Yarning about Yarning

Join us for the next event in the series Building Connections: Mobilizing Indigenous Histories for Social Change. In this presentation "Yarning about Yarning," Professor Stuart Barlo, Dean of the Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian Peoples at Southern Cross University, will explain and elaborate the connections between the Yarning Method of communication and Indigenous knowledges.

Date: November 24, 2021

Time: 7:00-8:30 p.m.

Event description:

In this talk, Professor Stuart Barlo will discuss the Yarning Method of communication that is framed by a body of principles, protocols and practices used by Indigenous elders to establish Indigenous knowledge about the world as valid and trustworthy and having traditional Indigenous knowledge made known to the wider communities. This method can systemically advance the teaching, research, and practices of Indigenous Knowledge.

A method has been developed that takes yarning from a basic communication tool to a method of collecting and safeguarding Indigenous knowledge, by using its principles and protocols to design a culturally safe place. Yarning has cultural safety at its core as it encapsulates an Indigenous method of imparting and receiving Indigenous knowledge that has been practised for millennia. By using yarning’s mandatory principles and protocols surrounding yarning are deemed a high priority in importance. An important aspect of the yarning method is the ownership of the knowledge and the results from the research a back to the Indigenous participant and, if applicable, the community. In the research space information maybe gifted to the researcher, but the custodianship of the knowledge always remains with the participant who yarned. So often this is not the usual procedure – often research is completed, and the information/knowledge gained from the research is kept by the research authority and used for its own purposes.

Presenter:

Professor Stuart Barlo, Citizen Yuin Nation, New South Wales, Australia and Dean, Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian Peoples, Southern Cross University, New South Wales Australia. My name is Dr. Stuart Barlo, I am an Aboriginal man from the Yuin nation that is situated on the far South coast of New South Wales, Australia. I completed my PhD journey 2016. I have developed an Indigenous research methodology using the Indigenous Australians’ understanding of the concept of yarning and its underlying principles and protocols. The second part is to open up the discussion on the theory surrounding the concept of the agency of Indigenous knowledge. Over the last five years I have developed the Caring for Country program at Southern Cross university from a book and lecture-based unit to a learning on Country with Country and community as the teachers.