Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine just how the non-Indigenous anthropologist might go about more fully decolonising their practice by way of engaging an Indigenous epistemological framework as a guiding methodology. In a study of violence in place, this has proven deeply rewarding, but also ethically challenging.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is dedicated to a reflexive consideration of decolonizing methodologies and the question of how far we as anthropologist might go when incorporating plurality into our research. Working on themes of violence in place, I propose an Indigenous epistemology of place, as a crucial methodology, yet I am a non-Indigenous person. By tackling the theme of violence in place, as experienced by Indigenous Australian across their homelands, I am drawn to not simply add cross-cultural perspectives to engagements with human life but to make the discipline and my own conceptualising cross-cultural. As such this research is tested (as am I) by the need to systematically unlearn and fully accept, not as alternative, but as central, an Indigenous epistemology that configures place as an agent and sentient co-presence, not merely backdrop to human life. Place is now understood as alive, acting and responsive, therefore capable of experiencing great harm. This paper will assert that there is an epistemological violence in overlooking Indigenous epistemologies of place, but faces the dilemma also that there may also be a violence involved when a non-Indigenous researcher attempts to engage methodologically, an Indigenous epistemology of place.