Conversations on cultural sustainability: stimuli for embedding Indigenous knowledges and ways of being into curriculum

• Published in: Higher education research and development Vol. 36; no. 7; pp. 1311 - 1325
• Main Authors: Acton, Renae, Salter, Peta, Lenoy, Max, Stevenson, Robert (Bob)
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 10-11-2017
• Subjects: Aboriginal culture; Australia; Critical Theory; Cultural context; Cultural Education; Cultural influences; Cultural relevance; cultural sustainability; Curriculum design; Curriculum development; Definitions; Educational Practices; Educational Principles; Educational Strategies; Epistemology; Foreign Countries; Higher Education; Indigenous Knowledge; Indigenous knowledges; Integrated Curriculum; Regional Schools; Sustainability; Teacher education; Teaching Methods; Australia
• ISSN: 0729-4360; 1469-8366
• DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2017.1325852

While Australian higher education agendas and literature prioritise Indigenous knowledges and perspectives across policy, curriculum and pedagogy, enacting this in practice remains problematic and contentious. Often the result is the inclusion of simplified Indigenous knowledges, rather than sustained engagement with and embedding of multiple and 'messy' ontological and epistemological positions. This paper explores ways of engaging with this 'messiness'. Taking messiness as a focal point within our own context of teacher education at a regional university, this agenda and tension inform an ongoing dialogue about ways of assuring a conscious approach to cultural sustainability to embed, value and foreground Indigenous knowledges and ways of being and doing in curriculum. This endeavour can be conceptualised as a heuristic project, an ongoing conversation in response to multiple stimuli rather than a fixed endpoint or framework. In response to this exploration, this paper presents the stimuli for our conversation: situated, plural and reflexive knowledges that work together in inherently relational ways to nourish the cultural sustainability of Indigenous knowledges.