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Unmasking the Racial Contract - Indigenous voices on racism in the Australian Public Service
Winner of the 2019 Stanner Award.
In an era of reconciliation and cultural diversity, Indigenous peoples in Australia still experience everyday and structural racisms in the workplace. Unmasking the Racial Contract is a study of one such workplace: the Australian Public Service.
Bargallie shows that despite claims of fairness, inclusion, opportunity, respect and racial equality for all, Indigenous employees continue to languish on the lower rungs of the Australian Public Service employment ladder. By showing how racism is normalised in white institutions, Bargallie aims to help us see and understand — and ultimately challenge — racism.
This original and innovative book, written from an Indigenous standpoint, is the first to use race as a key framework to critically examine the discrimination faced by Indigenous employees in an Australian institution. Bargallie provides an insider’s perspective and privileges the voices of other Indigenous employees, and she applies critical race theory to unmask the racial contract that underpins the ‘absent presence’ of racism in the Australian Public Service. Bargallie provides an important counter-narrative to the pervasive myth of meritocracy, and encourages readers to consider the effects of the racial contract in colonial–colonised relations in Australia more broadly.
In an era of reconciliation and cultural diversity, Indigenous peoples in Australia still experience everyday and structural racisms in the workplace. Unmasking the Racial Contract is a study of one such workplace: the Australian Public Service.
Bargallie shows that despite claims of fairness, inclusion, opportunity, respect and racial equality for all, Indigenous employees continue to languish on the lower rungs of the Australian Public Service employment ladder. By showing how racism is normalised in white institutions, Bargallie aims to help us see and understand — and ultimately challenge — racism.
This original and innovative book, written from an Indigenous standpoint, is the first to use race as a key framework to critically examine the discrimination faced by Indigenous employees in an Australian institution. Bargallie provides an insider’s perspective and privileges the voices of other Indigenous employees, and she applies critical race theory to unmask the racial contract that underpins the ‘absent presence’ of racism in the Australian Public Service. Bargallie provides an important counter-narrative to the pervasive myth of meritocracy, and encourages readers to consider the effects of the racial contract in colonial–colonised relations in Australia more broadly.
- GenresRaceNonfiction
256 pages, Paperback
Published August 26, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 23, 2022
I am certainly going to read this again and check out the reference list. An incredible piece of work and much needed.
August 31, 2022
This incredible book was challenging and validating in equal measure. I would love to read more like it. I took a star off because personally the prose was a little too academic and jargon-heavy, but I also respect that’s the style she chose and she does it well.
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September 15, 2025My thesis is on institutional racism and repression of Palestine solidarity in the public sector, I obvs had to read this.
Easy to read, great foundation for CRT and good introductory background info for my thesis, I took heaps of notes in Zotero.
Easy to read, great foundation for CRT and good introductory background info for my thesis, I took heaps of notes in Zotero.
May 19, 2022
Outstanding. A must read for anyone in the public service.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews