Sydney as an Indigenous place: “Goanna walking” brings people together

Abstract

Sydney, Australia, is rarely seen as an Indigenous place, yet over 52,000 Indigenous people live here. “Indigeneity” persists in educational discourse as a remote phenomenon, but the research reveals otherwise for many Indigenous people who continue to live in Sydney. This is reflected in the contemporary lives of seven Dharug women who constitute the basis of a doctoral project. The seven women disclose how caring and connectivity to place and people continue to be important markers of belonging to Country in the city. This article also draws on Judith Butler’s work to investigate the conditions of possibility for sustained collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Sydney. Through a collaborative project between local Dharug artists and teacher education students, we find that cross-cultural understandings are built through vulnerabilities, as much as they are through reason. Shared vulnerability provides the conditions for meeting on Country, and “goanna walking” takes us there.

Unsettling the taken (for granted)

“…Despite the history of Indigenous perspectives, and particularly the experience, knowledge and perspective of Indigenous women being ‘overwritten by…colonial inscription’ (tebrakunna country and Lee, 2017: 95), there is a lot of speaking and writing back now under way. There are powerful insights about collaboration (Coombes, 2012; Ens et al, 2012; Jackson and Douglas, 2015; McGregor, 2013; Rey and Harrison, 2018; Suchet-Pearson et al, 2013; Tipa et al, 2009; Zurba et al, 2012), methods (Absolon, 2011; Arbon and Rigney, 2014; Bessarab and Ng’andu, 2010; Castleden et al, 2012; Christensen, 2012; de Leeuw et al, 2012; Gaudry, 2011; Graham, 2007; Hemming et al, 2010; Johnson et al, 2016; Johnson and Madge, 2016; Kovach, 2009; Lavallée, 2009; Martin, 2008; McGregor et al, 2018; Rigney, 1999; Smith, 2012; Tomaselli et al, 2008; Tsetta et al, 2005; Wildcat et al, 2014) and activism (Barker and Pickerill, 2012; Bishop, 2001; Coombes, 2007; Coulthard, 2014; Johnson, 2010; Robertson, 2017; Smyth, 2014; Tran et al, 2013). But who in (and beyond) the discipline is listening?…”

“… 2. Dharugnora (Darug Country) covers most of the Sydney basin, with the many clan names reflected in place names. For a valuable introduction to the contemporary experience of Sydney as Australia’s largest Indigenous community see Rey and Harrison (2018). …”

Embedded Place-Responsive Learning, Participatory Video and Scholastic Achievement in Northern Manitoba Adult Environmental Education

“…These same place-sensitive students are confronted by culturally-incongruous pedagogical approaches assimilative in nature and chronologically perceived as poorly designed and irrelevant to their lives [1] [13] [14] [15] [16]. Contributing to poor academic performance and retention is a specific social and political influence as families and communities still contend with a legacy of assimilative policies, as well as existing proximate challenges including high unemployment, poor health, sustenance insecurities and poverty [1] [13].…”

Nurturing Environmental Transformation and Scholastic Success in Northern Manitoba

“…These same 'empiricalized' affective omissions from current learnedness and GPA have been realized salient for some time (Dewey, 1938;Manning & Harrison, 2018). Those concerned advocate applied practices are the undergirding of sincere erudition and that socio-environmental approaches to learning must be of the right context to evoke passion and emotion (Rey & Harrison, 2018). Regrettably, retaining specific privilege in academic labeling of northern Manitoba Indigenous students are disembodied curricula and unresponsive grading schemes, restraining evaluative scope, moral image and credit transfer (Mercredi, 2009;Martin, 2014).…”