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This chapter presents a critical reflection on delivering a lecture on the impacts of colonialism to a cohort of predominantly white, undergraduate students in the UK. This chapter provides an overview of the lecture, including its key content and how it built on a wider programme of learning. It then discusses student reactions to the lecture content, reviews the literature on teaching sensitive subjects, highlights what pedagogues in Higher Education (HE) can learn from this literature, and explores both teacher and student positionality. The chapter concludes that pedagogues in HE should pursue the teaching of sensitive subjects and not ‘give in’ to student discomfort. Not creating the conditions to discuss such issues in learning spaces ultimately sides with existing structures of power and privilege in HE that should be challenged. However, strategies need to be put in place to overcome students’ fears of discussing sensitive subjects. These strategies include pedagogues building up trust, facilitating open dialogue, and reflexively exploring positionality. These present both students and teachers with the opportunity to recognise and transform their own biases, perceptions, and attitudes to facilitate deeper and more democratic learning; and challenge existing structures of privilege in HE that benefit more powerful groups.

Senior Indigenous leadership positions across the Australian higher education sector has increased over the past decade. Despite this advancement, there is limited understanding in terms of how to best integrate Indigenous leadership into existing governance structures of Australian universities. In 2018 the Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education project commenced, aimed at establishing a model of best practice for the inclusivity of Indigenous leadership in higher education governance structures. This article presents key findings from the project, namely, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian universities based on the perceptions of a group of Indigenous academics.

Through qualitative semi-structured interviews with Indigenous academic staff, the perceived value, characteristics and challenges of senior Indigenous leadership were examined. The varying opinions held by Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position were also highlighted. In doing so, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian higher education system is presented. The model of best practice presented in this article is underpinned by Indigenous Institutional Theory (Coates et al., 2022), a theoretical framework developed from the Walan Mayiny study.

The research findings highlight the diverse opinions of Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position. The six essential components are built upon the core characteristics, values and behaviours that senior Indigenous leaders need to have according to Indigenous academics, in order to advance Indigenous success within the academy.

Given Australian universities are being called upon to ensure that senior Indigenous leaders are in the best position possible to forge institutional change, senior Indigenous leaders within the academy may find the contextual Indigenous leadership model beneficial. The model allows one to uphold cultural integrity and fulfil the responsibilities and obligations of their higher education institution, while being able to serve their Indigenous colleagues and communities, leading to the advancement of Indigenous higher education outcomes. Importantly, the model can be adapted to suit all First Nations Peoples globally, who also find themselves working within the shackles of Western institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on doctoral education. Pandemics throughout history have generated new educational theories and practices, accelerated some trends and signalled the abrupt end of others. The unpredictable effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have particularly impacted upon First Nations and transcultural communities and People of Colour throughout the globe. A second significant recent global trend that occurred at the height of the pandemic was the reignited #BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) protest campaign. This campaign drew attention to the vast inequities faced by black, transcultural (migrant, refugee, culturally diverse and international) and Indigenous peoples and triggered rapid action in higher education institutions against racism and unconscious bias.

This conceptual paper draws upon postcolonial/decolonial theory to demonstrate how the COVID pandemic and #BLM movement prompts us to revitalise doctoral education.

These two issues have created renewed urgency around the need to decolonise higher education and a desire to transform the “business-as-usual” geopolitical power dynamics that continue to privilege Northern knowledge over culturally diverse knowledge systems from First Nations and transcultural contexts. A key site where special opportunities exist to effect this transformation lies in doctoral education. Doctoral education is a significant location of new knowledge creation and the development of the world’s future researchers.

Applying post/decolonial theory enables one to rethink how doctoral education should be changed to work towards greater decolonisation.

This study applies Santos’ ideas about “the sociologies of emergence” in the global South to think about how doctoral education should be reconstructed as a liberated zone of decolonisation and epistemic justice.

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which using accounting as a multidimensional practice that encompasses technical, social and moral dimensions facilitates the instigation and advancement of a culture of sustainable development.

A qualitative approach was used to analyse the case of Waratah Coal Pty Ltd vs Youth Verdict Ltd – a dispute over a lease to establish a coal mine. The study draws on Carnegie et al.’s (2021a, 2021b) multidimensional definition of accounting and the Carnegie et al.’s (2023) framework for analysis to explore how different parties drew on accounting concepts to support their position over the sustainability of the mining lease proposal.

A multidimensional perspective on accounting appears to have clear transformative potential and can be used to champion a culture of sustainable development. This approach also has broad societal, environmental and moral implications that transcend Western financial metrics. This study shows that relying solely on accounting as a technical practice to pursue economic benefits can result in contested arguments. Overall, this analysis illustrates how the wider public, and notably First Nations communities, might challenge accounting methodologies that marginalise cultural and social narratives.

This paper expands accounting research by demonstrating how fully embracing accounting’s capacities can create a space for hearing multiple voices, including those silenced by Western accounting practices. Specifically, this study presents a unique case in which the authors incorporate the voices and views of those affected by accounting-based decisions.

This study examines the public participation in the implementation of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL), a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) approach for urban development. HUL has six Critical Steps and four Tools Categories relating to community engagement, knowledge and planning, regulatory system and financial instruments. The HUL public participation component has materialized variably across the adopting cities, challenged by the local implementation capacity. In response, we have singled out two research questions revolving around the participants’ characteristics and participation methods.

This study instrumentalizes case studies as a research methodology and thematic literature as a theoretical context. The HUL projects for Ballarat, Australia and Cuenca, Ecuador have been selected as sources of published information because they exhibit comparative differences in completing community engagement. We have compared the community engagement accounts of the two cities.

The Ballarat and Cuenca HUL project accounts point out to commonalities and variances in responding to the HUL public participation mandate. The findings for the participants’ characteristics involve project setting, participants categories and participants empowerment; the findings for the participation methods involve initial preparation, domestic and international expertise and public conversation.

The results of the study help define public participation practices in HUL project implementations. The results present an opportunity for city officials, HUL project planners and field administrators for making informed decisions particularly in relation to the two public participation domains, the participants’ characteristics and the engagement methods.

Examining emotional solidarity that drives tourists’ nostalgia has received significant attention, offering valuable insights that can aid in the selection of a travel destination. However, tourists’ nostalgia, along with its antecedents—perceived safety risk and emotional solidarity, has gained less attention within the setting of Pakistan. Therefore, this research has been carried out and validated a research framework using the stimulus-organism-response model to investigate the links between perceived safety risk, emotional solidarity—welcoming nature, emotional closeness, sympathetic understanding, perceived nostalgia, and destination advocacy intentions. In addition, this model employed destination attachment—place identity and place dependence—as a boundary condition on the relationships between emotional solidarity and advocacy intentions.

This study collected 545 responses through two methods: offline distribution of print copies of the questionnaire and online surveys from domestic tourists who visited scenic destinations last year. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed using AMOS 26, and the PROCESS macro was conducted using IBM SPSS 28.

The findings highlighted that perceived safety risk negatively influences emotional solidarity—welcoming nature, emotional closeness, sympathetic understanding—, resulting in a positive effect on perceived nostalgia. Furthermore, tourists’ perceived nostalgia positively triggers advocacy intentions. The findings also confirmed the boundary conditions of destination attachment—place identity and place dependence—on the association between emotional solidarity and perceived nostalgia.

Three major practical implications of these findings: First, ensuring visitor safety with smart security measures, digital tools for quick response, and local community involvement. Second, highlighting local markets, art, and architecture to enrich cultural experiences and promote accessibility and diversity. Finally, using marketing to generate nostalgic experiences through local collaborations, professional storytelling, and engaging social media content to build emotional ties and curiosity.

In terms of originality, this is pioneering research intended at developing and validating the model in the context of Pakistani destinations. Furthermore, this marks the initial step in examining the proposed relationships between perceived safety risk and emotional solidarity in fostering tourists' perceived nostalgia, ultimately leading to a strong desire to advocate for the destination.

This paper illuminates our journey as accounting educators by exploring accounting as a technical, social and moral practice towards decolonising ourselves. It lays the foundations for decolonising the higher education curriculum and the consequences for addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This paper focuses on the potential to foster a space for praxis by adopting dialogism-in-action to understand our transformative learning through Jindaola [pronounced Jinda-o-la], a university-based Aboriginal knowledge program. A dialogic pedagogy provided the opportunity to create a meaningful space between us as academics, the Aboriginal Knowledge holder and mentor, the other groups in Jindaola and, ultimately, our accounting students. Since Jindaola privileged ‘our way’ as the pedagogical learning process, we adopt autoethnography to share and reflect on our experiences. Making creative artefacts formed the basis for building relationships, reciprocity and respect and represents our shared journey and collective account.

We reveal our journey of “holding to account” by analysing five aspects of our lives as critical accounting academics – the overarching conceptual framework, teaching, research, governance and our physical landscape. In doing so, we found that Aboriginal perspectives provide a radical positioning to the colonial legacies of accounting practice.

Our journey through Jindaola contemplates how connecting with Country and engaging with Aboriginal ways of knowing can assist educators in meaningfully addressing the SDGs. While not providing a panacea or prescription for what to do, we use ‘our way’ as a story of our commitment to transformative change.

The goal was emancipatory, to characterise and dislodge oppressive management practices, to allow for the possibility of seeking an alternative organisational construction free of postcolonial/subaltern subordination and discrimination in a local, well-documented narrative.

The study was informed by a postcolonial/subaltern perspective and drew on the employment experience of an Aboriginal woman, Canada’s first Indigenous Dean of a law school. The researcher employed a combination of case study and critical discourse analysis with the aim of advancing rich analyses of the complex workings of power and privilege in sustaining Western, postcolonial relations.

The study made several conclusions: first, that the institution, a medium-sized Canadian university, carefully controlled the Indigenous subaltern to remake her to be palatable to Western sensibilities. Second, the effect of this control was to assimilate her, to subordinate her Indigeneity and to civilise in a manner analogous to the purpose of Indian residential schools. Third, that rather than management’s action being rational and neutral, focused on goal attainment, efficiency and effectiveness, it was an implicit moral judgement based on her race and an opportunity to exploit her value as a means for the university’s growth and status.

Through a postcolonial/subaltern perspective, this study demonstrated how management practices reproduced barriers to the participation of an Indigenous woman and the First Nations community that an organisation was intended to serve. The study demonstrated how a Western perspective – that of a university’s administration, faculty and staff – was privileged, or taken for granted, and the Indigenous perspective subordinated, as the university remained committed to the dispossession of Indigenous knowledge and values.

Australia appears to be encountering a crisis in the protection of certain heritage places, despite its strong reputation in heritage conservation built up since the 1970s. Consequently, this paper examines changes to national cultural heritage management policy over the last few decades to understand more about this crisis.

Indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage) was selected as the key focus. This paper applies a cultural heritage management framework tested first in Hong Kong to measure Australian paradigm change over 45 years.

It found the 1990s shift away from the provision of independent technical advice on national heritage policy has had a major impact. This shift is based on a change in ethos away from the earlier Whitlam/National Estate broader vision of heritage responsibilities towards a narrower more conservative one at the national level. Also, it found that studies and policymaking should allow for Indigenous voices. More Indigenous input in heritage policy formulation at all levels of government would further decolonise Indigenous heritage governance to deal justly with Indigenous Australians and their heritage.

Resources did not allow for comparative studies of the non-Indigenous (historic) and natural heritage as part of the current study.

The study also included a consultation paper and an online conference presentation that have raised questions about the efficacy of current national policy on Indigenous places, on which a national conversation is urgently needed. The recent review of the National Heritage Strategy by the Australian Commonwealth Government based some of its proposed options on those listed in the consultation paper to initiate this conversation in a limited way.

One finding is that attention to heritage policy and protection must be ongoing at all levels of government and inclusive of First People's human rights, particularly those concerning their heritage. In regard to Australia, most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents in this study would like to see targeted funding return for more than just iconic Indigenous places and for the creation of a more independent heritage body that allows them more self-determination in the care of their heritage.

The paper's value is that it investigates the Australian Heritage Commission's impact in the development of Australian cultural heritage management and associated national policy. Also, it provides insights for other postcolonial or New World settler societies dealing with the same issues or any decision-makers considering establishing a national independent body to oversee heritage protection and policymaking.