Indigenous knowledge approaches in doctoral education: transforming graduate futures

As the world faces considerable political, social, cultural and technological uncertainty, it is crucial that we take seriously the need to investigate how we achieve knowledge justice in graduate research for Indigenous and transcultural doctoral candidates in Australia and globally. In particular, we need fresh ways of shaping graduate research that incorporates Indigenous knowledge approaches. This involves transforming how we imagine the agency of Country, the power of Story and iterative, intergenerational and intercultural knowledge creation in doctoral education and supervision (Manathunga et al., 2022). Drawing upon postcolonial/ decolonial theories (Chakrabarty, 2007; Williams et al., 2017), this research paper presents the findings of a large qualitative research project that explored implementing Indigenous knowledge approaches in Australian doctoral education. With the support of an ARC Discovery grant, this nonIndigenous led, First Nations and transcultural project team conducted life history interviews and time mapping with over 100 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and transcultural (migrant, culturally diverse and international) doctoral candidates and their supervisors across 2022-2023. In this 55-minute presentation, the research team will present the f indings of their research which was designed to explore new ways of creating spaces within doctoral education and thesis creation for the histories, geographies, languages and cultural knowledges of First Nations and transcultural communities. The presentation will summarise the findings from the comparative policy analysis of Aotearoa New Zealand, South African and Australian doctoral education policies for Indigenous and black majority doctoral candidates that was conducted as the first phase of the project. It will then present and justify its innovative combination of life history methodologies (Dhunpath & Samuel, 2009) and time mapping before providing information on the overall demographic profile of its participant doctoral candidates and supervisors. 66 Using postcolonial/decolonial thematic analysis approaches, the presentation will illustrate its analysis of how Country, Story and iterative, intergenerational and intercultural knowledge creation strategies are present in the life stories and time maps of selection of First Nations, transcultural and non-Indigenous participants. The paper will conclude with an introduction to the project website, which contains practical resources on how to use life histories in doctoral supervision and how to create time maps that illustrate how candidates’ cultural knowledges, histories, languages and geographies impact upon their research. The website also showcases the brief life histories and time maps of a selection of participants. It is anticipated that this research project and the practical resources it provides will help to foreground relational and respectful approaches to the supervision of First Nations and transcultural doctoral candidates. These transformations have the potential to achieve greater knowledge justice in doctoral education that is likely to help us navigate the changing graduate research landscapes of the future.