Indigenising masculinities: Relational renewal in settler colonial Australia

This article argues that Indigenising masculinities is both a practice of cultural renewal and a necessary response to the crisis of manhood in settler-colonial Australia. Drawing on Indigenous standpoint theory, settler colonial studies, and critical masculinity scholarship, it shows how dominant gender norms, rooted in whiteness, hierarchy, and individualism, marginalise Indigenous men while also constraining settler men. We introduce three new conceptual tools: a masculinities analytical continuum, which illustrates the shifting, relational spectrum between Indigenous and settler-colonial forms of manliness; ERASE, which maps the exclusionary logics of settler masculinities; and GROW, a relational framework grounded in kinship, law/lore, care, and cultural responsibility. Indigenous masculinities are defined here as dynamic, diverse, and sustained through storytelling, ceremony, and obligations to kin and Country. We distinguish Indigenisation from decolonisation, emphasising that both must occur together: the former led by Indigenous peoples, the latter the responsibility of settlers. Although centred in Australia, the conceptual tools developed here have broader relevance for contexts such as Canada, Aotearoa (New Zealand), the United States, Hawai’i, and beyond, where colonial and Indigenous gender orders intersect. Indigenised masculinities offer not only a critique of colonial power but also a generative foundation for more ethical, caring, and sustainable ways of being for all men and male-identifying people.