Theme 3 – Engaging the cultural interface created by Indigenous educators and non-Indigenous educators 

Embedding Indigenous knowledge and Perspectives

For many academics schooled in the western world of knowledge the arrival and proclamation of Indigenous knowledge and systems of Indigenous knowledge has been a revelation. Some will agree that the scholarship and recognition of IK is long overdue and has played a latent and under recognised role in the development of many of the traditional academic disciplines. Others may well dismiss this scholarship and focus as yet another branch of post modernist growth, one of many attempting to garner prominence and traction in the competitive world of ideas, knowledge and academia.

In any case the rise of scholarship in the field Indigenous knowledge is a reality that for many Indigenous scholars and community people is inherently linked to issues of cultural survival, human rights, economic and political and self determination.

Indigenous and IK scholarship in western academia has traditionally been positioned inside those disciplines that were charged with examining, extrapolating, explaining and publishing about Indigenous ‘Others’ and in many ways curtailed the growth and development of Indigenous voices in the academy and it scholarship.

Important questions arise not just about the charge toward acknowledgment but about its relevance to the broader social, political and community situations.

Are Indigenous scholars merely attempting to replicate those structures that they recognise as impediments to the development of IK in scholarship or is there a more altruistic agenda that is ultimately linked to the political and social struggles of Australian Indigenous peoples.

Moreover, what has been the response of the west to Indigenous claims to secure a standpoint and place in realm of academia and into the future of knowledge production and dissemination?

___________________________________

Email: indigenousknowledge@qut.edu.au