Vinathe Sharma-Brymer

Abstract

The Indigenous worldviews on social, emotional, cultural and ecological interconnectedness of life are embedded within their deep understanding of relationality. In this paper, the authors raise and discuss the primary question – in what ways can the non-Indigenous academics from western, Anglo-Eurocentric societies reposition themselves for an effective curricular engagement with Indigenous knowledges and perspectives? Together with this question, the authors explore a supporting question as to how such an engagement could strengthen a critical understanding of nature-human relationship in academic knowledge for professional practice. Their standpoint is that the critical understanding of the relationality of life embedded within the Indigenous knowledges reciprocate with the natural world, and this relationality can be applied to a range of knowledge and practice areas in higher education. Examples include outdoor education, psychology, social work and education disciplinary areas. Learning from Indigenous nature-centric ways of knowing, being and doing re-orients and clarifies the non-Indigenous academic curricular engagement for decolonizing Anglo-Eurocentric higher education in postcolonial countries such as Australia. This person-environment orientation may strengthen our appreciation of nature-human relationship to embed in curricular knowledge and professional practice frameworks. This may further support reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous academic collaborations.

Keywords: Indigenous knowledges, non-Indigenous, academic knowledge practice, nature-human relationship

This paper argues from the standpoint that Indigenous Australian knowledge and the cultural interface (Nakata, 2007) is central to embedding Indigenous perspectives in Australian curricula. In this interface, Indigenous knowledge is in constant tension and negotiation with Western knowledge systems, competing for validity, authenticity, and the right to be located in educational systems and teaching and learning theory. Accordingly, a critical interrogation of how Australia’s colonial system of schooling knowledge is reproduced and deployed is significant to understanding how Australian educational institutions transform into spaces where Indigenous Knowledge (IK) informs and contributes to the formation of the pedagogical cultural identity and teaching methods of the school systems Indigenous and non-Indigenous pre-service teachers are employed within. This paper presents the background to and some initial findings of a project funded by an Australian Teaching and Learning Council (ALTC) Grant for supporting future curriculum leaders in embedding Indigenous knowledge in teaching practicum. The project investigates how role modelling occurs in the learning and teaching relationships between pre-service teachers and their supervising teachers on practicum. Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, it interrogates how critical teaching and learning moments occur within the cultural interface through embedding Indigenous knowledge and perspective. From these engagements, the project endeavours to develop new knowledge and identify possibilities and understandings in how teaching and curriculum become praxis.