Culture, Land and Heritage

Title: Culture, Land and Heritage Theme

Summary: Co-Lead by Professor Barry Judd and Professor Lisa Palmer, the Culture, Land and Heritage Theme is providing mechanisms to support and grow Indigenous knowledge, so it can be applied in contemporary Australia and beyond in the critical areas of culture, land and heritage. The theme is investigating how this knowledge can be adapted with the guidance of Indigenous knowledge holders to meet social, environmental and economic challenges of global significance.

In 2023, the theme convened an On Country workshop at Uluṟu-Kata Tjuta. The workshop invited community based Indigenous knowledge holders and Elders to meet at Patji on the homelands of the senior Mutitjulu Elder and Traditional Owner, Mr Sammy Wilson, for five days commencing on 28 August 2023. The workshop brought three Indigenous community delegates from Victoria, three Indigenous community delegates from Timor-Leste together with approximately 15 Mutitjulu Community members representing Aṉangu traditional owners from Central Australia. Also involved were four staff from the UoM and three graduate researchers. The workshop was an On Country event with delegates invited to camp out together. Workshop sessions took place on site around the campfire. Mr Wilson and other members of the Mutitjulu community delivered a range of culture-based activities as part of the workshop experience to showcase their culture and their country.

The workshop's themes spanned:
1) Keeping culture strong On Country including sharing stories of success
2) Keeping culture strong On Country and improving employment (income and wealth) outcomes for Community
3) Infrastructure, training and education to support strong cultures On Country
4) Collaborative research co-design with Indigenous academics and partners, and
5) Devising educational pathways into research and employment that support indigenous community interests in On Country culture and heritage retention.

The workshop is documented in the following 13-min video titled Patji: Cross-cultural Encounters on Country.

Following this successful On-Country workshop in August–Sept 2023, an invitation to visit Timor-Leste was extended by Timor-Leste delegates to our hosts from the Mutitjulu community and the Mutitjulu Community Aboriginal Corporation. A Timor-Leste study tour comprising six MCAC delegates, four UoM staff and two UoM graduate researchers took place from 20–27 June 2024. This one-week study tour was led by Professor Lisa Palmer and Dr Kirsty Sword Gusmao (UoM and Alola Foundation) and hosted in country by Januario Mok, Director, ETDA and Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho, independent researcher and former Secretary of State for the Environment in Timor-Leste (2018–23).

The Timor-Leste study tour is documented in the following short video.

These workshops, study tours and ongoing collaborations are explicitly engaging with Indigenous organizations and communities in the areas of culture, heritage and economic development on Country. Ongoing collaborations will contribute to the Indigenous Knowledge Institute and university’s aim of opening up spaces for trans-Indigenous and academic research dialogue and partnerships across the Asia-Pacific region.