Beyond the Paper: What if Research were a Relationship?

How can researchers work with communities in ways that are ethical, reciprocal, and genuinely collaborative?

This interactive in-person workshop brings together HDR students across disciplines to explore relational approaches to research through direct engagement with Indigenous knowledge holders, researchers, and community practitioners.

Hear from Indigenous community leaders from Fiji, Australia, India, and Singapore as they share lived experiences of working with researchers, community-led approaches to climate resilience, cultural continuity, and the protection and transmission of Indigenous knowledge across generations. Through a keynote talk, dialogue sessions, and a short-film screening and discussion, participants will explore how storytelling, place-based knowledge, and arts-based methods can strengthen both research practice and community engagement.

Participants will also take part in an interactive activity that challenges them to move “beyond the paper,” engaging with place, reflecting on positionality and ethical practice, and experimenting with creative ways of communicating research. Working in interdisciplinary groups, they will explore how complex ideas can be translated into accessible formats through narrative, visual, and storytelling approaches.

Whether your work is in environmental sciences, engineering, humanities, health, architecture, or archaeology, this workshop offers practical tools for community-engaged research, creative communication, and meaningful collaboration across disciplines.

Lunch and snacks will be provided during the workshop.

For more information or any questions, please reach out to gauri.salunkhe@sydney.edu.au

This event is supported by the Graduate Research School (GRS) through the Graduate Research Activities and Development Scheme (GRADS).

The following speakers will lead discussions in the workshop:

Manoa Duwai

Manoa is an iTaukei (Indigenous) Fijian from Naidiri village on the south-west coast of Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu. In 2009, he co-founded Naidiri’s tabu (Marine Protected Area) in response to disappearing coral reefs and declining fish stocks within the community’s traditional fishing grounds. Since then, Manoa has led the youth and wider community in reef regeneration through coral planting efforts, contributing to the area’s recognition as Naidiri Marine Biodiversity Park by Fiji’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change in 2022. Manoa and the youth of Naidiri have visited several villages and schools to raise awareness about ocean conservation, guided by Indigenous knowledge and the traditional values of caring for Vanua.

Dawa Sangpo Bhutia

Dawa is a filmmaker, photographer, storyteller, conservationist, and ecotourism practitioner from the remote yak-herding community of Chongri in West Sikkim, India. Growing up in the himalayas gave him a deep connection to nature, wildlife and indigenous culture. Through photography, filmmaking and community work, he promotes responsible tourism, conservation and cultural preservation. He tells authentic Himalayan stories that inspires a lasting impact for mountain communities.

Radhika Gupta

Born and raised in India, Radhika is an artist and environmental storyteller based in Stockholm. Her work represents community voices using futuristic scenario visioning workshops, digital tools and interactive art installations. Radhika currently leads an initiative called Before More is Lost in West Sikkim, in India’s Eastern Himalayas, to develop and advocate for community-led agendas on reviving traditional food systems.

Elizabeth Tan

Elizabeth has been working alongside Orang Laut SG for the past two years, supporting partnerships, community engagement, research and programme development. Her work focuses on creating spaces for Indigenous coastal communities to share their own stories, knowledge and heritage, while building greater public understanding of Orang Laut and Orang Pulau histories and contemporary experiences. She is particularly interested in community-led approaches to cultural preservation, education and advocacy.

Mitch Gibbs

Mitch is a proud Dunghutti man through kinship, and Lecturer, Postdoctoral and Fulbright Fellow at The University of Sydney in the Schools of Geosciences. From Indigenous Traditional Owners and knowledge holders, he learns about our environments and ways to manage those environments using shellfish-associated practices handed down through oral and lived histories and putting this into practice with habitat restoration work with the Gamay Rangers and the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Akshay Salunkhe

Akshay Salunkhe co-founded Vartul: The Learning Circle and supports as the Programs Coordinator for Naidiri Marine Biodiversity Park in Fiji, where he has built relationships over nearly two years. He has spent time in Naidiri village, living and working alongside the community on marine conservation and youth programs. That sustained presence will be his focus for this session: the relationship building at the heart of good fieldwork, how trust forms before data does, and how researchers should learn to earn, rather than assume, a place in a community.