Sensational pedagogies: Learning to be affected by country

ABSTRACT

Student capacities to actively listen, sense and feel are often relegated to lower order skills in an education system increasingly governed by measurable outcomes. While most school-based pedagogies focus their approach on cognition, this paper considers how we might make sense of the affective experiences that often resist the deep thinking, independent learning and explanation so often required of students. The guiding aim is to explore how affective learning can be better understood through an Indigenous Australian concept of Country. We apply the pedagogical work of Elizabeth Ellsworth, along with Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to explore ways in which sensation and affect are already a method of learning, but ones that are substantially under-valued in designed curricula. A series of interviews with senior Aboriginal people are presented to assist in understanding the various ways in which affect can lead to thought. The authors present three case studies to highlight how knowledge can be taught through affective experiences of Country.

KEYWORDS:

• Country
• Aboriginal
• affective learning
• listening
• agency
• curriculum studies

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge Darug Country and the lands upon which this article has been produced. In particular, we would like to thank Chris Tobin and Leanne Tobin for their guidance and expert advice on working with Country.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Members of the Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Mara and Gudanji communities at Burrulula speak many of these languages and, therefore, take on multiple identities depending on which languages are spoken. For the most part, I have worked closely with people who speak Yanyuwa as their first language and will refer to Yanyuwa from here on.

2. The term “Mudinji” is a Yanywua avoidance word to refer to people who have passed away and is used here in this way.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Neil Harrison

Neil Harrison's research focuses on the ways in which Indigenous knowledge of country can be used to increase student engagement in large urban locations. His latest book (together with Juanita Sellwood, 2016) Learning and Teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education (Oxford) is used widely in teacher education programmes in Australia.

Frances Bodkin

Aunty Frances Bodkin belongs to the Bidigal clan of the D'harawal nation of south-west Sydney. Her grandfather Albert Perry was the grandson of Albert of the Georges River, who was in turn descended from Ellen Anderson, a very strong D'harawal woman. She is a member of the D'harawal Traditional Knowledgeholders and Descendants Circle, and Banyadjaminga SWAG Inc.

Gawaian Bodkin-Andrews

Gawaian Bodkin-Andrews, a member of the Bidigal clan within the D'harawal nation, is an associate professor in the Centre for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges at the University of Technology, Sydney. His research has an increasing emphasis on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander standpoints with regards to racism, identity, self-perceptions, mentoring, motivation and D'harawal Knowledges.

Elizabeth Mackinlay

Elizabeth Mackinlay is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Queensland where she teaches Indigenous education, gender studies and arts education. Her academic work is interdisciplinary and uses feminist ways of being, doing and knowing to weave together her interests in autoethnography, ethnomusicology, education, creativity and the arts.