"We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human."

David Abram

Leading voices of Australia’s First Peoples and North American cultural ecologist David Abram explore our place in the more-than-human world

NEW DATES:

Mon 6th Dec • Wed 8th Dec • Fri 10th Dec

12.30-2.30pm AEDT (UTC+11)* on Zoom

Register once for all three sessions

This series of three yarning circles will probe how our thinking and acting in the world is shaped by cultural understandings of language, place and time.

Australia's First Peoples understand well that there exists no separation between humans and the more-than-human world – that humans, with all our culture and technology, remain fully embedded within, and participant with, an animate world that far exceeds all our knowing. Such insights also pulse at the heart of North American cultural ecologist David Abram's work. His dialogues with Australian Indigenous thinkers will explore the convergences, and contrasts, between Western ecological ideas and Indigenous knowledges.

All registered participants will receive the Zoom link for this program by email prior to the first session and a link to access videos of all sessions when the series is over.

OUR GUESTS:

Session #1 • LANGUAGE & KIN • Mon 6th December

• Mary Graham is a Kombu-merri person through her father’s heritage and of Wakka Wakka clan through her mother’s heritage. Mary’s professional career has spanned more than 30 years in several government agencies, community organisations and universities. She has lectured at the University of Queensland in Aboriginal history, politics and comparative philosophy, and developed and implemented the core university subjects of ‘Aboriginal Perspectives’, ‘Aboriginal Approaches to Knowledge’ and at the postgrad level ‘Aboriginal Politics’. Mary has written and published many prominent works.

• Jakelin Troy is a Ngarigu woman from the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, and Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research at The University of Sydney. Jakelin’s research and academic interests focus on languages, particularly endangered Aboriginal and ‘contact languages’, language education, linguistics, anthropology and visual arts. She has extensive experience developing curriculum for Australian schools, focusing on Australian language programs.

• Payi Linda Ford identifies as Rak Mak Mak Marranunggu, from Kurrindju, on the Finniss River, in the Northern Territory and is currently a Principal Research Fellow at Charles Darwin University. Linda understands and is familiar with Indigenous epistemological practices and her knowledge and experience informs her research practises. Her understanding of Indigenous ways of being and knowing, and her ability to lead and contribute to local, national and international research projects brings Indigenist research methodologies to both academic and community work.

• Yarning with David Abram

David Abram lives with his family in the high desert of the American southwest. A renowned cultural ecologist and geophilosopher, David is the author of The Spell of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. Described as “daring” and “truly original” by the journal Science, David's work engages the ecological depths of the imagination, exploring the ways in which sensory perception, language, and wonder inform the relation between human culture and the animate earth. A close student of the traditional ecological knowledge of diverse indigenous peoples, David is the founder of the Alliance for Wild Ethics (AWE).

Session #2 • COUNTRY & CULTURE • Wed 8th December

• Bruce Shillingsworth snr. is a Muruwari and Budjiti man, a talented artist and water for the rivers activist. His country is the north-west NSW river lands that hug the Namoi, Barwon, Darling Rivers; Brewarrina, Bourke, Enngonia, Wilcannia and Walgett. Bruce’s family are painters, dancers and rainmakers. Bruce is a cultural educator in Sydney and leads a cultural revival dance group in the north-west. The north-west river communities have been devastated by water stealing by big cotton farmers and irrigators. Successive governments have failed to preserve the integrity of the rivers on which First Nations people depend for their life and livelihood.

• Bruce Pascoe is a Yuin, and Bunurong man, a writer, teacher, and farmer. He is Board member of First Languages Australia and Twofold Aboriginal Corporation and a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative of southern Victoria. He was a founder of Black Duck Foods, an Indigenous social enterprise a key part in a growing new business ecosystem around farming traditional foods. He’s the author of the highly awarded Dark Emu (over 200,00 copies sold), Young Dark Emu: A Truer History, Loving Country: A Guide to Sacred Australia and over thirty other books including academic texts.

• Kevin Lowe is a Gubbi Gubbi man from SE Queensland. He is a Scientia Indigenous Fellow at UNSW, working on community and school focused research to bring sustainable improvement to Aboriginal education. Kevin has expertise in working with Aboriginal community organisations on establishing Aboriginal language policy and school curriculum implementation. Kevin is currently reviewing research across key areas of schooling to establish Aboriginal Voices – a broad-base, holistic project to develop a new pedagogic framework for teachers.

• Yarning with David Abram

Session #3 • DEEP TIME • Fri 10th December

• Anne Poelina is a Nyikina Warrwa woman who belongs to the Mardoowarra, the lower Fitzroy River in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. She is an active Indigenous community leader, human and earth rights advocate, filmmaker and a respected academic researcher, with Masters degrees in Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Education, Arts (Indigenous Social Policy) and a PhD (Health Science). Anne is currently Chair of the Murtuwarra Fitzroy River Council where she focuses on protecting this sacred river from the predations of miners and pasturalists.

• Tyson Yunkaporta is an academic, an arts critic, and a researcher who belongs to the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne. Tyson looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective. He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? He is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World.

• Yarning with David Abram

CAN'T ATTEND ON THESE DATES/TIMES?

If the scheduled dates/times don't suit you, register anyway to receive a personal email notification when video recordings of the program are available online.

https://events.humanitix.com/between-stories-video-link

Between Stories is a collaboration between:

Anthropocene Transition Network • Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute • UNSW Environment and Society°

(° Environment & Society Group • School of Humanities & Languages • Faculty of Arts, Design, & Architecture • University of New South Wales • Sydney)

We acknowledge and honour the custodianship of this continent by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples over countless generations. We respect their stories, traditions and living cultures and affirm that their lands and waters were never ceded to the British crown or its successors. We honour the elders of Australia's First Peoples past, present and emerging.

Important Notice:

ATN’s registration policy is based on the principle of dana or generosity. All participants are invited to make a donation proportional to their capacity when they register. This is purely voluntary and no one is ever turned away if they can’t afford to donate. These donations will cover an honorarium for our guests; program design, curation and facilitation costs; Zoom Webinar, Internet and video editing costs; and any other overheads and contingencies, and will help to support our on-going work.

All registered participants will receive the Zoom link for this program by email prior to the first session and will have access to the video recordings after the series is over.

* A Note on Time Zones:

All three sessions start at 12.30pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time (UTC+11). Within Australia this will be: 11.30am in Brisbane, 12.00pm in Adelaide, 11.00am in Darwin, and 9.30am in Perth.

International participants should convert UTC+11 to your local time zone.

https://www.timeanddate.com/wo...