December 14 - 15, 2009

Australian academic life has come to a crossroads whereby the momentum for Indigenous knowledges development has reached a critical mass and universities are increasingly expected to respond with appropriate initiatives. Events on the national stage, notably the Prime Minister’s apology to the Aboriginal people for the Stolen Generations on 13 February 2008 are an important part of this momentum. Witness too the granting of the Sydney Peace Prize to Patrick Dodson in 2008 and the Australian of the Year to Michael Dodson in 2009, both of whom have championed the value of Indigenous Knowledges for all people. In the academy, key Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics are pushing beyond established epistemological boundaries into territories that promise to deliver more in terms of social justice outcomes. In this they are joined by Indigenous academics of other settler colonial nation states notably New Zealand, North America, Brazil and Canada in developing a transnational dialogue.

Accompanying these developments is a significant paradigm shift in teaching and research. The affirmative action approaches originating in the 1980s that saw the development of segregated ‘enclaves’ and the teaching of Aboriginal perspectives to the existing curriculums are now under challenge. Success in the participation and graduation of Indigenous students occurs in contexts where the responsibility is taken on by the whole university. This occurs in part by the embedding of Indigenous Knowledges across the curriculum, recently underlined in the recommendations of the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education, as follows:

Indigenous knowledge

• Higher Education providers should ensure that the institutional culture, the cultural competence of staff and the nature of the curriculum recognises and supports the participation of Indigenous students. (Chapter 3.2)
  
• Indigenous knowledge should be embedded into the curriculum to ensure that all students have an understanding of Indigenous culture. (Chapter 3.2)

Further to this, there are expanding opportunities for Indigenous academics in research. The Australian Research Commission (ARC) for example, has allocated significant financial support for the development of an Indigenous research base through Discovery Indigenous Research Development Grants (IRDS) and has also increased their commitment by the development of the Australian Research Fellowship Indigenous (ARF Indigenous) for funding in 2010. (For further information click here).

Taken together this momentum indicates significant change that can possibly be taken on by all academics in established disciplines in Australia. They, and their disciplinary base, will be challenged by the priority of social justice for dispossessed Indigenous people and the ways of working, teaching and research methodologies, ethics and protocols that arise from this consideration. Academics are increasingly being asked to consider Indigenous knowledges approaches as an integral, daily part of their working lives. While many individual scholars are now understanding the philosophical basis for the complexity of Aboriginal epistemologies, uncertainty about ways of moving forward and the comfort of established ways of dealing with Aboriginal issues remains. This symposium is designed to identify the major issues these new developments will raise for academics and the disciplines and to move toward ways of addressing them.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith (Ngati Apa, Ngati Kahungunu, Kai Tahu and Ngati Porou), Vice-Chancellor, Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi is the keynote speaker. He is an educator of international repute having developed theoretically informed transformative strategies related to intervening in Maori cultural, political, social, educational and economic crises. He is involved in the development of Tribal Universities and was the foundation Chairperson of Te Whare Wananga O Awanuiarangi in Whakatane. He is the former Pro Vice Chancellor (Maori) at the University of Auckland and under his leadership the Maori University structure (Te Wananga o Waipapa) was established within the University of Auckland.

His theoretical leadership has informed the emergence of Maori Education Studies as a distinct entity within the Tertiary Sector in particular New Zealand Universities. This work has developed a wide-ranging academic discussion centred on Kaupapa Maori Theory, Critical Theory and Transformative Praxis. He has also worked extensively with other Indigenous/ First Nation’s peoples across the world, including Canada, Hawaii, US mainland, Taiwan, Chile, Australia and the Pacific nations.

The Keynote Address will be delivered as a Sydney Ideas Lecture on the evening of 15 December, an event that will close the symposium.

BOOK LAUNCHES

The program will incorporate other international guests notably Dr Laurelyn Whitt from Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada. Cambridge University Press are facilitating the Australian launch of Dr Laurelyn Whitt’s book Science, Colonialism, and Indigenous Peoples: the Cultural Politics of Law and Knowledge at this event, click here for more details about this very important book. The book will be launched by Assoc Professor Irene Watson from the University of South Australia.

The book Giving an Account of Ourselves: Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Philosophy and Worldview, a collection of papers from the AIATSIS seminar series edited by Kerry Arabena with Dr. Cressida Fforde, Karen Deighton-Smith will be launched at this event as well.

CONFERENCE DINNER

We have also secured Mr Jim Everett, Chair of the Tasmanian Land and Sea Council, poet, activist and Aboriginal philosopher as after dinner guest speaker.

Music will be provided by the celebrated Aboriginal singer Emma Donovan who has composed her own songs in the Gumbaingirr language.

Tags: University of Sydney  indigenous knowledge  TEK  education  conference