Learning to Stand with Gyack: A Practice of Thinking with Non-Innocent Care
Publication Name
Australian Feminist Studies
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.
Open Access Status
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