AustLit

'A prefacing dialogue between senior Warlpiri elder and scholar Wanta Jampijinpa Pawu and Samuel Curkpatrick' (Introduction)

'Engagement with concepts of Indigenous knowledge can generate valuable conversation on what knowledge is within diverse cultures and their interactions, enriching the intellectual frameworks guiding collaborative research with Indigenous Australian communities. However, significant limitations of this term can be shown by looking to specific traditions of thought and performance within Indigenous Australia. In this article, I argue that use of the term Indigenous knowledge often carries tacit epistemological assumptions that obscure various relational and participatory dynamics of knowledge. This can be seen in tendencies to utilise the term as a marker of cultural separation rather than looking to the ways distinct traditions allow relational growth across cultural differences. I develop this critique with reference to Yolŋu manikay (public ceremonial song) as it foregrounds interactivity between different peoples and places as integral to meaningful engagement with ancestral traditions. These observations echo recent methodological work within Australian ethnomusicology, in which collaborative research activities prioritise ceremonial revitalisation and archival repatriation over ethnographic documentation. I suggest this focus might be further consolidated by emphasising characteristics such as respect, attentiveness and friendship, which can motivate collaborative research and constitute knowledge within unique localities of people and place.' (Publication abstract)

'Much has been written about Yolŋu social organisation since Lloyd Warner’s early ethnography (1937). Debates within this literature have predominantly focused on the relative independence of bäpurru groups, a significant social unit within Yolŋu society, and whether these can accurately be described as ‘corporate descent groups’. To develop a fresh perspective on Yolŋu social organisation, this paper presents an exploration of five drawings by Dhambiŋ Burarrwaŋa and her waku (daughters, sister’s daughters), a novel methodology which has allowed us to recast well-known anthropological tropes within a setting of relational growth and cross-cultural communication. Rather than outlining a structural model, themes of raki’ (strings), luku (foot, footprint, anchor, root of a tree), gamunuŋgu (white clay), and lirrwi (ashes, shade) are explored in detail, as they reveal multiple layers of complexity and connection within otherwise abstract notions like ‘clan’. The drawings and accompanying exegesis situate Yolngu identity within living social connections. What emerges is a relational portrait that embeds the ‘clan debate’ within those relationships that make understanding possible in the first place.' (Publication abstract)

'Firmly emplaced within a soundscape incorporating movement, prayer, music, human-made and environmental sounds, the film Holding Tightly (2021) closely observes the performance and practice of a series of healing encounters in the Baucau Municipality of Timor-Leste. The lakadou (tubed zither) played in consort with dance in the opening and closing scenes is used by ritual specialists to communicate with the dai (ancestral nature spirit), which will eventually enable good health and more-than-human flourishing. Integral to conveying a sense of such flourishing are the sounds of everyday Timorese life which are pronounced in the film. The combination of rich and lively co-mingled soundscapes with the variety of healing modalities and exchanges depicted allows the audience to be drawn into the complexities and textures of Timorese pathways and aspirations for life-flourishing. Such flourishing emerges from forms of belief and care that are grounded in deep connections and exchanges between people and their environments. In this paper we explore the ways in which the relational sonic and visual richness of experience recorded in film opens new and productive ways of working with Indigenous knowledge and thinking about ecology.' (Publication abstract)

'Warlpiri women, as with other groups across Indigenous Australia, sing to sustain and nurture their relationships with Country and jukurrpa (dreamings). For the custodians of these singing traditions, spiritual agency and power are consigned to songs and their singers, and performances are centred around nurturing relational links between people with Country and to other participants. Within contemporary contexts, in which Warlpiri singers are finding fewer opportunities to perform and pass on songs, new performance spaces are being created to continue to carry forward the significant cultural work of maintaining social and spiritual order through song. In this article we consider a number of performance instances of Warlpiri women's yawulyu (ceremonial songs) and discuss the inter—group dynamics and negotiations which are central to these events. We explore the ways in which Warlpiri women are continuing the cultural work of maintaining the relational aspects central to yawulyu through these performances despite shifting purposes and performance contexts. We illustrate through examples from contemporary events, how the dynamics of the particular performance instances involving ceremonial songs, dances, and other activities, direct the ways in which participants assert and reshape their intimate links to Country and to broader social networks of others.' (Publication abstract)

'This article presents a messy social science research method that integrates art therapy tools and Indigenous yarning – a concept loosely translated as complex conversational storytelling. The method – Art Yarning – is an innovative research tool that mirrors and responds to the complex social and research realities in interactions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and researchers in Australia. Drawing on collaborative research with Indigenous communities on Gunditjmara and Wathaurong Countries in Victoria, I present and discuss Art Yarning as a ‘messy’ method (Law 2004): that is, as shifting, uncertain, slow, modest, and diverse, only capable of delivering situated, incomplete, temporary knowledge – a valuable, humbling position that recognises and respects boundaries around Indigenous knowledges. Art Yarning prioritises Indigenous and visual ways of knowing and challenges the problematic conviction that any social science method can deliver complete, single-source knowledge. Art Yarning enhanced participants’ sense of Indigenous identities, healing, and non-Indigenous participants’ adaptation to aspects of Indigenous ways of knowing-being-doing (Martin 2003). Rich multilayered new knowledge was achieved via processes that reduce power imbalance in research. Critically, the integrated method facilitates learning from, rather than learning about, Indigenous peoples in social science research.' (Publication abstract)

'This dialogue between Warlpiri ceremonial leader and educator Wanta Jampijinpa Pawu and academic Samuel Curkpatrick explores important Warlpiri concepts related to social interconnectedness and responsibility. With characteristic narrative dexterity, Pawu develops concepts that originate within traditional Warlpiri thought and performance in provocative ways, interpreting ngurra-kurlu (home within), kuruwarri (system) and wantarri-tarri (travelling route) to generate insight within contemporary issues of cultural and national identity. Extending from Pawu’s appraisal of songlines as a form of hermeneutic activity, we consider how intersecting narratives of people and place allow meaningful relationships to be sustained and communities to be nourished by one another, in their mutual differences. The material presented in this discussion arose through a series of conversations between the authors, and through keynote presentations delivered by Pawu at the University of Divinity and Indigenous Knowledge Institute, University of Melbourne, in December 2021. The themes and narratives of this dialogue reflect Pawu’s teaching ethos, artistic direction, and approach to language and interpretation.' (Publication abstract) 

'If love can blind, are there are also scenarios in which relationality invokes clarity of knowledge and closeness of hearing? In this collaborative piece, Bardi artist and weaver Juanita Mulholland and researcher Sarah Bacaller explore the intersection between friendship and Australian Indigenous art forms. They reflect on the development and ethos of Juanita’s artistic practice, as it pertains to her sense of Indigenous identity and selfhood, including in the context of dislocation and loss. The dialogue is prefaced by reflections on recent criticism by Fisher [2012. The Art/Ethnography Binary: Post-Colonial Tensions Within the Field of Australian Aboriginal Art. Cultural Sociology, 6 (2), 251–270] on the ethnography–art binary in approaches to interpreting Australian Indigenous art in its diverse and varied forms. By exploring the dangers inherent in both objectivist (‘ethographic’) and subjectivist (art ‘on its own terms’) approaches, and building on the work of Biddle and Stefanoff [2015. What is Same but Different and why Does it Matter? Cultural Studies Review, 21 (1), 97–120], the authors explore how ethical relationality and connection can lead to a fuller understanding and appreciation of artworks and their artists, especially in relation to non-Indigenous engagement with Australian Indigenous artistry.' (Publication abstract)

'This dialogue between Wägilak ceremonial leader Daniel Wilfred and academic Samuel Curkpatrick explores the Yolŋu concepts of raki’ (string), raypirri’ (respect, discipline) and wetj (gift) as they relate to cross cultural understanding and collaborative performance. The ancestral raki’ twines different generations together in song and is strengthened through raypirri’, by which ancestral identities are extended as wetj to a new generation. Through these themes, we consider the role of manikay (public ceremonial song) in the formation of knowledge and responsibility, and the composition of yuta manikay (new songs) through collaborative engagements with the Australian Art Orchestra. By drawing together numerous exchanges between the authors during research activities, teaching and other personal discussions in 2021–22, we emphasise relational textures within Yolŋu epistemology and show how understanding develops through creativity and growth.' (Publication abstract)