Australian Aboriginal Studies: Issue 2, 2021
Major articles
Facilitating dialogue to support Ganma: a methodology for navigating contested knowledge
Genevieve Thraves, Miriam Dhurrkay, Penelope Baker, Jeanette Berman and Adele Nye
The Ganma (Marika 2000) metaphor can be used to underscore Yolŋu approaches to education that incorporate both Western and Aboriginal epistemologies. Ganma is the point where saltwater (non-Aboriginal knowledge) and freshwater (Yolŋu knowledge) meet to form a lagoon. The different bodies of water churn beneath the foam-striped surface, and this ‘great sharing’ supports a ‘rich habitat of its own’ (Bat and Guenther 2013:128), thus revealing the benefits of the collaborative approach to knowledge generation. This metaphor can be used as a foundation for negotiating culturally contested knowledge arenas. This paper reports a study that extended an existing dialogic process to the field of gifted education in an endeavour to realise Ganma. Three Yolŋu elders and three teachers collaborated in a facilitated dialogue to develop an appropriate talent development model for gifted Yolŋu youth at the study site, a boarding school in Darwin. The participant satisfaction with this process demonstrates that the dialogue protocol used is an appropriate tool to facilitate Ganma.
Country, community and Indigenous research: a research framework that uses Indigenous research methodologies (storytelling, deep listening and yarning)
Francis Bobongie-Harris, Danièle Hromek and Grace O’Brien
This research paradigm is a collaborative effort that utilises the notion that Country, community and Indigenous research methodologies (storytelling, deep listening and yarning) are of significance collectively when engaging in Indigenous research. This framework positions Country as the foundation of the research paradigm. Community is the guide. This paper draws on the connection between Country and community and encourages Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers to understand the significance of Country and community in connection with Indigenous research methodologies and to be aware of the dangers that exist in using these methodologies inappropriately. The paradigm can be adapted for Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers engaging in research using a Western research paradigm.
Ngapartji Ngapartji: intercultural dramaturgies for Indigenous language revitalisation
Claire French and Jakelin Troy
This paper responds to the Indigenous language turn in Australian performance to suggest approaches that are epistemologically significant. We look to examples of intercultural collaboration in Australia, where a close analysis of selected practices provides opportunities for situating problems and enhancing efficacy. We focus on two community projects from Ngapartji Ngapartji [You give me something, I give you something/reciprocity], a theatre and performance-based program for language revitalisation with the Anangu people of the Central Western Desert from 2005 to 2010. The question driving the inquiry is, ‘In what ways, if any, are Anangu epistemologies able to enter the performance?’ In focusing on the epistemologies, we respond to the deficit of intercultural collaboration which often sees dominant paradigms privileged, even when Indigenous languages are being drawn from and revitalised. Methodologically, we bring together an interactional sociolinguistic and performance studies analytical approach to highlight dramaturgies employed and epistemologies signalled. We argue that improvisation allows Anangu epistemologies to enter the performance, proposing them as intercultural dramaturgies for Indigenous language revitalisation.
Paddy Compass Namadbara and Baldwin Spencer: an artist’s recollection of the first commissioned Aboriginal bark paintings in Oenpelli, 1912
Joakim Goldhahn, Luke Taylor, Paul SC Taçon, Sally K May and Gabriel Maralngurra
This paper discusses the commencement of an Aboriginal art market focused on the production of bark paintings in Australia. It centres around Baldwin Spencer’s visit to Oenpelli, today known as Gunbalanya, in 1912. During his visit, Spencer commissioned the first collection of Aboriginal bark paintings from western Arnhem Land. This paper explores how this was perceived from an Indigenous perspective through an interview conducted more than 50 years ago with one of the artists who painted for Spencer, Paddy Compass Namadbara (c 1891/92–1978), the first artist known to have contributed to the Spencer/Cahill Collection. The interview, conducted by Lance Bennett in 1967 and presented here for the first time in English, provides evidence for how Spencer and Patrick Cahill influenced the commissioned bark paintings by Namadbara and other artists. This new information is significant for understanding the early interactive shaping of what has become an important art market in the region.
‘Everyone tried to make their little garden and taught how to live like white people’ — Manatunga: Robinvale’s transitional housing settlement
Maria Panagopoulos
This paper focuses on the Aboriginal housing settlement at Robinvale in north-western Victoria that was known as Manatunga. It describes life on the settlement from 1960 to 1968 as told by members of the Aboriginal community who lived in the permanent dwellings on the outskirts of the rural township. This paper explores research garnered from local newspaper reports and both public and unpublished manuscripts of the Aborigines Welfare Board, and has a key focus on oral histories, which allows members of the Aboriginal community to tell their side of the story. This paper makes a valuable contribution to the cultural heritage of Robinvale and country towns in Victoria, and informs the subjects of assimilation and transition housing in Victoria.
Agreement without compromise: maintaining the integrity of Indigenous sovereignty in negotiations with governments
Lisa Strelein
There is always an underlying tension for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in engaging with native title or other government agreement processes. The type and kinds of agreements and processes involved generally fall far short of the recognition and autonomy sought by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as sovereign peoples. Where there may have once been a perceived divide between the ‘radical’ sovereignty movement and the ‘pragmatic’ native title process, the emergence of state- and territory-based treaty discussions is a reminder that there is a common basis to all transitional justice measures that seek to remedy the injustices of colonisation.
This paper explores the concepts of sovereignty and agreements using a Yorta Yorta case study. Initial work was completed by the author at the request of Yorta Yorta elders to consider their options within the Victorian treaty process. Further discussions with Yorta Yorta nation and additional research was completed to add to the complex discourse. The paper explores the justificatory theories of colonisation and their relationship to philosophies of Western sovereignty, outlining the legacies of treaty making between colonisers and Indigenous peoples, as well as the contemporary international frameworks for Indigenous–state relations. The paper considers strategies that may provide opportunities for Indigenous peoples to assert their sovereignty through settlement and agreement making without risking concessions that undermine principled positions and rights to self-determination. It argues strongly that entering into a treaty is a recognition by, and a gift from, Indigenous peoples to the state, not the other way around.
Book reviews
Fiona Foley
Biting the clouds: a Badtjala perspective on the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, 1897
(Reviewed by Kathryn Ridge)
Terri Janke
True tracks: respecting Indigenous knowledge and culture
(Reviewed by Daniel Robinson)
Anne Maree Payne
Stolen motherhood: Aboriginal mothers and child removal in the Stolen Generations era
(Reviewed by Heidi Norman)