Abstract
The Yolngu studies program at Charles Darwin University has been active in the teaching of Yolngu (East Arnhemland Aboriginal) languages and culture, in collaborative transdisciplinary research, and in community engagement for well over ten years. The original undergraduate teaching program was set up under the guidance of Yolngu elders. They instituted key principles for the tertiary level teaching of Yolngu languages and culture, which reflected protocols for knowledge production and representation derived from traditional culture. These principles ensured the continuation of an ongoing community engagement practice that enabled the flourishing of a collaborative research culture in which projects were negotiated; these projects remain faithful to both western academic standards, and ancestral Aboriginal practices. The paper gives details of the program, the underlying Aboriginal philosophy, and some of the research projects. The success of the whole program can be seen to derive from the co-constitutivity of community engagement, research and teaching. In 2005 the program won the Prime Minister's award for Australia's best tertiary teaching program.
Highlights
The forty or more different clan groups of Australian Aboriginal people who live on or near the coast and islands of north-east Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory, are collectively known as Yolngu
YOLNGU STUDIES AT CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY The Yolngu studies programme was developed at Charles Darwin University, a small regional university in the Northern Territory of Australia, whose mission statement explicitly avows a commitment to the community in which it has grown
‘Community Engagement is key to all of Charles Darwin University (CDU)'s activities, characterised by two-way relationships in which the university forms partnerships with its communities to yield mutually beneficial outcomes.’ (See www.cdu.edu.au/communityandaccess/communityengagement/index.html) commitment to the Indigenous people of northern Australia, who make up 40 percent of the Northern Territory population
Summary
The forty or more different clan groups of Australian Aboriginal people who live on or near the coast and islands of north-east Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory, are collectively known as Yolngu. As a reasonable exchange for the Yolngu commitment to help Balanda learn Yolngu languages and culture, the university needs to reciprocate with a commitment to deliver good Balanda education to Yolngu on communities This is a clear demand for a planned and managed programme of community engagement. If newcomers are adopted into the system, the practice offers an opportunity for Yolngu to welcome and care for them properly, as well as a chance for the adoptee to learn how to treat others with care and respect Consistent with this practice, students are added to a class kinship network (see illustration, at left), which allows them to relate in particular ways to the lecturers, and to each other. The garma metaphor is characterised by its insistence upon the engagement of both Yolngu and Western academic protocols and practices of knowledge production as illustrated: Yolngu knowledge practices
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