Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney

Position:
Director

Qualifications:
Bachelor of Education, UniSA
Master of Education, UniSA
Doctorate of Philosophy, Flinders University
Member of Australian College of Education

Dr Lester-Irabinna Rigney is Director of the Yunggorendi First Nations Centre for Higher Education and Research, Flinders University.  He is a Professor of Education and is one of the most influential Indigenous educationalists today.  His leadership in education is evident through his election by his academic peers since 2002, to the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Research Advisory Committee. 

His professional standing in education saw him inducted into the Australian College of Educators (ACE) in 1998. Irabinna is recognised as a national and international authority in the area of Indigenist Research Methodologies.

Interest in his work by National and International universities has seen him uptake several prestigious Visiting Research Fellowships including Cambridge University, UK; Fort Hare University, South Africa; and University of British Columbia, Canada.  He is in constant demand as a commentator on national and international Indigenous matters and has published widely on Education, Languages and Knowledge transmission. 

His recent 2006 co-edited book titled Sharing Spaces: Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Responses to Story, Country and Rights, is the most up to date Australian text on Indigenous and non-Indigenous race relations and how this converges in the vulnerable, vital and contested space called ‘education’.

Research interests and expertise

• Indigenous Research Epistemologies and Methodologies
• Research Ethics
• Intellectual and Cultural Property Rights
• Indigenous Education
• Indigenous Australian Languages
• Health Literacy
• Numeracy and Literacy in Indigenous School Aged Children
• Indigenous Affairs
• Globalized Aboriginal Communities
• Critical, Postcolonial and Feminist Theory

Teaching

• EDUC 4802: Teaching Indigenous Australian Students
• AUST 1004: An Introduction to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
• AUST 2006: Reconciliation and Indigenous Knowledges
• AUST 1301: An Introduction to Issues for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students in Higher Education