Theme 2 – Engaging the cultural interface created by non-Indigenous educators and Indigenous communities 

Construction of Indigenous knowledge – by whom?

One of the areas of concern held by Indigenous people in education is knowing that the majority of most Indigenous peoples’ learning in ‘official’ systems in Australia is still controlled by non-Indigenous people. This means that constructions of knowledge for Indigenous people (and” about” Indigenous people) is always done by non-Indigenous people.  Boundaries about who are Indigenous people and what constitutes Indigenous ‘knowledge’ are routinely held up and accepted by many people as the only real constructions of that knowledge. Nakata talks about this in his paper “Another Window on Reality” – in that even Islanders start to believe what has been written about them by non-Islanders.

Non-Indigenous people only acknowledge Indigenous knowledge when they can pigeon-hole it in ways that reflect their own knowledge systems, for example, music, art, drama/performance. It always reminds me of a scene in the play “Black Chicks Talking”, where Leah Purcell starts singing a song in language, with the audience reverently treating it as an “Indigenous performance”, when in reality, Leah is singing “Heads and Shoulders, Knees and Toes” – she cons everyone, big time! She pokes fun at the white, middle-class audience coming to Black Theatre to see “authentic Indigenous knowledge” in action – in forms that are palatable to white people. Truth is, we know that ‘authentic’ Indigenous knowledge is everywhere, but the Western knowledge system cannot see it nor accept it. Linda Tuhiwai Smith noted that non-Indigenous people only believe in what might be regarded as ‘Indigenous science’ if they think it will save them – like finding a “traditional” cure for cancer , but this is hardly respect for what is but a tiny part of an entire knowledge system.

Another aspect of the construction of knowledge for Indigenous peoples that needs critique is located in the way this knowledge is created.  Mis-representations, interpretations and assumptions of Indigenous peoples ways of knowing is often reflected in contemporary research methodologies into Indigenous issues.   Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics who constantly negotiate between two different systems and spaces of knowing recognise these epistemologies.  Yet, attempts to rethink, re-contest and reform traditional “Western oriented” ways of knowing the “Indigenous” remains a challenge.  How do we confront this challenge in the Western hub for knowledge called the “university”? 

___________________________________

Email: indigenousknowledge@qut.edu.au