Contributive Practice learning from place-based Indigenous methods – thoughts

Misty morning at Newport lakes

At the recent Regenerative Songlines launch, I came away with a deep sense of awe and potential that could be in a braiding together, the weaving of Indigenous science and Western science. The deep connection and presence that is needed to engage with the Oral knowledges of Indigenous science and the Western analytic literate ways of knowing. On the path to unpacking this and what it means for my contributive practice I came across two fabulous publications:

Sharing a place-based indigenous methodology and learnings, is a paper that came out June 2020, it had me right from the introduction “… all Australians have an inherent right to learn that joy in place, along with the responsibility to care for it. Teaching and learning a relationship with place as family…”

In this paper the authors discuss how Indigenous Knowledges overcome the often reductionist “binary separation, dualisms and abstraction” of Western knowing through metaphor, imagery and I would imagine, dance and song. In regenerative development we talk about moving away from a purely mechanistic worldview to an ecological worldview (more here) so that we aren’t making linear decisions, creating binaries and dualisms where they don’t exist, or simplifying things to the point of missing the forest for the trees.

This immediately, in my mind, linked me to the recent book from Lynne Kelly and Margo Neale, in Songlines The power and the Promise exploring the seven sisters songline that runs across Australia and for tens of thousands of years, connected cultures and provided ways to understand how to inhabit the land. The book reflects on an exhibition (video): Songlines: tracking the seven sisters which uses modern curation and digital technology to bring the stories to life, to show the depth of the knowledge being transmitted through the stories.

I have begun to understand these Oral ways of passing on knowledge as the equivalent of today’s western schools, libraries, universities and technical colleges. These place of western knowledge are held in the relationship between the people and the land, art, music, sky, water and ecosystems of the land – so much more than a memory palace a physical, emotional, living memory palace (recent research by Tyson Yunkaporta); memory palace made famous by Sherlock Holmes. The story similar to the internet connecting all these levels of learning together in a richly hyperlinked layered way that keeps the knowledge save and knowledge. For after all the first Australian’s survived and thrived here for 60,000 years or more.

In this book, and the paper above, there is a real sense of the importance of learning in and from place, not just about the place but as a way to help learn, remember and build knowledge. How important it is to walk together through place to enable the hyperlinks to be accessed, to be respectful of the culture that holds the knowledge. Respecting the cultural practice on understanding place means understanding that I many not have the right to access certain levels of knowledge. An engineer, after all, cannot practice medicine.

What does this mean for regenerative contributive practice? I am only at the start of the journey of really being able to answer that, it will need a great deal of walking, talking, listening and practicing. For now these are my take homes:

1. there is a critical difference between oral and literate ways of knowing, holding knowledge and therefore agency with the knowledge
2. engagement with Oral knowledge of place therefore it is critical to understand the real story of place – the knowledge holders are the Professors of Place
3. engagement with Australia’s first nations is not like engaging an mechanical engineer to design your air-conditioning, or a sustainability consultant to develop your strategy; because of the oral nature of their knowledge they cannot pass on some information to just anyone, I have the initiation level of a child, so they can only share with me the knowledge of a child. I have two choices, spend the time to build the rights to hear the stories, or be led by their wisdom and truly co-create the understanding together.
4. listen carefully when cultural safety is being discussed – this means – “I cannot do this because I do not have the authority” or “I cannot do what you ask because I have to go an speak to the appropriate knowledge holder” or “I cannot do that because I am not of this place”

Shifting to the Benefit mindset

A brief reflection on the work of Ash Buchanan and colleagues on the shift from the Growth to the Benefit mindset.

To start with it isn’t a shift really, is it more of a broadening of the mindset. Part of the mindset shift, is a move away from ‘either or’ thinking. It is not that growth mindset is incorrect it is just incomplete and not serving our long term thriving in a world were we need belonging, attachment and purpose.

The chapter outlines the differences and how the benefit mindset enables us to participate fully in the transformations, or evolution, that we will need to go through over the next few decades as out practice shifts to address the many issues facing us. Using this teachers, community practitioners, councils, those working in regional development can help communities shift how they see their roles in their places, in their communities and develop the agency and citizenship that will create the future innovations needed.

Article: Shifting Mindsets: Transforming Self, School, and Society

“What is special about a transformative approach to wellbeing and human potential is that the more we develop into a caring and inclusive perspective, the more we show up and participate in life in a different way. We mature from being a collection of separate individuals all seeking to fulfil our potential in relative isolation of one another and create the possibility of consciously and cohesively participating in the collective wellbeing of humanity and the planet.”

Ways different mindsets approach issues

The below video is a brief explanation of the differences between the three types of mindset.