Inside Story

Tess Ryan and Melissa Sweet

Tess Ryan is an Indigenous woman of Biripai country in Taree, New South Wales, and wears many hats, including as scholar, writer, artist and president of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association. She has a PhD in leadership and Indigenous women in Australia and writes about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, feminist power, media representation, leadership and Indigenous research, and has also worked in public health and education.

Melissa Sweet is a non-Indigenous public health journalist, a descendant of Scottish, English, Chinese and colonial ancestors, and managing editor of Croakey Health Media. In her PhD, she acknowledges being part of a profession, an industry and a dominant society whose Eurocentric attitudes and practices routinely continue to inflict harm on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their communities and country.