Kylie Wrigley wins Carolyn Allport scholarship

Kylie Wrigley is the 2021 recipient of the Carolyn Allport Scholarship, for postgraduate work in feminist studies. Kylie is undertaking a PhD at Edith Cowan University (ECU).

Kylie’s project is informed Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) and her study entails a research collaboration with the Climate Justice Union of Western Australia. The study aims to create community-led and place-based knowledge and action to develop scalable, replicable and effective actions for climate justice. By working with the Climate Justice Union of Western Australia the study specifically aims to develop and test effective community organising strategies.

The Climate Justice Union of Western Australia is a new social movement organisation that aims to build grassroots power to accelerate a fair and just transition that draws down emissions and prepares for climate change in a way that leaves no one behind. The research questions are practical and action-oriented in that they examine how this aim is being (or can be) achieved.

Kylie has extensive industry experience in community-organising for climate justice. 'I had worked with people from Climate Justice Union of Western Australia before and this is why I wanted to collaborate with them when they proposed the research project with ECU', says Kylie. This collaboration can respond to an urgent need for more action-oriented research in response to climate change. The study is community-focused, collaborative, and will directly inform and collectives of people advocating for climate justice.

Through her studies at the University of Western Australia and her work for a number of NGOs on Climate Justice, Kylie saw that 'existing climate policy and governance in Western Australia and in Australia is top-down, patriarchal, colonial, capitalistic and techno-optimistic. It is inadequate as it does not offer deep or genuine solutions or justice to the climate crisis.' Her concern is that (Western) Australian climate policy and movements risk reproducing, for example, gender, income and racial inequalities and do not sufficiently build resilience in local communities.

Kylie grew up in post-apartheid southern Africa before emigrating to Australia with her family when she was 18 years old. 'When I moved here, I quickly learned how Aboriginal people were marginalised and prevented from managing their own country', says Kylie, 'and I have learnt that climate change and colonisation are linked and there can be no Climate Justice without leadership of and justice for Indigenous people and those who are disenfranchised in a patriarchal, colonial and neoliberal system'.

Kylie thus aims to centre voices of Noongar and Aboriginal people in her thinking and research, such as Ellen van Neerven, award-winning Aboriginal author, editor and educator of Mununjali (Yugambeh language group) and Dutch heritage

who says, 'if Australia does respond to climate change but does so without seeking the input of its Indigenous people, this response will be perpetuating this country’s colonial history.'

Kylie is also affiliated with ECU's strategic research Centre for People Place and Planet. She works as a research assistant to an ECU researcher working on several feminist and decolonial research projects and papers. ◆

Helena Spyrou, Union Education Officernteu.org.au/myunion/scholarships/carolyn_allport

Dr Carolyn Allport was NTEU National President from 1994 to 2010, becoming a lobbyist at both the national and international levels. Described as a ‘warrior for women’, Carolyn advocated for women’s rights to employment equity.

Influential in the struggle for paid parental leave, she established NTEU as the setter of high benchmarks for other unions and employers to match. Carolyn is also recognised as an advocate for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander education, employment and social justice. She was a driving force to ensure that A&TSI business is core NTEU business.

Carolyn worked as an academic for over 20 years at Macquarie University in economic history, urban politics, public housing and women’s history. Carolyn sadly passed away in 2017.

NTEU established the scholarship in 2014 in recognition of Dr Carolyn Allport. The scholarship is available to a person undertaking postgraduate feminist studies, by research, in any discipline. It pays $5000 per year for a maximum of three years.