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- Convenors:
-
Francesca Merlan
(Australian National University)
David Trigger (University of Queensland)
Ian Anderson
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 1 December, -
Time zone: Australia/Sydney
Short Abstract:
How do Indigenous Studies university programs, structures, and contents relate to and differ from anthropology and other social sciences? How do forms of knowledge and methodologies compare and contrast, in tension and in collaborative mode in Australia (and in other settler colonies)?
Long Abstract:
This panel aims to address the relationship between Indigenous Studies units in universities and the discipline of anthropology. We encourage discussion of both overlaps and differences in their methodologies and theoretical approaches.
The panel also aims to address and compare internationally the imperatives, pressures and incentives shaping relations of Indigenous Studies and other areas within universities. We seek to examine diverse understandings and forms of Indigenous knowledge and methods, and how these relate to established social science concepts and practices: how do they differ? In what ways are they similar? How relevant are the concepts of 'positionality' and 'decolonising the disciplines' to these developments? Is there a distinctive Indigenous research methodology and epistemology that straddles great diversity Australia-wide and beyond? What have been the implications for university-community engagements? What value is there in comparing similar initiatives in other countries with settler colonial histories?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 1 December, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
From its origins in theorising about education of minority groups, the critique of deficit thinking has been embraced by scholars located in Indigenous Studies and elsewhere as a widely applicable critique. This paper examines the appeal of such an approach, it limits and unintended consequences.
Paper long abstract:
The critique of a deficit thinking first emerged in theorising about education and the persistence of poor educational outcomes of minority groups. Since then it has been increasingly invoked in many other circumstances, particularly by scholars institutionally located in Indigenous Studies (as well as others) to criticise a range of government programs aimed at addressing Indigenous disadvantage. This paper attempts to trace aspects of this expanding realm and why it would appeal to Indigenous Studies scholars. The obvious attractions include its anti-assimilationist, anti-stereotyping orientation. It also encapsulates a powerful trope of liberation from the misrecognition or relegation of different cultures and worldviews, holding out the hope that a fuller understanding will lead to better outcomes. But it does tend to homogenise Indigenous circumstances and cultural variation and create suspicion around those who would directly address pressing social problems. This paper, then, attempts to articulate some of the perhaps unintended consequences of the rise of the critique of deficit thinking.
Paper long abstract:
Our soon to be realised book 'Indigenous women’s voices: 20 years on from Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies' celebrates the impacts of Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s seminal work 'Decolonizing methodologies: research and Indigenous peoples', through recent work by emerging black women researchers. In 1999, 'Decolonizing Methodologies' streaked across the Indigenous sky to ignite a passion for research change that respected Indigenous peoples and knowledges . Here, finally, was an Indigenous viewpoint that represented the daily struggle to be heard and to find a place in academia for us as Indigenous peoples . Twenty years on, we celebrate the positive, shifting ground and demonstrate a breadth and depth of how Indigenous women writers are shaping the post-colonial research worlds . We give voice to Indigenous women, caught at the intersections of race and gender, and how our research is impacting change within institutions and organisations. These essays, in honour of Professor Smith, draw on both nuanced and blunt views in how women are not only engaging in traditionally patriarchal fields of expertise, but also shaping general methodological practice that highlight Indigenous ways of knowing. We showcase Indigenous female decolonizing research that makes central and core our narratives and culturally frames the process of legitimising our epistemologies. We show the richness and resonance in black women’s work and why it matters.
Paper long abstract:
This paper critically examines recent changes in the political and social terrain of Indigenous Sámi research in Finland, where such research is currently subject to a new wave of up-to-down academic institutionalization, at the same time as the very meaning of Sáminess and Sámi identity has become increasingly politicized and contested, mostly by individuals and movements which claim and promote self-identified “Sámi” identities, building on highly exaggerated or fabricated accounts of Sámi lineage, family lore or affective testimonies of self-recovery. The paper shows that while the ongoing efforts to institutionalize Sámi research relate to a number of changes that are making such research increasingly attractive in the eyes of the Finnish state and universities, the rise of the new "Sami" identities, or "settler self-Indigenization" (Sturm 2011; Leroux 2019) has further multiplied the range of interest and desires that are now projected on Indigenous Sámi resaarch. I argue that in this conjuncture of institutionalization and neo-politicization, established definitions of Indigenous Sámi research, which emphasize its political and ethical qualities ("Sámi research" as research which proceeds from a "Sámi perspective" and which centers on the interests and world views of the Sámi") appear increasingly problematic. Instead of bringing questions regarding the politics of perspective, location, representation and power/knowledge to the fore, presenting the research field in these terms might actually turn attention away from a variety of interests and subject positions that are projected on Sámi research currently, and hence depoliticize understandings of Sámi research and its complex interdependence with the state and the society.
Paper short abstract:
My presentation is going to look at a study tour in Australian Indigenous Community, which is supported by Ryukoku University from 2016 to 2018 with my coordination. I considered what problems and difficulties the Study Tour faces and analyzed various perspectives among host, guest and coordinator.
Paper long abstract:
In this presentation, I am going to look at a study tour in Australian Indigenous Community, which is supported by Ryukoku University from 2016 to 2018 with my coordination. I considered what problems and difficulties the Study Tour faces and analyzed various perspectives among host, guest and coordinator through discourse analysis, survey results from students and host contributors, and analysis of reports written by participants. It clarifies several things. Firstly, students experience their own unique “stories” in interactions with local people, and try to make use in their subsequent lives of what they have acquired at the boundary between their own culture and other cultures. Moreover, after completing the study tour, it is necessary to guide reflection on oneself through the experience gained. Secondly host society and Aboriginal people need to keep their initiative so much “local discretion” is guaranteed so that they might perform a “culture for study tour” and to present a part of daily life based on their own decisions. Thirdly, as for coordinator, it is important to explore whether the roles of "organizer" and "coordinator" could be established with "hosts" and "guests" by utilizing Information and Communication Technology such as SNS so that the relationship between "host" and "guest" could be maintained without destroying relationships.
I conclude my presentation with a proposal to see "Study Tour as forum“, in which various stake holders at individual, local, national and international levels can exchange their experiences.