Challenging the prevailing paradigm
Chels Marshall has overcome poverty and racism to become an internationally renowned scientist. A Gumbaynggir woman, she has embraced her cultural heritage and asked why the Western world sees things differently. Now organisations like the UN are asking the same question and seeking Chels’ expertise to change the global paradigm.
A story for anyone needing the courage to embrace what makes them different and challenge the paradigm that makes that difference wrong.
THE NOMINATION
I ask independent federal candidate Caz Heise whose courage inspires her. She is quick to nominate her long-time friend and sought-after Indigenous scientist Dr Chels Marshall for her courage in overcoming poverty and racism and challenging the paradigms of Western culture and science.
Chels did it tough growing up in Valla and Nambucca in an Aboriginal family with five kids in a 3-bedroom housing commission home. They were very poor and suffered discrimination.
But she was lucky enough to grow up connected to culture and country. Her family have been connected to this region for 50,000 years or something, and she learnt a lot of the traditional ways and her family got a lot of their food from gathering and fishing.
She was an academic student but when she was a teenager, she was kicked out of school. It was found later that the principal kicked her out just because he wanted to get the Aboriginal kids out of the school.
She still wanted an education. So, she started a career with National Parks NSW and went to university. She kept connected to country while progressing in mainstream science. To the point where she now has a Masters in marine biology and a doctorate in International Governance. She wrote her thesis on Traditional knowledge systems and climate change in the Pacific. She was a senior research fellow at Deakin’s Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab and now works in marine research at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. She sits on all kinds of international boards, including the United Nations. She’s challenging the Western science model with traditional knowledge: that’s why she’s sought after.
To me, courage is growth through adversity. Stepping outside your comfort zone and seeing the expansiveness of life. Learning from the past while leaning into the future.
It’s a tough time for Aboriginal people. Racism is alive and well in Australia. Aboriginal people have worse health outcomes, lower education, lower economic status. Chels has certainly lived that.
To have achieved what she’s achieved with her culture, spirit and strength intact: it’s very courageous.
To have achieved what she’s achieved with her culture, spirit and strength intact: it’s very courageous. From someone who copped so much discrimination and did it so tough as a kid, she speaks, stands up and walks in the Western world and challenges Western science. I just feel so inspired by her.
CHELS
I came from a background of nothing really. It was always a struggle. My Dad was working, but his salary wasn’t good. No birthday parties. Salvation Army Christmas presents. Coming home to minimal or no food in the cupboards.
But the one constant was my parents' knowledge. After being taught Western ways at school, we then went out and foraged or fished. Living off country. Learning how to immerse fully into the landscape and understand tides, winds and animals.
Growing up Aboriginal you know you’re a minority.
Growing up Aboriginal you know you’re a minority. We were taught that Aboriginal people were savages, the next step up from Neanderthals. I remember going to school with the richness of my culture and talking about giant animals and my kindergarten teacher telling me there were no giant animals in Australia and to stop telling lies to the other kids. (I’d love to take that teacher to the Australian Museum and show her the huge wombat Diprotodon and kangaroo Procoptodon.)
But I was a bit of a nerd at school. I really enjoyed learning. At the end of year 11, I was number one in the state in English and in the top 10% in science. I wanted to be a surgical doctor.
Then one day the whole class was laughing about something. There was no laughing in class, so I was sent to the principal, and he immediately expelled me. I used to hang out with the teachers, so a lot of them wrote to the Board of Education and there was an investigation. They ended up sacking the principal.
By then I had left the school. There was so much stress and grief for me because the whole dream had been shattered. I went to Sydney and that same week I sat the public service test, which I passed with flying colours. I ended up working for the Department of Education (hilarious irony). Within 3 months I was a 17-year-old earning a really good salary. I could pay to do Open College learning in wildlife management.
…the whole dream had been shattered.
Still 17, I got a job with National Parks and Wildlife NSW as a ranger in Bundjalung country (Lismore).
While working for National Parks, I got two degrees at Uni. I went hard over five years and got degrees in cultural heritage management and wildlife management. Then I did a Masters in Marine Science and then a PhD in International Governance.
The white rangers would say things like, “You blackfellas get all your uni paid”. There was always an element of justifying myself and my culture and people.
And yet, when I got to Uni I thought, “Oh my God, my Dad knows more about country and fish than these guys and he only went to grade 3.”
As a kid, I watched my uncle and Dad light fires and do burning. Working in National Parks, I attended a lot of fires in that white man’s realm. Even the language was different: we would “put in” a fire, whereas white man “attacks” or “fights” a fire.
I grew up seeing animals as my ancestors, only taking what you need. Now people who know nothing about country have stepped in and we have the highest species loss in the world.
Hang on a minute. Why does everything have to be from the dominant paradigm?
From a young age, I thought, “Hang on a minute. Why does everything have to be from the dominant paradigm?” Our knowledge and ideology around species management has a place and it’s important. So I’ve spent the majority of my time as a scientist elevating First Nations science.
Did it take courage? Every day took courage. National Parks was heavily male-dominated. Being brown, being a woman and approaching people to say, “Hey, you can’t do that on Country” took courage.
My courage came from knowing I am a voice for the Country. I am a voice for my family, my non-human kin who are also my family, and my cultural realm.
In Gumbaynggir Country, our totem is the ocean. My family’s totem is red bass fish and my Mum’s is the dolphin. Jumping in the ocean, being next to the ocean, talking to the ocean: these are the most calming spiritual experiences. It’s what rejuvenates and gives me courage and healing.
My elders give me courage. I see my uncle who marched from Tweed Heads to Sydney in the 60s to protest sand mining because a lot of our old people were buried in those dunes. And he is still on the front line, holding banners, protecting forest and fish at the age of 84.
And I had all these fantastic mentors. I was working with awesome people like Steve Zarbo and Dr. Dermont Smyth, Stephen Scheinerier, Chrissy Grant and Melissa George an endless list of awesome people: all working toward elevating Indigenous knowledge systems.
I don’t want more generations of Aboriginal people to endure what I have and what my parents and grandparents have.
In some ways, not much has changed. My daughter was kicked in the guts and told to find a black friend to play with when she was at preschool. Only last week people at her school were calling her a nigger.
But her opportunities are better. Aboriginal authors are being published, more of our knowledge systems are being reawakened and exposed, platforms are being built for Aboriginal culture. She hopes to go to the National Indigenous Performing Arts School.
Our knowledge has a place and it’s important.
It’s about keeping culture strong. Our knowledge has a place and it’s important. Elevating Indigenous Knowledge Systems and being inclusive of different ways of doing and being could give us tools and platforms to change the trajectory of the world. Because the paradigm we’re working in at the moment is well and truly broken.
Photographs provided by Chels Marshall.
Want to know more?
If you want more insight into Indigenous knowledge systems and their application to today’s world, you can check out Chels’ PhD thesis Looking at the Sky, Listening to the Sea or these articles: Indigenous Knowledge/ Science of Climate and the Natural World, Indigenous Systems Knowledge Applied to Protocols for Governance & Inquiry.