• A Charles Sturt University political scientist has published the first-ever book to critique the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from an indigenous perspective
• He argues that the SDGs are compromised by the Goals’ inattention to culture and political context, and restrict indigenous peoples’ ability to make their own judgements about what it means to be ‘not left behind’
• The book proposes indicators for each of the 17 UN SDGs to show how they may contribute to the detailed expression of self-determination

A new book by a leading Charles Sturt University academic analyses the ambitious UN Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015, which he says are compromised from indigenous peoples’ perspective.

Professor in Political Science Dominic O’Sullivan (pictured, inset), in the Charles Sturt School of Social Work and Arts, recently published Indigeneity, Culture and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Palgrave McMillan, April 2023).

Professor O’Sullivan said this is the first scholarly book to examine the UN Sustainable Development Goals from an indigenous perspective, and specifically, with reference to the right to self-determination.

“The Goals are broadly focussed and aim to ensure that ‘nobody is left behind’,” Professor O’Sullivan said.

“While this is an ambition with obvious counter-colonial significance, it is one which is also compromised by the Goals’ inattention to culture and political context.

“These omissions restrict an indigenous people’s ability to make its own judgements about what it means to be ‘not left behind’.”

Professor O’Sullivan introduces the argument that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides a responsive framework for revising the Goals.

“I critique how effectively the SDGs contribute to indigenous people being among those who are ‘not left behind’ and suggest ways in which SDGs and their indicators could be revised to support self-determination,” he said.

Professor O’Sullivan said the book’s overarching argument that ‘leaving nobody behind’ requires that culture is permanently admitted into the working of the state and that substantive indigenous leadership and participation occur wherever state policy is made, implemented and evaluated.

“Agency, not vulnerability, then guides what it means to say that indigenous people are not left behind,” he said.

“Indigenous presence in state policy processes complements indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination as independent political communities.

“My analysis refers to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and domestic instruments such as New Zealand’s Tiriti o Waitangi to suggest how the goals could be revised to support self-determination as a more far-reaching and ambitious project than the Goals imagine in their current form.”

The book primarily draws its material from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to support analysing the goals’ policy relevance to wealthy states and the political claims that indigenous peoples make in established liberal democracies.

Professor O’Sullivan adds to the indicators for each of the 17 UN SDGs to show how they may contribute to the detailed expression of self-determination that the book has presented and defended.