Publications

Book chapter | Peer reviewed

Indigenous Business Algoithmic Futures in AI-Mediated Marketing Ecosystems ↗

by Maria Raciti

24 May 2026
Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence in Marketing

Indigenous peoples’ worldviews permeate the businesses they run, providing them with a unique competitive advantage to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for success. Indigenous worldviews encompass understandings of complex, dynamic relationships. Such understandings position Indigenous businesses to better optimize economic sovereignty, well-being, and prosperity than mainstream businesses. AI-mediated marketing systems shape how businesses are recognized, ranked, and integrated into digital market streams. Indigenous worldviews understand the world as a complex constellation of relationships encompassing human and more-than-human kin that form an indivisible, perpetually fluxing relational ecosystem. As such, Indigenous worldviews provide Indigenous businesses with innate “relational fluency” with sophisticated understandings for engaging with AI as non-human kin within marketing systems. Anchored in the sister concepts of Indigenous survivance (an ongoing, self-determined Indigenous presence) and thrivance (flourishing grounded in Indigenous lifeways), this chapter presents the Indigenous Business Algorithmic Futures (IBAF) conceptual framework and a “blakprint” guiding its operationalization. The IBAF describes how Indigenous relational fluency interacts with algorithmic infrastructures through three intertwined dimensions. First, algorithmic recognition captures how AI systems detect and interpret Indigenous business identities; second, algorithmic mediation highlights how AI systems govern provenance and credibility signals; and third, algorithmic sovereignty concerns the governance frameworks for Indigenous custodianship of Indigenous data, cultural and intellectual property. Overall, Indigenous businesses are uniquely advantaged by their relational fluency, which positions them for success in marketing ecosystems increasingly characterized by non-human intelligence.

---

Journal article | Peer reviewed

EveryWhen: An Australian Indigenous Knowledge System and Methodology ↗

by Kathryn Gilbey, Catherine Manathunga, Jing Qi and Maria Raciti

9 March 2026
International Journal of Market Research

Recently, there has been growing interest among the global marketing research community to create space for Indigenous knowledges and perspectives. This article introduces EveryWhen, positioning it as both an Australian Indigenous knowledge system that offers a nonlinear perception of time and a methodology with wide-ranging applications in marketing research. Time is culturally constructed, and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’, EveryWhen represents time as the infinite present—unmeasured, indivisible, and elastic, where the past, present, and future co-exist. Through a case study with Australian Indigenous doctoral student consumers, this article demonstrates how the multisensory EveryWhen methodology utilises Australian Indigenous storytelling/yarning, three-dimensional earth-drawn artefact creation, and an adaptation of Bishop and Tynan’s (2025) Kin and Country five-perspective analytical lens to capture nonlinear consumer temporalities. Conducted by and with Indigenous Australians and adhering to Indigenous research design principles, the case study also models best practice in Indigenous research. The EveryWhen findings revealed layered, dynamic consumer journeys, showing how new marketing research insights emerge when temporality is foregrounded. EveryWhen is portable across a range of contexts and applicable to all consumers, representing a pathway to decolonisation and Indigenising marketing research. For marketing researchers, the value of EveryWhen lies not only in introducing nonlinear temporalities but also in extending multisensory methodologies to broaden the ways consumer journeys are accessed, captured, and represented in marketing research.

---

Editorial

Editorial: Navigating short-term funding and government election cycles to achieve sustainable, transformative social impact ↗

by Maria Raciti, Janine Gertz and Sam Raciti

2026
Journal of Social Impact in Business Research

Purpose The purpose of this study is to introduce a special issue that surfaces the under-documented structural flaw at the heart of social impact work, exposing how short-term funding horizons and government election cycles influence the achievement of sustainable, transformative social impact. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual synthesis is offered, integrating insights from collaborative governance, resource dependence theory, distributive politics, nonprofit resilience and projectification scholarship. Inspired by an Australian Indigenous community-controlled organisation’s experiences, this special issue foregrounds the conditions that hinder durable social impact. Findings Short-term funding and government election cycles create structural distortions, including output capture, outcome drift, performative evaluation, relational erosion, workforce churn and the projectification of complex social change into siloed, piecemeal activities. These dynamics erode the conditions necessary for sustainable, transformative social change. This editorial synthesises the literature and locates the special issue contributions. This study also presents an Indigenous Knowledge System-informed special issue design that is practitioner-driven and Indigenous-led with a whole-circle practice-research-practice feedback loop that exemplifies how social impact learnings can be mobilised. Practical implications Social change scholars and practitioners will find an evidence base to advocate for structural reforms. Many readers may also find this editorial affirming, as it makes visible the shared lived experiences of funding and election cycle volatility, calling out the associated hidden labour and disrupted social impact trajectories. Originality/value This special issue shows how short-term funding and election cycles operate as structural headwinds that shape social impact programs capacity to achieve sustainable transformation. This study also models and encourages social impact whole-circle practice-research-practice feedback loops.

---

Journal article | Peer reviewed

Indigenous-informed strengths-based approaches to supporting customersexperiencing vulnerability in service ecosystems ↗

by Maria Raciti

2026
Journal of Business Research

This paper assembles key Indigenous concepts and culturally adapts them into resources for use by mainstream services to support all customers experiencing vulnerability. Using Bartlet et al.’s (2012) Two-Eyed Seeing approach, eight influential Indigenous concepts were chosen for their capacity to extend existing service thinking beyond Western assumptions, being: cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005), radical hope (Lear, 2006), survivance (Vizenor, 1999), thrivance (Baumann, 2023), relationality (Moreton-Robinson, 2017), storying (Phillips & Bunda, 2018), Dadirri (Ungunmerr-Baumann, 2022) and Indigenous self-determination (Rademaker & Rowse, 2020). Drawing on the author’s lived experience as an Indigenous marketing scholar, eight principles, a micro-meso-macro framework, and a reflective questioning tool were developed to assist service marketers. As Indigenous knowledges are inherently strengths-based and holistic, these resources apply across all forms of customer vulnerability and service ecologies. A positionality-informed protocol guides appropriate use across Indigenous and non-Indigenous service contexts. These Indigenous-informed resources provide the opportunity to enrich service ecologies.

---

Editorial

Guest editorial: Centring indigenous peoples’ knowledges, perspectives and experiences in social marketing ↗

by Maria Raciti and Jessica Harris

2026
Journal of Social Marketing

Social marketing has carefully built an extensive, credible evidence base for influencing behaviour in ways that benefit individuals, communities and the broader public good. As the discipline has matured, so too has its ambition, extending from a heavy focus on downstream individual behaviour change towards systems-level thinking and structural reform. However, one dimension of the discipline’s maturity remains underdeveloped. Although the need to centre Indigenous peoples’ knowledges, perspectives and experiences in social marketing is widely recognised, social marketing scholarship has not kept pace.

---

Explore all Maria Raciti's publications in UniSC Research Bank

Grants

30 October 2025

Transcultural employment: Building reciprocal relationships among Indigenous peoples and non-European migrants

University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia, Sunshine Coast) - UniSC
Grant no. 0980031245.

Maria Raciti and Daeul Jeong

---

25 June 2025

Sunshine Coast First Nations Creative Arts Strategic Plan

Sunshine Coast Council (Australia)
Grant no. 0980030567.

Maria Raciti, Catherine Manathunga, Harriot Beazley, Clare Archer-Lean, Leah Barclay and Rachael Dwyer

---

9 October 2024

Turning lemons into lemonade: How first-year, first-time regional and remote university students turn disappointment into satisfaction.

Department of Education, Employment and Training
Grant no. 0980029590.

Courtney Geritz and Maria Raciti

---

7 December 2023

ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Futures

Australian Research Council (Australia, Canberra) - ARC
Grant no. CE230100027.

Brendan Hokowhitu, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Marnee Shay, Debbie Bargallie, Susan Beetson, Asmi Wood, Andrew Jolivette, Eddie Cubillo, Gail Garvey, Jarrod Harr, Elizabeth McKinley, Larissa Behrendt, Crystal McKinnon, Roxanne Bainbridge, Yvette Roe, Carmen Parter, Paul Gray, Megan Williams, Bronwyn Fredericks, Patricia Dudgeon, James Ward and Maria Raciti

---

31 December 2018 - 30 December 2022

Culturally Safe Learning in Higher Education

University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia, Sunshine Coast) - UniSC
Grant no. USC-SL-DVCA-2019.

Maria Raciti, Sharon Louth, Beverly Dann and Natalie McMaster

---

31 December 2018 - 23 December 2022

Culturally Safe Learning in Higher Education

University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia, Sunshine Coast) - UniSC
Grant no. USC-SL-TIPRG-2019.

Sharon Louth, Maria Raciti, Natalie McMaster and Beverly Dann

---

14 August 2022 - 6 November 2022

Building capabilities for success - targeting preparedness for ongoing learning

Department of Education (Australia, Canberra)
Grant no. 0980027607.

Maree Dinan-Thompson, Martin Nakata, Tracey Bunda, Katelyn Barney, Yvonne O'Neill, Wojtek Tomaszewski, Wes Heberlein, Veronica Sanmarco, Angela Dekker, Geoffrey Mitchell, Rachel Woodford, Les Raveneau, Maria Raciti and Bronwyn Fredericks

---

15 November 2019 - 31 March 2022

Success from the Perspective of the Successful: Low SES Students, Success and Completion in Higher Education

Department of Education, Employment and Training
Grant no. 0980026043.

Mark Rubin, Olivia Evans, Penny Burke, Anna Bennett, Sarah O'Shea, Peter Howley, Suzanne Macqueen, Kristen Allen, Nida Denson, Carmen Mills, Ryan Naylor and Maria Raciti

---

8 March 2021

Implementing Indigenous knowledge approaches in Australian doctoral education

Australian Research Council (Australia, Canberra) - ARC
Grant no. DP210100647.

Sue Stanton, Wenqin Shen, Kathryn Gilbey, Maria Raciti, Jing Qi, Michael Singh and Catherine Manathunga

---

1 February 2018 - 31 December 2018

Aspirations, Risk and Grit: How the interplay between aspiration, perceived risk and grit of students from low SES backgrounds influences their participation in Australian higher education

Department of Education, Employment and Training
Grant no. 0980025264.

Maria Raciti

---

Explore all Maria Raciti's grants in UniSC Research Bank

Teaching

Program coordinator

• Bachelor of Business

Supervision

Doctoral Thesis Supervision - Completed

The Experiences of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Music Teachers in Australian Schools

Students: Tuxworth, Jiao (Mengjiao Wang)

Associated Researchers: Rachael Dwyer, Maria Raciti and Catherine Manathunga

2021 - 2025

---

Masters Thesis Supervision - Current

The role of anticipated regret in transformative services marketing

Students: Research student (name withheld)

Associated Researchers: Maria Raciti and Aaron Tham

2023

---

Masters Thesis Supervision - Current

Building Community Resilience in Disaster-prone area in Nepal

Students: Research student (name withheld)

Associated Researchers: Maria Raciti and Vinathe Sharma-Brymer

2023

---

Doctoral Thesis Supervision - Current

How gist representations influence cognitive dissonance between pre-commencement expectations and the perceived experience of regional university students

Students: Research student (name withheld)

Associated Researchers: Maria Raciti, Aaron Tham and Daeul Jeong

2023

---

Thesis Supervision - Completed

Does prior knowledge matter? Exploring how prior study and informal learning affects the study of compulsory tertiary Indigenous Studies

Students: Justine Grogan

Associated Researchers: Maria Raciti and Jennifer Carter

1 January 2016 - 31 December 2022

---

Explore all Maria Raciti's supervisions in UniSC Research Bank

Student research opportunities

Manually entered in umbraco

Professional activity

Contribution and Advocacy

Sector Update: The 2026 ARC Open Access Policy and its Intersection with Indigenous Data Sovereignty ↗

Maria Raciti

8 May 2026 - 8 May 2026

---

Contribution and Advocacy

POLICY BRIEF: Sharing Research Training Program Funding Across Universities to Strengthen Indigenous HDR Supervision and Completions ↗

Maria Raciti

August 2025

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students demonstrate remarkable resilience in navigating research programs. Yet, their full potential remains unrealised due to systemic barriers, including limited access to appropriate supervision by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics that could elevate completion rates to match their non-Indigenous peers, and drive their academic and scholarly success. This brief proposes a formal Research Training Program (RTP) funding portability mechanism that enables cross-institutional Indigenous supervision arrangements, transforming the current informal cultural load practices into recognised, funded partnerships that will improve completion rates while building national Indigenous research capability, and success, along with tangible outcomes for communities. 

Key recommendations:

▪ Introduce RTP portability for Indigenous HDR supervision 

▪ Formalise cross-institutional supervision through shared funding and recognition 

▪ Establish a national Indigenous HDR supervision register.

---

Workshop

Writing Your Impact Case Study - UniSC School of Business and Creative Industries Planning Day ↗

Margarietha J de Villiers Scheepers and Maria Raciti

9 July 2025

In this workshop, you will learn about impact and impact case studies, identify key stakeholders, outputs and types of impact, have the opportunity to develop a draft impact case study and learn about additional resources.

---

Workshop

An introduction to respectful engagement with First Nations peoples in behaviour change co-design - Harnessing Behavioural Change for Sustainable Futures ↗

Maria Raciti

18 June 2025

This workshop focuses on respectful co-design with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, centring self-determination. This workshop explores how to engage ethically and relationally to support behaviour change initiatives that are aligned with community aspirations for flourishing futures.

---

Conference

Track Chair - Social Impact in Marketing - Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference ↗

Maria Raciti

2 December 2024 - 4 December 2024

Researchers strive to ‘make a difference’ in society and are under more pressure to do so than ever before. Social impact in research is defined as published research results which have been transferred, leading to an improvement in goals agreed on in our societies (Aiello et al 2021). Social impact in marketing research applies to all three sectors (public, private and non-profit), going beyond theoretical models and frameworks of pro-social or socially responsible marketing to examine the demonstrable contribution and actual change that marketing research makes to society.  Papers to be submitted to this track must contain one of the following 1. evidence of social impact from a field-study or real-world marketing program i.e. improvement in consumer wellbeing, reduction in carbon emissions, increase in health status, reduction in speeding, increase in women finding safe housing, improvement in school attendance or 2. critique of current social impact in marketing approaches or measurement.  This track adopts a strengths-based approach so please avoid deficit approaches and language.  Studies that are formative research or are highly theoretical do not meet the scope of this track and will not be accepted (there are other suitable tracks for these papers).

---

Explore all Maria Raciti's activities in UniSC Research Bank

Awards and memberships

Principal Fellow

Higher Education Academy (United Kingdom, York)

Projects

Impact

Wandiny (gathering together) listening with the heart: Uniting nations through poetry

Alison Willis, Paul Williams, Sue Stanton, Catherine Manathunga, Dr. Shelley Davidow and Maria Raciti

Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre

Australia has never grappled honestly with its violent history of invasion of unceded First  Nations lands and its ongoing colonisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. There is a need for respectful truth-telling that presents the facts of Australian history in a way that does not re-traumatise First Nations peoples and that promotes greater understanding and empathy amongst the non-Indigenous population (Reconciliation Australia, 2024). Australia stands at a critical turning point in its history where we have an important opportunity to build community cohesion and healing that will enable us to enact the Uluru Statement from the Heart and make real and lasting change for all Australians.

---

Impact

Tackling 35 Years of Inequality in Australian Higher Education Through Ambitious National Policy Change

Maria Raciti

Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre

Marginalised groups are underrepresented in Australian higher education (AHE). Improving representation in AHE has been a policy priority of successive governments since 1990, seeking to increase access, participation, and success of underrepresented groups, including Indigenous Australians. All universities have school outreach programs aimed at demystifying AHE. Through the 2017-2018 HEPPP grant, Widening Regional and Remote Participation: Interrogating the Impact of Outreach Programs across Queensland ($320k, 11 citations, 614 downloads), Raciti identified that exposure to these programs was ill-timed. She found that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds determined their career options in late primary school, with many selecting non-university subjects in the year before their exposure to these programs. The resulting 2019 Q1 journal article was cited in the Australian Universities Accord final report (2024, p. 128), a report that will shape AHE over the next decade and beyond (Clare, 2024). 

Raciti is one of only three Australian Indigenous Principal Fellows of the Higher Education Academy (UK) which she was awarded in 2017 for her sustained and substantial sector-wide impact. In the following year, Raciti advanced the notion of ‘career construction’ in her fellowship with the then National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education titled Career Construction, Future Work and the Perceived Risks of Going to University for Young People from Low SES Backgrounds ($215k, 27 citations, 2259 views, webinar 296 views, YouTube seminar 74 views). National media coverage included an article in The Australian and an ABC RN Breakfast radio interview. Raciti’s fellowship led directly to her invited secondment to the Australian Government Department of Education taskforce for the 2019 National Regional, Rural and Remote Education Strategy (Napthine Review). Raciti was the only academic on the taskforce, reflecting her national standing as a leading authority in student equity. All of the strategy recommendations were accepted by the Australian Minister for Education, resulting in an additional $400 million directed to increasing opportunities for regional, rural, and remote students. The Napthine Review informed the Australian Universities Accord final report being mentioned 9 times (2024, p. 126, 145, 148, 260, 265, 266), emphasising that it led to increased Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding for regional university campuses and an expansion of Regional University Study Hubs.

Raciti’s taskforce activities included stakeholder consultations in Brisbane, Darwin and Townsville (approximately 40), reviewing the 79 public submissions and from these drafting Issue Paper Five ‘RRR Students from Identified Equity Groups’, reviewing 42 Issue Paper responses and writing the foundational literature review that underpinned the Napthine Review. All of Issue Paper Five’s ‘Ideas for Further Action’ became Napthine Review Recommendation Five (Actions 24 to 28), including uncapping Commonwealth-supported places for Indigenous students in regional, rural and remote areas. The literature review provided evidence for a Regional Education Commissioner (p. 79, Recommendation Seven). Created in 2022, the Honourable Fiona Nash currently holds the Commissioner role that responds to the Napthine Review. The Honourable Dr Denis Napthine, Chair of the Napthine Review and former Victorian Premier, wrote: ‘Maria’s expertise…and her insights helped to inform and shape the actions and recommendations.’ 

Raciti continues her impactful  research program as a researcher on UniSC’s McMaster’s longitudinal HEPPP-funded MindSET-do project ($1.8m) to increase interest in STEM careers. As co-lead of the education and economies theme of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Futures ($35m, 2024-2030)—a world-first allIndigenous led research centre - Raciti led an Accord Interim Report submission and cowrote a Conversation article (7734 reads) as well as writing an invited article in leading equity expert Sally Kifts’ newsletter (1127 subscribers, 1177 views). Furthermore, as the inaugural chair of the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) 2023-2025 First Nations Fellowships committee, working with Executive Director and former Senior Adviser to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Professor Shamit Saggar, she is directly involved in the funding of up to nine Indigenous researchers (three to date) to transform Indigenous AHE inequity ($1.15m). Lastly, Raciti was selected to chair a panel about student voice at  the inaugural 2024 ACSES Australian Student Symposium (150 face-to-face invitation-only attendees, 410 online attendees), which featured guest speakers including the Minister for Education, the Honourable Jason Clare MP, Accord Chair Professor Mary O’Kane and the Jobs and Skills Commissioner Barney Glover AO.