Generative and \u27Ground-Up\u27 Research in Aboriginal Australia

How might we go about collaborative research that doesn’t simply come up with a report or a published paper, but results in changed practices in the areas of our concern? How do we envision and implement a generative methodology in front line research? Working with theory from the academic and Aboriginal worlds, I present examples of research with peopleworking at the front line in various contexts, and reflect upon the role of the researcher in these areas of engagement

Engaging with Australian Indigenous Knowledge System: Charles Darwin University and the Yolnu of Northeast Arnhemland

The Yolŋu Studies stream of tertiary teaching and academic research has a long history within the School of Australian Indigenous Knowledge systems at Charles Darwin University. This case study tells the story of the gradual unfolding of the engagement between the university and Yolŋu (northeast Arnhemland Aboriginal) knowledge authorities and their practices. It begins with the long negotiations to set up the teaching program under the authority of senior Yolŋu advisers, to set up a curriculum and classroom practice which remains faithful to Yolŋu laws around knowledge exchange and representation. Alongside the Yolŋu laws, was a particular epistemology which we worked hard to validate and support within the academic classroom. The institutionalisation of Yolŋu knowledge practices in the academy allowed the academics and the Yolŋu advisers to develop collaboratively a transdisciplinary research methodology which attends to the requirements of both Yolŋu and academic knowledge traditions. The paper gives examples of successful research collaborations, and examines some of the philosophical work which needed to be done for successful respectful engagement

Re-Thinking: Health Literacy in Remote Communities

Contributions appearing in The Chronicle do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor or DHF. Contributions are consistent with the aims of the Chronic Disease Network and are intended to: • inform and stimulate thought and action • encourage discussion and comment • promote communication, collaboration, coordination and collective memory

Final Comments: Objects of Governance as Simultaneously Governed and Governing

In 2013 a perplexity we had been experiencing for some time around the apparently unstoppable proliferation of contexts in which “the public problem” of Indigenous governance emerged came to a head. As members of an informal consultancy team established within the Contemporary Indigenous Knowledge and Governance Group in the policy research institute where, near the ends of our careers, we find ourselves based, we were asked by a group of concerned government officers – both Federal and Territory, to intervene in ‘governance training’ in five Aboriginal communities. Top-down delivery of Government funded training services on a fly-in-fly-out basis has become a huge industry in Aboriginal Australia, yet a bad smell of failure persistently hangs around these programs. The amount of funding we were offered for our work was significant, but still the size of a ‘rounding error’ in government budgets for governance and leadership training in Australian Aboriginal communities. And like much useful research funding, it was offered to us at short notice, at the end of a financial year. Our very different research-informed approach to services delivery was seen as an alternative to what was not working, and we were approached by people in government with whom we had established relations of confidence and trust. Contracts were duly signed and we found ourselves deeply involved with a group of younger scholars in delivering the ‘Indigenous Governance Development and Leadership Project’ (IGDLP). This in part is the origins of our writers ‘workshop on objects of governance, and this volume