Entangled, Emergent, Emboldened: an Indigenous Youth Arts group and non-Indigenous arts and literacies facilitators talk back to the ‘Big House' (University)

Senior Lecturer Arts EducationSchool of Linguistics, Adult and Specialist EducationUSQ Applied Linguistics Group, Leadership Research International Group

Dr Janice K Jones

Dr Lindy AbawiSenior Lecturer Curriculum and PedagogySchool of Teacher Education and Early ChildhoodLeadership Research International Group

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands where USQ teaching and research is conducted:the Gaibal, Jarowair, Ugarapul and Butchulla peoples of Queensland. We honour the wisdom of Elders past, present and future, seeking to walk together in the spirit of reconciliation.

Image: Jada DENNISON/Untitled/2015/acrylic monoprint/60 x 42 cm

Positioning the Study – The Big House

Recent genocidal history

Mass imprisonment: people of Indigenous backgrounds

Education and urbanisation: the new divides

University as ‘The Big House’ (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012)

The challenge: to build bridges

Individual teachers, artists and researchers may build trust

But…against a background of mistrust of institutional power

2 years of relationship building

Positioning ourselves: artists and researchers

Education through Arts for

Social JusticeEquity

Transformation

Arts for Transformation

Lindy: White Middle-class

Australian

Informal and Non-traditional

Education

Janice: White Migrant

Celtic Diaspora

Space, Power, Culture and

Identity

Language and Arts Pedagogy

Diversity and Inclusivity

School Improvement

Technologies and Networks

The Plan – Successful Funding BidKulila Indigenous Kindergarten Parent and Child Created

Story books Parent and child as co-

learner using iPads to build capacities in language, literacies, digital technologies

Building Childcare staff skills Relationship building

Whaddup Indigenous Youth Centre Teenagers: creating art

works for exhibition with Augmented Reality

Celebrating the voices of young people of Indigenous heritage

Music, drama, dance for storytelling: iPad capture

Relationship building

About Whaddup Indigenous Youth Group

Community facilitated asset-based philosophy.

Friday nights 7 – 9pm

Focus: Pride in culture Child, family and community strengths Leadership/mentoring - sport, arts,

healthy cooking, organised trips. Transport to and from centre Volunteer workers from PCYC, schools,

parents and Elders

About Kulila Kindergarten

Institutional Habitus: Corporatisation

Increasing university focus on control, image management and protection, branding and compliance.Two discourses: ‘How we do things here’ (Cornbleth, 2010).

‘The expansion of marketisation has not always been antithetical to egalitarianism. Yet its effects have been increasingly inegalitarian, as it establishes a political dynamic that leaves those marginalised from the labour market vulnerable to paternalism, while consolidating the interests of the more affluent’ (Spies-Butcher, 2014)

A Collision of Discourses

I expected this could happen…So I applied for funding separately. Now the community owns the iPads – and we are happy for you to run the workshops

with us. (Community Project Facilitator)

Intellectual Property - Ownership

‘If academics want to prevent the further colonization of higher education by a phalange of anti-democratic forces extending from corporate power brokers and mega-millionaires to right-wing ideologues and the vested interest of the military-industrial-academic complex, they cannot afford to be either silent or distant observers. The stakes are too high and the struggle too important.’ (Giroux, 2011)

Deficit discourse = research funding

University web sites portray ‘successful research projects’ in terms of:

Providing solutions – intellect, technology and innovation overcoming ‘Wicked Problems’

A strong university partnering with a needy community Benefits accruing to the community The university and researcher as scientist, hero, leader,

initiator, hand-holder of the weak A need for more funding – more research – more

innovation to solve further needs

Driving change – Asset Based Partnerships

What other approaches are possible for universities and communities to engage in partnerships for development and research?

How can ‘The Big House’ transform its image and practices to build lasting and respectful community partnerships?

Asset Based Community Development approaches build community capacity through strengths based approaches developed by John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann. http://www.abcdinstitute.org/about/

Children speaking clear and strong

I want to be a teacher…

I want to be a nurse…

I want to counsel people …

We’re cleaning up our town…

I’m going to go to TAFE and University

Further complexity – layers of discourses

Discourses of power operate at many levels In preparing finished works for presentation we became

aware of ‘re-presenting’ the voices of young Indigenous people: colonising thought, interpretation, and presentation

This occurred in the selection, presentation and positioning, juxtaposition and labelling of works.

It also occurred in decisions around who was to curate, present and speak for the children at the launch.

Sensitivity - stepping back from power was critical to the process: community owned that space.

Concious decolonisation of images

Inequities and divergences of purpose and value present challenges for increasingly corporatised universities and for the funding and conduct of community-university initiatives and partnerships.

Educators and researchers engaging with communities, are challenged to be aware of and to de-colonise relationships, discourses and practices.

A response: removing colourful card mounts: unadjusted originals were placed at child height in the gallery. The variety and range of works challenged concepts of ‘aesthetic’ display running counter to the ‘prettification’ of children’s work in public displays.

Challenging the ‘Glamour of Need’

Focusing upon strengths and assets rather than a community’s need for research/intervention. Re-positioning the role of university not leader but partner.

Start point: community’s agency in change Re-writing ‘Evidence-of impact’ not as university

success but as partnership, trust and longevity. Countervoice the ‘glamour of need’ and discourses

of loss Academics ‘talk back’ to agendas for short lived

research ‘projects’, funding and strategic focus – challenging institutional habitus and the discourse of deficit.

References

Cornbleth, C. (2010). Institutional Habitus as the de facto Diversity Curriculum of Teacher Education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 41(3) 17.Giroux, H. A. (2011). Beyond the Swindle of the Corporate University: Higher Education in the Service of Democracy. Op Ed. Truthout.Jones, J. K. (2014). Neither of the air, nor of the earth but a creature somewhere between:The researcher as traveller between worlds. In K. Trimmer, A. Black, & S. Riddle (Eds.), Mainstreams, Margins and the Spaces In-between: New possibilities for education research. Abingdon, Oxford: Taylor & Francis (Routledge).Spies-Butcher, B. (2014). Marketisation and the dual welfare state: Neoliberalism and inequality in Australia. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 25(2)185-201.Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2012). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books.