Author: Simone Tur
Tur, Simone, 2018 PUḺKARA NINTIRINGANYI – BECOMING KNOWLEDGEABLE EMBODIED ACTIVIST PEDAGOGY: EDUCATIONAL PRAXIS FROM AN AṈANGU WOMAN’S STANDPOINT, Flinders University, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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This thesis honours Senior Anangu Women Knowledge Holders’ perspectives on the importance of maintaining inter-generational transmission of knowledge for present and future generations. It recognises the role of Kamiku and Tjamuku teachings within the community and schools, in grounding our ways of knowing, now, and into the future. Additionally, the Senior Women remind us of the importance to protect and keep Country strong, and in talking strong engage – when necessary - in acts of protest and activism to maintain that strength. The overarching thesis question asks: What does it mean to become knowledgeable from an Anangu woman’s community standpoint and as an Indigenous academic within a university? This overarching question gives rise to a series of refining questions addressed throughout the thesis chapters in what are called exemplars. Here are those refining questions. How do the personal, professional and public domains of an Indigenous academic life inform educational praxis within the university, community and public educational spaces? What does it mean to become knowledgeable within Indigenous Studies and Education for students, in particular for pre-service teachers within a university program? Does activism inform Indigenous decolonising praxis within university programs? Does creative performance within Indigenous Studies and Education inform pedagogical praxis? Can Indigenous Knowledges and western education co exist? These questions will be addressed and aligned to thesis chapters, with the overarching question fundamental to the whole thesis.
Exemplar one: On Country (Chapter 4), explores how embodied connection to land, family, history, and the everyday informs the processes of the ‘becoming’ of an Aboriginal academic and the ‘performing’ of praxis? It considers what part Country plays in the inter-generational transmission of knowledge and encouragement of knowledgeability through Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education. Exemplar two: Irati Wanti Anti-Nuclear Campaign (Chapter 5), investigates what part activism plays in informing Indigenous decolonising praxis within university programs. Exemplar three: Bound and Bound: Sovereign Acts (Chapter 6), considers creative performance within Indigenous Studies and Education pedagogical praxis. Exemplar four: Pulkara Nintiringanyi: ‘Becoming Knowledgeable’ within pre-service teacher education (Chapter 7), asks, what does it mean to become knowledgeable within Indigenous Education for pre-service teachers within a university program?
In these ways, the work explores what 'Becoming Knowledgeable' means from the standpoint position of an Anangu academic within a university system. In doing so, it positions this process of Puḻkara Nintiringanyi, as the first stage of knowledgeability, when being taught inma by Antikirinya and Yankunytjatjara Senior Knowledge Holders, in considering the relationships between Anangu Education and broader educational engagement. This thesis, however, is not about inma, though aspects of inma give it shape. Song, singing and storytelling are privileged as methods for knowledge acquisition. They help centre Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing as authoritative and rigorous within broad Indigenous research inquiry. Anangu ways are set alongside key concepts drawn from wide-ranging Indigenous decolonising research methodologies and pedagogies. Both sources of knowledge are used to guide, shape and develop an education framework within a university system which focuses on ‘the doing’ – praxis in the process of ‘Becoming Knowledgeable’ from an Indigenous perspective. This combination of exemplars engages with the complex coexistence of Indigenous Knowledges and western education systems. They are brought together through use of the Anangu philosophy of Ngapartji-Ngapartji.
Critical, resistant and radical pedagogies are explored to encourage construction of a framework for change within Indigenous Education, where relationships are paramount for building resilient social actors and Indigenous community partnerships in a reframed, contextualised Indigenous Education pedagogical praxis. In this context, the Anangu philosophy of Ngapartji-Ngapartji, ‘give-and-give-in-return’, is considered central. It is an enabling approach to foster creative working relationships between Indigenous educators and peers and collaborative partnership between Anangu students, family and community, with educational practitioners and systems. The outcome of this process is a methodological framework of engagement with ‘Becoming Knowledgeable – two ways’, in an Anangu Woman academic’s approach to decolonising and transformative educational praxis.
Keywords: Indigenous Knowledges, Indigenous Higher Education, Inidgenous Activism, Teaching pre-service, teachers, Indigenous Education, Indigenous Creative praxis
Subject: Humanities thesis, Education thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2018
School: College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Supervisor: Emeritus Professor Gus Worby