Learning to Stand with Gyack: A Practice of Thinking with Non-Innocent Care

ABSTRACT

Settler colonialism attempts to make invisible the labours of care that Indigenous peoples have been doing for millennia. Notably, the imposition of settler colonial ontologies-epistemologies disrupt and compromise Indigenous people’s obligations to land and ancestors (Kwaymullina, Ambelin. 2020. Living on Stolen Land. Broome: Magabala Books, 7). Kim Tallbear calls upon settler scholars to think more expansively about what counts as the benefits and risks of research (2014. “Standing With and Speaking as Faith: A Feminist-Indigenous Approach to Inquiry.” Journal of Research Practice 10 (2): 1–7. http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/405/371, 2). She asks settler scholars to learn to ‘stand with’ a community and be willing to be altered and revise one’s stake in knowledge production (Tallbear, Kim. 2014. “Standing With and Speaking as Faith: A Feminist-Indigenous Approach to Inquiry.” Journal of Research Practice 10 (2): 1–7. http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/405/371, 2). What does my feminist ethics of care, which strives to unsettle my settler colonial logic of knowledge production, look like? To respond, I will reflect upon a collaborative cultural revitalisation project with Wolgalu and Wiradjuri First Nations community in Brungle-Tumut (New South Wales, Australia). The social world I am imbedded in is different from that of Wolgalu/Wiradjuri colleagues. How is meaning negotiated in the encounter between settler colonial and Aboriginal practices of care and knowledge production? It’s a methodological conundrum, which requires thinking with care. Maria Puig de la Bellacasa conceptualises thinking with care as a thick, non-innocent obligation of living in interdependent worlds (2017. Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 19). I want to practice non-innocent care.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-innocent ethics of care
• Indigenous methodologies
• Indigenous knowledges
• settler colonialism
• ethnography

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge Dharawal Country, on which I live and much of this article was written, and Wolgalu and Wiradjuri Country – Brungle-Tumut – on the lands on which this project is taking place. I wish to acknowledge and thank the project team: Country, Gyack, Brungle-Tumut Wolgalu/Wiradjuri, Aunty Sue Bulger, Shane Herrington, Vanessa Cavanagh, Geoff Simpson, Kat Haynes, Mal Ridges and Dave Hunter.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In Wolgalu there are two names that describe frogs. Gyack – because of its call – best describes the corroboree frog (Shane Herrington, personal communication, September 21, 2021).

2 I wish to acknowledge and thank the project team: Country, Gyack, Brungle-Tumut Wolgalu/Wiradjuri, Aunty Sue Bulger, Shane Herrington, Vanessa Cavanagh, Geoff Simpson, Kat Haynes, Mal Ridges and Dave Hunter.

3 Tynan notes, ‘trawlwulwuy, tebrakunna sometimes do not use capitalisation’ (2021, footnote 5, 608).

4 Throughout this article I use the term ‘Indigenous’ to refer to diverse peoples, from around the world, with ancestral connections and claims to specific lands prior to colonisation, and who remain subjected to all different forms of colonialism. When referring to Australia, I use Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or the particular nation. The risk of making a distinct between Indigenous and settler epistemes is to suggest there are not ongoing interactions and inter-relationships. There are, rather I am making an analytical separation, despite the inter-relations and commonalities (see Sundberg 2013, 34).

5 I want to thank the anonymous reviewer for pointing me to this question.

6 I wish to thank Vanessa Cavanagh for her insights and reflections on Walter’s work.

7 Todd writes the ‘trendy and dominant Ontological Turn (and/or post-humanism, and/or cosmopolitics – all three of which share tangled roots, and can be mobilised distinctly or collectively, depending on who you ask), and discourses of how to organise ourselves around and communicate with the constituents of complex and contested world(s) … ’ (2016, 7).

8 I wish to thank and acknowledge the anonymous reviewer who reminded me of these crucial points.

9 By which I mean all more-than-humans, not simply domesticated species.

Additional information

Funding

This project is funded by a Global Challenges grant, Buidling Resilient Communities, University of Wollongong.

Notes on contributors

Lisa Slater

Lisa Slater is a senior lecturer in Cultural Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong. Her research seeks to understand the processes of neo-colonialism, the conditions of production of contemporary Indigeneity and settler-colonial belonging, with a particular focus on the ways cultural production – most recently cultural festivals – are sites for the expressions of Indigenous sovereignty and ethical inter-cultural engagement.