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Chelsea Watego
Born1978 or 1979 (age 44–45)[2]
Brisbane, Queensland,[2] Australia
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Queensland (B.Applied Health Science [Hons], PhD)[1]
Thesis"When you're black, they look at you harder": narrating Aboriginality within public health (2007)
Doctoral advisorMark Brough
Leonie Cox
Megan Jennaway
Academic work
DisciplineIndigenous Australian health
InstitutionsQueensland University of Technology

Chelsea Joanne Ruth Watego[3] (formerly Bond, born 1978/1979) is an Aboriginal Australian academic and writer. She is a Mununjali Yugambeh and South Sea Islander woman and is currently Professor of Indigenous Health at Queensland University of Technology. Her first book, Another Day in the Colony, was published in 2021.

Personal life

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Watego was born in 1978 or 1979 in Brisbane, Queensland,[2] and is the daughter of Vern and Elaine Watego.[4] Vern was Mununjali Yugambeh (an Australian Aboriginal group whose traditional lands are located around Beaudesert in South East Queensland) and South Sea Islander, while Elaine is of English and Irish descent.[5] Through Vern, her great-great-great-grandfather was Bilin Bilin, a well-known Yugambeh man and diplomat who died in 1901.[6]: 3–4 

She has five children (Kihi, Maya, Eliakim, Vernon and George) with her ex-husband, Matt Bond.[7][8][9]

Academic career

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Watego studied a Bachelor of Applied Health Science at the University of Queensland (UQ), graduating with honours in 2001.[1] In 2007, she received her Doctor of Philosophy for her thesis, '"When you're black, they look at you harder": narrating Aboriginality within public health,' under the supervision of Mark Brough, Leonie Cox and Megan Jennaway.[10]

She has since worked as a researcher and lecturer at both UQ and Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She began her academic career at UQ, and worked there as Principal Research Fellow in the School of Social Sciences.[11] However, in 2019 she lodged a race and sex discrimination complaint against UQ and left the university for QUT,[12] where she began work as Professor of Indigenous Health on 26 July 2021.[13] As of 2021, she is also a director and principal researcher at the Institute for Collaborative Race Research.[14]

She has received awards for her scholarship, particularly the 2009 NAIDOC Award for Scholar of the Year and the 2012 Lowitja Institute Emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Researcher Award.[2][15] The focus of her academic work has been described as "interpreting and privileging Indigenous experiences of the health system, including critically examining the role of Aboriginal health workers, the narratives of Indigeneity produced within public health, and advocating for strength based community development approaches to Indigenous health promotion practice".[11] She has also worked prominently on the development of the field of Indigenist health humanities, for which she received a $1.7 million grant in 2021.[13]

Media and writing work

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Watego has written for numerous publications including IndigenousX, NITV, ABC News, Meanjin, SBS, The Guardian and The Conversation.[16][17][12][18] Her essay Mythologies of Aboriginal Culture was nominated for the 2016 Horne Prize, but lost to Anna Spargo-Ryan's The Suicide Gene.[19]

From 2017 to 2020, she hosted Wild Black Women with Angelina Hurley on 98.9 FM in Brisbane.[20] The show received particular publicity for its interview of Trevor Noah in 2019. In the episode, he and the hosts discussed a controversial joke he made in 2013 about Aboriginal women which Anita Heiss had called "disgusting and offensive".[21][22] Noah received criticism for refusing to apologise for the joke.[23]

Watego has also often spoken at events and on panels, receiving praise particularly for a 2019 appearance at La Trobe University during which she spoke out against structural racism.[24]

In 2021, her first book, Another Day in the Colony, was published by University of Queensland Press.[25] It is a collection of essays which "[examine] the ongoing and daily racism faced by First Nations peoples in so-called Australia,"[8] and has received positive reviews. Declan Fry in The Guardian described it as "a fierce manifesto for First Nations to flourish,"[26] Kara Nicholson for "Readings" labelled it a "collection of sharply written, fiercely intelligent and engaging essays" and "absolutely essential reading,"[27] and Monique Grbec in Kill Your Darlings declared that it "[gave] agency, dignity and power in response to the shared experience of racism" and called it "Deadly".[28] At the 2022 Queensland Literary Awards it won the People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award[29] and was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance and Nonfiction.[30] It was shortlisted for the 2022 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards for both Indigenous Writing and Nonfiction[31] and for the 2022 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Nonfiction.[32] It was also longlisted for the Stella Prize in 2022[33] and shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction and the Indigenous Writers' Prize at the 2023 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.[34][35]

Discrimination allegations

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In 2018, Watego was arrested on charges of obstructing police and refusing to leave a licensed premise, after being forcibly removed from The Beat nightclub in Fortitude Valley. She subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of public nuisance. Watego stated the arrest left her with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She later lodged a racial discrimination complaint against Queensland Police with the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT), retaining George Newhouse as her solicitor.[36] In October 2022, QCAT dismissed her complaint, with Newhouse stating that "the tribunal member felt that there wasn't enough evidence to convince him that the decisions that the police made were on the basis of race".[37] The Tribunal found Professor Watego detailed this incident in her book 'Another Day in the Colony' but "... what is said in the book about the actions of the second and third respondents is untrue." and "... naming them could establish a cause of action in defamation ...".[3] On 2 August 2023 the Tribunal found that the complaint was so devoid of merit that it warranted an award of costs against the complainaint in the interests of justice.[38]

In 2019, Watego lodged racial and sex discrimination complaints against the University of Queensland, alleging that the university had provided an inadequate workspace for her team. She withdrew the complaints in 2021, criticising the National Tertiary Education Union for what she described as a lack of legal support.[39]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Dr Chelsea Watego". University of Queensland. 9 November 2015. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d "Dr Chelsea Bond". NAIDOC. Archived from the original on 29 December 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Chelsea Joanne Ruth Watego v State of Queensland, TWG, UXH" (PDF).
  4. ^ Bond, Chelsea (24 November 2016). McInerney, Marie (ed.). "Letter to my former self: 7 insights for becoming an ethical Indigenous researcher". Croakey Health Media. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
  5. ^ Bond, Chelsea (27 January 2015). "Chelsea Bond: Australia Day ought to be for everyone". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  6. ^ Bond, Chelsea (28 April 2020). "Dear Ancestor". In Whittaker, Alison (ed.). Fire Front: First Nations poetry and power today. University of Queensland Press. pp. 3–8. ISBN 9780702263880.
  7. ^ "Through American Eyes". Foreign Correspondent. 26 June 2017. ABC TV.
  8. ^ a b "Another Day in the Colony by Chelsea Watego". University of Queensland Press. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  9. ^ Moon, Emerald; Ballard, Tom (22 January 2022). "09: AMA about how Straya Day and the GST suck (ft. Chelsea Watego)". Serious Danger (Podcast). Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  10. ^ Bond, Chelsea (28 August 2007). ""When you're black, they look at you harder": narrating Aboriginality within public health". University of Queensland. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  11. ^ a b "Associate Professor Chelsea Bond". University of Queensland. Archived from the original on 29 December 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  12. ^ a b Watego, Chelsea (Spring 2021). "Always Bet on Black (Power)". Meanjin. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  13. ^ a b "Project aims to develop advanced health outcomes for Indigenous peoples". Mirage.News. 21 July 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  14. ^ "Professor Chelsea Watego". Institute for Collaborative Race Research. Archived from the original on 29 December 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  15. ^ "Emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Researcher Award". Lowitja Institute. Archived from the original on 29 December 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  16. ^ "Professor Chelsea Watego". Queensland University of Technology. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  17. ^ Bond, Chelsea (28 June 2017). "Class is the new black: The dangers of an obsession with the 'Aboriginal middle class'". ABC News. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  18. ^ Watego, Chelsea (5 November 2021). "Chelsea Watego: "Our Blackness was not a source of shame but a source of pride"". SBS. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  19. ^ "NEWS". Horne Prize. Archived from the original on 10 March 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  20. ^ "Dr Chelsea Bond". Australian Audio Guide. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  21. ^ Trevor Noah refuses to apologise for sexual joke about Aboriginal women. NITV. 24 August 2018. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  22. ^ Heiss, Anita [@AnitaHeiss] (22 July 2018). "I had to prepare myself to watch. Save yourself. It's disgusting and offensive. The man has no idea" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 29 December 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2021 – via Twitter.
  23. ^ Bond, Chelsea (25 August 2018). "Aboriginal women are Black women too". NITV. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  24. ^ Pearson, Luke; Cromb, Nat (15 April 2019). "Dr Chelsea Bond delivers a masterclass in Indigenous Excellence". IndigenousX. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  25. ^ Daley, Paul (18 December 2021). "'We have yet to reach our postcolonial moment': Chelsea Watego on colonialism and the canon". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  26. ^ Fry, Declan (26 November 2021). "Another Day in the Colony by Chelsea Watego review – a fierce manifesto for First Nations to flourish". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  27. ^ Nicholson, Kara (2 November 2021). "Another Day in the Colony". Readings. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  28. ^ Cregan, Ellen; Gill, Mindy; Grbec, Monique; Murphy, Fiona (18 November 2021). "Books Roundup: Permafrost, Scary Monsters, Another Day in the Colony, How to End a Story". Kill Your Darlings. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  29. ^ Burke, Kelly (8 September 2022). "Queensland Literary awards: winners list reflects 'a moment of change for the nation'". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  30. ^ "2022 Queensland Literary Awards shortlists". State Library of Queensland. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
  31. ^ "Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Shortlist Announced". Creative Victoria. 8 December 2021. Archived from the original on 29 December 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  32. ^ "Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2022 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 7 November 2022. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
  33. ^ "The Stella Prize longlist 2022". Readings. 28 February 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
  34. ^ "Another Day in the Colony". State Library of NSW. 1 February 2023. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  35. ^ "Another Day in the Colony". State Library of NSW. 1 February 2023. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  36. ^ Jenkins, Keira (6 September 2022). "Racial discrimination case launched against state of Queensland by Professor Chelsea Watego". NITV. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  37. ^ Damjanovic, Dijana (11 October 2022). "Professor Chelsea Watego loses racism case but doesn't want others to be discouraged". NITV. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  38. ^ "Watego v State of Queensland and ors (costs) QCAT 292" (PDF). archive.sclqld.org.au. 2023.
  39. ^ Mallapaty, Smriti (19 October 2022). "'There's no space for us': an Indigenous-health researcher battles racism in Australia". Nature. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
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