine)

'Gatekeeping' continues to be a rousing and provocative word with regard to Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations. Gatekeeping pertains to the various forms of apartheid in Australia, some of which still apply, if in a veiled and insidious way. But the term is also relevant to Aboriginal communities themselves, in which differing degrees of 'whiteness' and 'blackness' are consigned different values of entitlement and belonging. It is a taxonomy that tends to elide the deeper and more urgent issues that Indigenous cultures, in Australia and elsewhere, currently face. In the spirit of launching the journal co-founded by Professor Jakelin Troy and Dr Adam Geczy (who are the editors, with Lorena Sekwan Fontaine), of ab-Original (Penn State University Press), 'gatekeeping' is used as a relevant and ironic term for a journal whose key mission is to examine global indigenous cultures and their diverse transnational and pan-racial contexts. Joining Prof Jakelin Troy and Dr Adam Geczy in this discussion are Blak Douglas (aka Adam Hill), an artist, musician and social activist and Dr Mick Adams, Senior Research Fellow Australian Indigenous Health, at Edith Cowan University, WA. This forum was held as part of the Sydney Ideas program on 14 September, 2017: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/gatekeeping_ab-0riginal_launch_forum.shtml