Learning in Place, Cultural Mapping and Sustainable Values on the Millawa Billa (Murray River)

Abstract

This paper presents an Indigenous perspective on the significance of land, culture and Indigenous rights. The United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples promote the importance of traditional Indigenous societies, such as Aboriginal Australians. Participating in caring for country methods and having a close on-going relationship to the land is also supported in this Declaration. As well as this, these principles support the notion of Indigenous education for community, and youth in particular, in places of cultural significance and places of longstanding occupation. All of this lends itself to an Aboriginal way of being in terms of cultural teaching and learning. These principles are incorporated into a performative perspective of traditional pedagogy and the incorporation of cultural practices in a best practice model that can incorporate cultural mapping as an exercise that expounds environmental and ecological perspectives within learning places on the land. Through connection to land and community relationships to cultural knowledge and cultural values, this paper will provide an Indigenous standpoint on Indigenous experiences and senses of place and the importance of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in advancing significant principles and initiatives that value Indigenous ways of being and doing.

Local Knowledge System of Kampung Naga: A Study to Investigate the Educational Values of Indigenous People in Transmitting Religious and Cultural Values

“…There are many studies on the local knowledge system in indigenous community (see Grenier, 1998;Sillitoe, 1998;Abrokwaa, 1999, Semali andKincheloe, 1999;Thaman, 2009;Choudry, 2010;Nurjanah, et al, 2013;Kaino, 2013;Briggs, 2013;Masango, 2013;Bar-on, 2014;J. Abah and Denuga, 2015;Heckenberg, 2015;Gunara, 2017). Finally, the present study broadens the analysis of local knowledge system in an indigenous community to strengthen some missing points of previous studies.…”

“…A large number of works on local knowledge system of an indigenous community have been undertaken, revolving around aspects of conservation on knowledge indigenous community (see Sillitoe, 1998;Briggs, 2013;Popova, 2014;Heckenberg, 2015), intellectual property for local knowledge of indigenous community (see Masango, 2013;Tan, 2013), and pragmatic-ideology of local knowledge of indigenous community (see Bar-On, 2014). There are, hence, no significant studies on the concept of local knowledge system of the indigenous community to stimulate effective learning in a formal setting.…”

Widening Participation in Service Learning

“…The process of including First Peoples knowledge and perspectives involved reviewing the nature and form of Indigenous content and knowledge in Indigenous studies program areas and more broadly across the university curriculum (Henderson, 2005;Battiste and Henderson, 2009;Smith, 2012;de Oliveira Adreotti, Stein, Ahenakew and Hunt, 2015;Gilbert and Tillman, 2017); and the method of the delivery of Indigenous content across Indigenous studies programs and the university curriculum. It was established at the outset that content was not just included, but rather situated and made available in ways that enable First Nations theoretical frameworks (Carey, 2015;Heckenberg, 2015;Gilbert and Tillman, 2017);…”

“…First People teaching staff share "Aboriginal philosophy" with students in an effort to help students gain a deeper understanding the complex relational systems as described by Aboriginal scholars Ambelin and Blaze Kwaymullina as being "a pattern comprised of other patterns, of systems inside systems" (2010, p.196). Emphasis is placed on understanding that everything in these systems is "interrelated and interdependent" and the interrelated nature of 'place' -often described as country -and 'being' from a First Peoples' point of view (Graham, 2008;Graham, 2014;Heckenberg, 2015).…”

Storymaking Belonging

“…Murray Cod and the Giant River Redgum are teachers and fellow travellers. The rivers are the lifeblood of our Country, flowing through our ancient Wiradjuri land (Heckenberg, 2016). With Yindyamarra, we venerate the quiet solitude of the river, hear the sounds of our children and fellow creatures from time before time, the stories of our river and our kin, kinship and totem relations, looking after the spirit and the body, gathering our stories, holding our knowledge.…”