Indigenous Australian Perspectives in Practice

Sarah-Jane Burton and Julieanne Lamond.

Often when discussions take place around embedding Indigenous knowledges and perspectives into curricula, educators think first about content. This project looks beyond the ‘inclusive’ or ‘additive’ model of incorporating Indigenous knowledge into curricula, towards a consideration of what it might look like to meaningfully embed Indigenous knowledges and perspectives into not content but pedagogy. This presentation discusses the approaches trialled in a pilot developed across two courses in the English program in 2022.  This pilot program, structured by the two principles of “Space” and “Connection,” presents a selection of ways students can learn about Indigenous Australian culture and practices while progressing through established course material. By making simple shifts to the way course content is presented and by incorporating culturally expansive learning techniques across the semester, this program enables opportunities for authentic experiential learning and connection to Indigenous Australian culture and perspectives.

Presentation Slides

Presenter bio

Sarah-Jane Burton
Sarah-Jane’s research is focused on twentieth-century American poetry with a particular interest in the literary history of New England and the study and preservation of archival materials related to this period.
She is the Official Historian for the New England Poetry Club in Boston, MA and her research has been funded internationally by several universities. In 2019 she was a Research Fellow at the Houghton Library, Harvard. She has also been the recipient of an Everett Helm Visiting Fellowship at the Lilly Library, Indiana University and a Dissertation Grant from the Schlesinger Library for the History of Women in America, Harvard.
She has worked in both academic and professional roles in the tertiary sector including the English department at Macquarie University, Sydney and the Library division of Western Sydney University.
She is a proud Wiradjuri woman from the Central West of NSW and is passionate about regional outreach for universities and education for First Nations peoples.Prior to working in academia Sarah-Jane was a journalist in the field of lifestyle media.

Julieanne Lamond is a Senior Lecturer in English at ANU.
Julieanne’s research and teaching focuses on Australian literary culture, the relationship between gender and literary value, the intersection between literary and popular cultures of reading, and between literature and politics. Her most recent monograph is a study of contemporary writer Amanda Lohrey. Current projects include a study of the impact of COVID-19 on Australian women writers, a collaborative project on the uses of poetry in Australian poitical discourse, and an examination of reading and writing in relation to Australia’s high country.

Julieanne is president of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature and co-editor of Australian Literary Studies.


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