Two left feet: Dancing in Academe to the rhythms of neoliberal discourse

Notions of culture, cultural diversity and cultural safety have again come to the centre of higher education awareness in Australia. The Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) Act 2000 ensures that Australian universities have a legal and pedagogical obligation to effectively support the language and learning requirements of international students. The Final Report on the 2008 Review of Australian Higher Education (hereafter referred to as the Bradley Report) recommends a range of initiatives geared to make Australian universities more competitive in the global market place while also becoming more accessible for Indigenous students, domestic students of ‘low socio‐economic status’, and other identified equity groups.1 At the frontline of all these initiatives, both proposed and implemented, are those who design, coordinate and teach curricula in the multicultural environs of our university classrooms.  

Thequestionweexploreinthisessayishowtorespondsubstantively-and ethically-tothesortsofinitiativessketchedabove.Howdowebestmeettheneeds of all our students while stepping through our roles to the sometimes discordant rhythms that can resonate through the hallways of Australian universities? We engage this question through discussion of one of the more recent initiatives in Australianhighereducation:themovetointroduceIndigenousculturalcompetence into national curricula. Through the following discussion we examine current models of cultural competence and consider some of the conceptual and policy frameworks shaping its implementation. We also contemplate, in our critical awareness of neoliberal discourse's endorsement of cultural competence, how, as non-Indigenous academics, we continue to negotiate a speaking position from within teaching contexts to which, culturally, we do not belong, yet are ethically committed. In an effort to move beyond the current orthodoxy of cultural competence,wewanttobeginaconversationaboutspeakingpositionsthatrefuses to disarticulate culture from gender, age, class, sexuality and other considerations that inscribe subjectivity. Our aim is to understand the underpinnings of 'cultural competence' as a contemporary preoccupation and to unmask the relations of powerthatgiverisetoitsdiscursiveauthority.
We situate this article within the current debates surrounding cultural competenceandtheBradleyReportwhiledrawingfromvarioustheoreticalinsights intowhatmightconstituteanethicsofmindfulnesstowardsstudentsfromdiverse culturalbackgrounds.Weraisequestionsaboutwhether,orhow,modelsofcultural competence can be useful, or if such programs are always constrained by the institutionalrelationsofpowerthatorganisetheirimplementation.Wehavefound that a neat and systematic review of the existing literature is beyond the focus of this article: the iterations of cultural competence are diverse, often discipline specificandspeaktomultiplefoci.Rather,weexaminetheimplicationsofthepolicy as it currently stands. Our discussion is therefore dialogic and we deploy the metaphor of dance to choreograph our experiences of teaching which underscore ourconcernsaboutculturalcompetenceprogramsintheircurrentformations.
Navigating the culturally diverse terrain of today's university teaching and learning spaces is complex. It is particularly so in a climate where class sizes are increasingandmanyacademicsarebeingrequiredtodomorewithfewerresources VOLUME17 NUMBER1 MAR2011 298 while simultaneously remaining innovative in their teaching practices and productiveinresearchoutput.Toagaindrawonthemetaphorofdance,thecomplex choreography of the classroom should, at least notionally, aspire to some sort of synchronous and meaningful relationship between words and acts, policy and practice: between conceptualisation of the required steps and execution. The rhythms of these choreographies should also draw students, all students, into the challenges,excitementandcreativepleasuresoflearning.Thisarticle'smetaphorical referencepointisbynomeansatrivialisationofthesubjectmatter.Onthecontrary, it suggests the deftness of movement required as we navigate, albeit, at times awkwardlyandanxiously,attemptstoreconcileourconcernsaseducatorswiththe prevailingdiscursiveterrainthatregulatesmuchofwhatwedoandhowwedoit.
In relation to our disciplinary backgrounds in cultural studies, we see this as an important discussion, one that must be understood in the context of institutional power,thepoliticsofidentityandoftheoverarchingdiscoursesofneoliberalism.

-FINDING THE RHYTHM: POLICY, PERFORMANCE AND PRACTICE
The Bradley Report's authors outline the vision for national higher education to 2020.Theyarguethattorealisethisvision,'Astreamlinedsystemwithclearerroles for the Australian and state and territory governments, greater and fairer choice, more effective regulation and greater flexibility of provision is needed.' 2 While not prescribinganyformalrestructuringprocessesassuch,thereportpaneldevelopa narrative of progressive institutional policies that mobilises the language of neoliberalist discourse. To be successful in attracting government funding, institutionsareadvisedtofosterinnovativeculturesthatareneverthelessregulated at a semantic level by words such as 'accountability', 'competiveness' and 'performanceindicators',andatthepolicylevelbytheeconomicimperativesofthe nationalandinternationalmarketplace.
In key areas our home university has pre-empted some of the recommendations of the report: most notably with initiatives to provide access to highereducationforequitystudentsandthoseof'lowsocio-economicstatus'from regionalandremoteareasthroughanetworkofaccesscentresestablishedin2000, andthroughanIndigenousCentre,locatedonthecentralcampustoprovidesupport and mentoring for Indigenous students as well as delivering Indigenous studies Colleen McGloin and Jeanette Stirling-Two Left Feet 299 subjects to the regional network. These are the areas in which we both work and wherewehavenotedoverthepastfewyearsgrowingtensionsbetweenimperatives to increase access for equity and Indigenous students, and seemingly irresolvable difficultiesinsustainingprogramsthatfacilitatesuccessfultransitionandretention in a higher education environment. We argue that, at least in part, some of these difficulties can be traced back to the increasing corporatisation of universities withinthematricesofneoliberalistdiscourseandhighereducationmanagement. It is necessary here to also acknowledge the materiality of 'cultural competence' as a known, recognised, authorised and normalised set of practices withinmanyculturalinstitutions.AsNicholasBurbulesargues: whenever any pedagogical practice or relation becomes 'naturalized' and comes to be seen as the only possibility, the best possibility or the most 'politically correct' possibility, it becomes (ironically) an impediment to human freedom, diversity, exploration, and-therefore-the possibilities oflearninganddiscovery. 22 Proceeding from this idea, the following discussion examines current concepts of culturalcompetenceanditsimplicationsforpedagogicalpractice.
The reader will note we are speaking of cultural competence in general terms and not denoting its specificity in our own work environs as 'Indigenous cultural competence'. This is because we are challenging the idea of cultural competence in its broadest configuration as an ethical concept that can seamlessly transfer to practice through brief educational courses. It is not, therefore, the • valuediversity; • havethecapacityforculturalself-assessment; • beconsciousofthe'dynamics'inherentwhenculturesinteract; • institutionalizeculturalknowledge;and • develop adaptations to service delivery reflecting an understandingofdiversitybetweenandwithincultures.
Further, these five elements must be manifested in every level of the The discourse gives primacy to culture and obliterates other, messy, signifiers such as class, sexuality and gender that might threaten to destabilise programs designed to teach cultural competence as a shared set of Indigenous histories, struggles and practices. The discourse relies for its coherence on a universality of Indigeneity that excises difference from within and between Indigenous cultures. Prior to colonisation, there were over two-hundred-and-fifty Indigenous language groups in Australia, forming separate nations identified both linguistically and culturally through a diverse range of rituals and practices. Given this history, we identify in the pedagogy of cultural competence a monolithic approach to teaching respect and awareness that neither recognises nor accommodatesthehistoricalorculturaldiversityofIndigenouspeoples.Nordoesit speak to the vast range of cultural differences between and among many of our Indigenousstudentswhoarefromurbanareasbutwhosehistoriesandexperiences cannot be neatly encapsulated into a single module of learning for the purpose of making'competent'itsmainlynon-Indigenousparticipants.
Teaching in contexts where Indigenous and international students of many cultural backgrounds form a large part of our student cohort, the implications of a 'blanket' approach to issues of race neatly wrapped in some marketed program erasetheveryissuesourteachingseekstoforeground:theactuallivedrealitiesof difference whose representations have not altered to relieve racism in any significant way since the advent of 'cultural competence'. Because we deal directly with the layering and complexity of cultural diversity and, in many cases, its attendant hierarchies of suffering, we find it at times impossible to mark out a