Gurung Dharug Ngurrawa (kids on Dharug Country) – centring children’s experiences of Indigenous-led tourism

Abstract

In this article, we centre the voices and experiences of children engaged over several years in Indigenous tourism initiatives on Dharug Country (Dharug Ngurra) in Western Sydney, Australia. As Dharug and non-Indigenous researchers within the Dharug-led Yanama Budyari Gumada collective (Darug Ngurra et al, 2019, 2020a, 202b, 2021), we dialogue with our gurung, our children, who walked so patiently and with such great curiosity alongside us as we hosted over 25 Darug culture camps involving over 900 participants at Yellomundee Regional Reserve between 2017 and 2022. We dialogue on our experiences of hosting visitors and of learning together for many years on-Dharug Ngurra – learning in myriad ways from each other and from Dharug Ngurra – in a process we call ‘spirals of connection’. This dialogue contributes to addressing the critical gap of children’s voices in tourism literature. Given childhood education is understood as “an important site for the circulation of discourses pertaining to colonisation and reconciliation” (Maddison & Stastny, 2016), we also contribute towards understanding the ways that kids being, loving and learning together on-Country might influence their relationships to Country, culture, and to each other. As we follow how our gurung are learning their respective responsibilities to Dharug Ngurra, we argue governments and corporations alike have much to learn from our gurung. As our gurung tell us, all kids should have the opportunity to learn on-Country. We argue one important way that governments and corporations might step up to their responsibilities to Country is by supporting kids being and learning on Country.