Implications for colonising cultures, business schools and others.
Having lived abroad for many years I returned to Australia in 2016 and first noticed the inclusion of a brief respectful \textit{welcome to country} ceremony performed at the commencement of a conference I was attending at the University of Wollongong. I was intrigued and looked into its origins.
"We acknowledge our country and pay respects to the traditional owners of the land."
These welcome to country statements are intended to acknowledge the connections between presence of past, present and future indigenous peoples to 'place'. The appearance of this new practice of acknowledging cultural and spiritual connections between place and people may seem contrived to some but its adoption and continuing presence at public events suggests the growth of a new and subtle shift of public attitude towards the presence (and absence) of indigenous peoples.
It is blessing when a people and their indigenous culture persists in spite of its depredation, sustained erasure or being considered absent after centuries of colonial plantation and subsequent nation building. On (re-)discovering these layers of its history how should a caring, inclusive society recognise it?
Whether tokenism or recognition (McKenna, 2014), the welcoming ceremony is a belated acceptance of indigenous presence and human values. The past, if remembered, remains present. "The Welcome" acknowledges and restores memory of indigenous presence, reminds us of their loss. It restores, in some way, a belief in their importance. Those who remain are still present, they never went away, they are custodians of our collective history.
Refs:
Mark McKenna (2014) Tokenism or belated recognition? Welcome to Country and the emergence of Indigenous protocol in Australia, 1991–2014, Journal of Australian Studies, 38:4, 476-489, DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2014.952765
Guidelines and Protocols for Welcome to Country: University of Wollongong (link)
The tapestry is an ever-present background to the action of teaching and learning in Smurfit but one that is largely invisible.
Strange that such things become invisible.
People forget what they are, how they got there, who shaped and made them, who gave them as property, who accepted them into their possession, why and what meaning was attached in the giving and taking.
The tapestry might be a metaphor for our social fabric, those invisible, mundane, day to day occurrences that give sense or meaning to being in a place, to working in a place.
From call in 4S 2018----------
29. Unsettling STS
Tom Ozden-Schilling, Johns Hopkins University; Denielle Elliott (York University)
How do contemporary forms of indigenous life, scholarship, and activism unsettle the political stakes and scholarly methods of STS? Recognizing that the 4S meeting of 2018 will be held on the historical and stolen lands of Australian indigenous peoples, this series of panels will explore the possibilities, the productive irritants, and inescapable problematics of thinking through the social study of science, medicine and technology in settler colonial societies. Settler colonialisms and technopolitics share long and complicated histories, histories which have only recently begun to receive critical attention within STS and related disciplines. Technoscience has pervaded indigenous engagements with the state, corporations, academics, and experts, generating paradoxical tests of legitimacy and new sites of wealth extraction, underscoring the entanglements between the nation, citizenship, knowledge claims, and land. Attending to specific sites of engagement and resistance demands new ways of doing (and undoing) STS scholarship. We seek papers that complicate the articulation and circulation of sociotechnical imaginaries; illuminate the ways archival and biomedical technologies shape claims to identity and belonging; and defy prevailing models whereby individual experts enroll allies and cultivate power. We are particularly interested in papers that speak to the legacy of colonial epistemologies in the history and philosophy of science and medicine, new innovative projects that work to decolonize medicine, science and technology (and science and technology studies itself), and speculative visions of an indigenous science studies. We also welcome submissions that subvert the conventional conference paper format, whether through video, audio, or literary productions or live performances.
It is blessing when a people and their indigenous culture persists in spite of its depredation, sustained erasure or being considered absent after centuries of colonial plantation and subsequent nation building. On (re-)discovering these layers of its history how should a caring, inclusive society recognise it?
Whether tokenism or recognition (McKenna, 2014), the welcoming ceremony is a belated acceptance of indigenous presence and human values. The past, if remembered, remains present. "The Welcome" acknowledges and restores memory of indigenous presence, reminds us of their loss. It restores, in some way, a belief in their importance. Those who remain are still present, they never went away, they are custodians of our collective history.
Thinking about our `welcome to country tradition... "An acknowledgement of country has a multitude of reasons for why they're done. But one of them is about inclusivity. It is about here I am, this is my community, this is my history, and we are welcoming you... We don't have enough of that, we don't have enough of that, about just asking someone their story, and just welcoming them in." (Nakkiah Lui, 2017) [at 3:30 - Between Hope and Anger link]
Refs:
Mark McKenna (2014) Tokenism or belated recognition? Welcome to Country and the emergence of Indigenous protocol in Australia, 1991–2014, Journal of Australian Studies, 38:4, 476-489, DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2014.952765
Guidelines and Protocols for Welcome to Country: University of Wollongong (link)
 |
| Welcome to Country, ACIS2016, University of Wollongong, 5th Dec 2016. This welcome was given by elder, Aunty Bev, and the didgeridoo was played by Andrew Craig, UOW Woolyungah Indigenous Centre. |
The tapestry is an ever-present background to the action of teaching and learning in Smurfit but one that is largely invisible.
Strange that such things become invisible.
People forget what they are, how they got there, who shaped and made them, who gave them as property, who accepted them into their possession, why and what meaning was attached in the giving and taking.
The tapestry might be a metaphor for our social fabric, those invisible, mundane, day to day occurrences that give sense or meaning to being in a place, to working in a place.
From call in 4S 2018----------
29. Unsettling STS
Tom Ozden-Schilling, Johns Hopkins University; Denielle Elliott (York University)
How do contemporary forms of indigenous life, scholarship, and activism unsettle the political stakes and scholarly methods of STS? Recognizing that the 4S meeting of 2018 will be held on the historical and stolen lands of Australian indigenous peoples, this series of panels will explore the possibilities, the productive irritants, and inescapable problematics of thinking through the social study of science, medicine and technology in settler colonial societies. Settler colonialisms and technopolitics share long and complicated histories, histories which have only recently begun to receive critical attention within STS and related disciplines. Technoscience has pervaded indigenous engagements with the state, corporations, academics, and experts, generating paradoxical tests of legitimacy and new sites of wealth extraction, underscoring the entanglements between the nation, citizenship, knowledge claims, and land. Attending to specific sites of engagement and resistance demands new ways of doing (and undoing) STS scholarship. We seek papers that complicate the articulation and circulation of sociotechnical imaginaries; illuminate the ways archival and biomedical technologies shape claims to identity and belonging; and defy prevailing models whereby individual experts enroll allies and cultivate power. We are particularly interested in papers that speak to the legacy of colonial epistemologies in the history and philosophy of science and medicine, new innovative projects that work to decolonize medicine, science and technology (and science and technology studies itself), and speculative visions of an indigenous science studies. We also welcome submissions that subvert the conventional conference paper format, whether through video, audio, or literary productions or live performances.
