Interview: Andrew Farrell

Indigenous Queer Studies academic, Andrew Farrell, talks with Bent Street editor Tiffany Jones about their development of world-first Aboriginal Queer University Units. Andrew Farrell is a Wodi Wodi person and Queer identified academic whose research is focused on LGBTIQA+ Aboriginal peoples and social media. Andrew has also developed projects such as the Archiving the Aboriginal Rainbow blog, an online portal that addresses the absence of a digital space that catalogues Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sexual and gender diversity by sharing links to contemporary and historical audio, images, articles, art, and various other items found across the web (Farrell, 2014). The blog prioritises the perspectives of Indigenous LGBTIQ+ peoples as decolonising agents within Nakata’s (2007, in Farrell, 2015) ‘Cultural Interface’—in which Indigenous LGBTIQ knowledge, experiences and challenges filter through complex terrains of knowing and unknowing—transforming how we may see and know this unique and diverse community. Bent Street caught up with Andrew Farrell to discuss their latest contribution in developing and co-ordinating world-first units in Aboriginal Queer Studies commencing in 2020 at Macquarie University.