•  
  •  
 

Abstract

Internationally within academia settler-colonial processes occur in various ways alongside a growth in the use of research methods conceived with Indigenous knowledges. However, most research environments and practices are built upon and privilege dominant non-Indigenous settler-colonial knowledge systems. It is within this power imbalance and contested space that Yarning research method is being applied and interpreted. Underpinned by an Indigenous Research Paradigm, we employed storying ways to examine researcher experiences of settler-colonialism and the Yarning research method. The story outlines challenges and pitfalls that researchers can fall into and critically examines how researchers can fail to recognise the depth of Indigenous knowledge embedded within the practice. This story is gifted by creating an imagined narrative interview with a character called Settler-Colonisation, whereby we identify a litany of settler-colonial processes impacting Yarning research. Scrutinising the epistemological and methodological practices and processes enacted in academia is imperative for better-informed application of Indigenous research methods and create sustainable research more generally.

Keywords

Indigenous, settler-colonialism, Yarning, storying, Indigenous research methods

Author Bio(s)

Dr. Cammi Murrup Stewart is an Aboriginal woman born and raised on Wurundjeri Country, with family connections disrupted through Stolen Generation policies. She is an early career academic who conducted individual Yarns as part of a Ph.D. with young urban Aboriginal people about cultural experiences. Please direct correspondence to cammi.murrup-stewart@monash.edu.

Petah Atkinson is a Yorta Yorta woman, with family connections Waywurru people and to Kulin Nations people through Wurundjeri and Taungurung. Her career includes many years working in the Indigenous health sector, and she is currently a lecturer and completing her Ph.D. on racism in medical education which has involved Yarning research. Please direct correspondence to petah.atkinson@monash.edu.

Professor Karen Adams is a Wiradjuri and Director of the Gukwonderuk Indigenous Health Unit at Monash University. Her career has involved working in the Indigenous health sector for many years and conducting research addressing inequity for Indigenous peoples with some of this involving Yarning methods. Please direct correspondence to aren.adams@monash.edu.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which this research took place and their Elders past and present.

Publication Date

3-16-2022

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5173

ORCID ID

0000-0002-4442-3238, 0000-0003-3168-4399, 0000-0001-6990-6466

Share

 
COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.