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ABSTRACT
Engagement with concepts of Indigenous knowledge can generate valuable conversation on what knowledge is within diverse cultures and their interactions, enriching the intellectual frameworks guiding collaborative research with Indigenous Australian communities. However, significant limitations of this term can be shown by looking to specific traditions of thought and performance within Indigenous Australia. In this article, I argue that use of the term Indigenous knowledge often carries tacit epistemological assumptions that obscure various relational and participatory dynamics of knowledge. This can be seen in tendencies to utilise the term as a marker of cultural separation rather than looking to the ways distinct traditions allow relational growth across cultural differences. I develop this critique with reference to Yolŋu manikay (public ceremonial song) as it foregrounds interactivity between different peoples and places as integral to meaningful engagement with ancestral traditions. These observations echo recent methodological work within Australian ethnomusicology, in which collaborative research activities prioritise ceremonial revitalisation and archival repatriation over ethnographic documentation. I suggest this focus might be further consolidated by emphasising characteristics such as respect, attentiveness and friendship, which can motivate collaborative research and constitute knowledge within unique localities of people and place.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See Corn and Gumbula (Citation2006) for a comprehensive discussion of complementary rights in a mala’s (patrigroup’s) hereditary property and relational obligations.
2 For a time, Wanta Jampajinpa Pawu published under the name Wanta Patrick and Steve Patrick, as reflected in some citations.
3 Michael Christie (Citation2017) considers the creativity of engagement between different intellectual systems (especially in bi-lingual education) through the related concept of garma (unrestricted or open ceremony): ‘The Garma allows people from different places and ancestral lines to come together safely and respectfully to work together on producing a ceremonial celebration (the return of a sacred object, a funeral or an initiation for example). The notion of a Garma was given to the school authorities as a way of understanding how knowledge (and agreement) is made collaboratively, in place, under authority, by groups of quite different people working together in good faith’ (136).
4 On a phenomenological approach to Yolŋu manikay and milkarri (crying songs), see Burarrwanga et al. (Citation2019), Corn (Citation2013) and Magowan (Citation2007).
5 The history of the collaboration between Wägilak singers and the AAO is detailed in Curkpatrick (Citation2020). For more recent collaborations, see Curkpatrick (Citation2021, Citation2021a).
6 Philosophical positivism and sociological enquiry are closely related within the work of Auguste Comte (1798–1857).
7 I have elsewhere explored this circumscription of Indigenous knowledge in greater detail through the frequent characterisation of Indigenous knowledge as circular in contrast to western knowledge as linear (see Curkpatrick Citation2023).
8 A view broached by Muecke (Citation2004). Critical attention has been paid to indigeneity as a dynamic and creative process by authors like Canessa (Citation2012, Citation2012a), who considers how indigeneity can be usefully customised. Canessa provides a more nuanced view of Indigeneity beyond indigenous/western or pre-colonial/colonial frameworks, and of cultural change beyond interpretations of assimilation and resistance.
9 For a variety of case studies of collaborative projects in other disciplines, see Janke (Citation2021: 262–72). Another area of (ethno)musicological research which relates to the themes explored here is the study of music-based peacebuilding activities. Showing how such activities often begin from a ‘relational concept of peace’, Gillian Howell (Citation2021: 88) builds from Christopher Small’s notion of musicking which ‘draws attention to the relationships between sounds, people, and place that are central to musical meaning.’ Relationality is also a prominent theme in recent writing by Nicholas Cook (Citation2023: Introduction), who seeks to show how society is produced ‘bottom-up by human relationships, resulting in network-like patterns—the very patterns of interaction, mutual dependence, and trust that are brought into being whenever people make music together.’
10 For a good overview of this development, see Curran and Radhakrishnan (Citation2021).
11 Christie’s use of transdisciplinary (2006: 79) attempts to capture something of these productive, relational interstices: ‘There are Indigenous knowledge practices which will never engage with the academy, just as there are some branches of the academy which will never acknowledge Indigenous knowledge practices. There is however a transdisciplinary space within the academy where claims of alternative knowledge traditions and their collaborations can be addressed.’