Goŋ Gurtha: Enacting response-abilities as situated co-becoming

Abstract

In this paper, we engage with the Goŋ Gurtha songspiral, shared on/by/with/as Bawaka Country in Yolŋu Northeast Arnhem Land, Australia, to provide a basis for re-thinking responsibility in the context of ongoing Eurocentric colonising processes. Goŋ Gurtha encourages us to consider two key aspects of responsibility – response and ability. We argue that Yolŋu relational ontologies conceive response-abilities as requiring an ability to pay close and careful attention as part of more-than-human worlds, and an imperative to respond as part of these worlds. As such, rather than being responsible to or for others, we seek to respond as, emphasising our emergent co-becoming in more-than-human, situated, ethical ways. Goŋ Gurtha guides the paper through four aspects of these response-abilities: response-abilities as songspirals; response-abilities as continuity; response-abilities as academics and response-abilities beyond Bawaka. In doing so, we understand response-abilities as more-than-human co-becomings enacted in contingent ways that none-the-less need to be grounded in deep obligations of more-than-human kinship.

Social geography III: Committing to social justice

“…This signals the importance of considering issues of social injustices in social geography research about indigeneity. Bawaka Country (2019aCountry ( , 2019bCountry ( , 2020 is leading innovative and cutting-edge work through deeply participatory scholarship in Yolsu Northeast Arnhem Land, Australia, about the importance and role of songspirals in understanding indigenous understandings of climate and time, and in re-thinking responsibility in relation to colonising processes. Other notable examples of work addressing issues of indigeneity and social justice include Barraclough's (2018) exploration of indigenous and Mexican American struggles for social justice in the urban US West through seeking to 'transform white settler myths of the cowboy, rodeo, and the frontier' (p. 521).…”

Staying-with the traces: mapping-making posthuman and indigenist philosophy in environmental education research

“…The place in which this paper was written was at Southern Cross University Gold Coast campus which is identified as a 'Yugambeh meeting place'. Akin with the sentiments of Bawaka Country et al (2019), this paper is a collaboration between philosophers and Country. Yugambeh (also written as Yoocumbah, Jukam, Yoocum, Jugambeir, Yukum, Yögum, Yuggum, Yugambir, Yugumbir) are a group of nine Australian Aboriginal clans, located in South East Queensland and Tweed regions of New South Wales, whose ancestors spoke one or more dialects of Yugambeh language (Tindale, 1974).…”

Mapping-making philosophy in environmental education:Lines, knots andknotting

“…This paper commences with Southern Cross University's (2020) Acknowledgement of Country, extending "awareness of and respect for the living cultures and spiritual connections to Country held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples" (np) and places where this paper was conceived of and written with. Akin with the sentiments of Bawaka Country et al (2019), this paper is a collaboration between philosophers and Country.…”