{"id":417,"date":"2020-06-18T05:36:45","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T20:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lod.cdu.edu.au\/?page_id=417"},"modified":"2020-10-16T17:37:34","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T08:07:34","slug":"michaela","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lod.cdu.edu.au\/index.php\/michaela\/","title":{"rendered":"Credentialing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Giving credence to making and doing \u2018credentialing\u2019 with Yol<\/strong>\u014b<\/strong>u researchers <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On this page I reflect on collaborative work with Yol\u014bu Aboriginal Australian researchers, Rosemary Gundjarranbuy and Stephen Dhamarrandji as we\u2019ve worried away at ways that Yol\u014bu researchers may be recognised as qualified within the modern academy<\/em> and in Djalkiri <\/em>(Yol\u014bu foundations, structures of knowledge and relationships), as well as appropriate means by which such qualification may be made public, producing pathways for learning and employment across and within two very different academies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By Michaela Spencer<\/p>\n

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Left to right: Hazel Gondarra, Rosemary Gundjarranbuy, Simeon Dhamarrandji, Yol\u014bu researchers in Galiwin’ku<\/p><\/div>\n

While frequently participating in research projects as facilitators, collaborators and co-researchers, the challenges of receiving research qualifications are often lamented by Yol\u014bu Aboriginal Australian researchers. Our small research group, working between Charles Darwin University and the remote Aboriginal community of Galiwin\u2019ku, have explored using research \u2018micro-credentials\u2019 as a way to recognise Yol\u014bu researchers for the skilled research work and guidance they offer.<\/span><\/p>\n

These are small credentials, often awarded in the form of a digital badge able to be displayed online, that accredit the attainment of certain sets of skills and competencies. As fast and flexible forms of qualification, they able to keep up with rapidly changing and increasingly casualised workforces. But the concern expressed within the Yol\u014bu research team, was that these may exist only as \u2018trinkets or tokens, that don\u2019t mean anything in either Yol\u014bu or balanda (nonYol\u014bu) worlds\u2019 (Rosemary Gundjarranbuy, private communication).<\/span><\/p>\n

So as we\u2019ve gone along, we\u2019ve needed to multiply and complexify the notion of qualification which may be assumed to accompany these credentials\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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Stephen Dhamarrandji, speaking here as a young leader and Yol\u014bu Community based-researcher<\/p><\/div>\n

Maliku (Stephen) Dhamarrandji<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Yol\u014bu world view is that you listen to the elders while you are young. By listening, learning and paying respect you may proceed up the levels of Yol\u014bu qualification towards the highest awards.<\/em><\/p>\n

The early stage of learning is by watching and listening. You have to listen and learn and watch. After you pass that, the dju\u014bgaya (the manager) will allow you to dance or come to this sacred ground. Our law doesn’t change. Once the old people lay down the law, the law stays the same. Not like in Canberra every year, every month there is a new prime minister. Our law is always the same and will never change.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some Balanda, when they see me, they say here is Stephen Dhamarrandji coming. They do not see what is underneath. That I have a connection to trees, the land, and the sea through the songlines; that I travel the journey of these songlines, and can pass through the Yirritja and back to the Dhuwa homelands.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Rosemary Gundjarranbuy, speaking here as a Elder Yol\u014bu woman and senior community-based researcher<\/p><\/div>\n

Rosemary Gundjarranbuy<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

You have asked me, how does a Yol\u014bu researcher qualify in Yol\u014bu ways?<\/em><\/p>\n

Mar\u014bgi \u014bayi ga yol \u014bayi ga nh\u00e4 \u014bayi dhu dj\u00e4ma mala \/ She knows who she is, what it is she is supposed to do\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Gakalmirr Yol\u014bu \/ <\/em>Has the appropriate ancestral Yol\u014bu style, knows the right way to do things<\/span><\/p>\n

Mar\u014bgi \u014bayi nhanukala\u014baw romgu, b\u00e4purru, w\u00e4\u014baw, Yirralkaw, wanha\u014buwuy \u014bayi\/ <\/em>She knows her ancestral law, her tribal group, her land, her homeland, where she is from.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gurrkurr dhi\u1e49\u2019thunamirr Yol\u014bu.<\/em> Yaka ma\u014butji-dhaka\u1e49gum rom mala\/ <\/em>She knows how to follow up ancestral lines. Doesn\u2019t get the ancestral laws confused.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mar\u014bgi \u014bayi manikaymirr Djirrikay ga \u1e0ealkarra \u1e3auku-gamunu\u014bgu\/ <\/em>She knows the senior ceremonial leaders for Yirritja and Dhuwa side, and their origins.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gakal \u014bayi ga \u014bayatham in leadership nhaltjan \u014bayi dhu play role in community\u014bur\/ Has an appropriate style of behaviour for how to play their role in the community.<\/p>\n

Dh\u00e4kay-\u014b\u00e4nhamirr Yol\u014bu \u014bunhi \u014bayi dhu ga nh\u00e4ma barrku-\u1e0fakthu\/ <\/em>Tasting what she can see for far away (ie. having a sense of the overall nature of the work)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These were some of the conversations that came up as we worked our way to understandings of how these credentials might be recognised as credible; that is, might work to elicit the performance of qualification from within Yol\u014bu collective life for potential recipients.<\/span><\/p>\n

But how then might such credence also hold in these other situations and locations? How might the capacity of this right performance be sustained when these badges were hosted on line and promoted by the university? Other on-ground elements of their design which helped to generate an odd, but workable enough, set of credentials that are beginning to perform this work.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Michaela Spencer\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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MIchaela Spencer, speaking here as a CDU researcher and ethnographer<\/p><\/div>\n

On a research trip to Galiwin\u2019ku, <\/em>Elcho Island, <\/em>we drive around from house to house, hopping in and out of the 4WD. Our team of researchers are a cheery bunch \u2013 experienced senior women sitting in the front seat, younger researchers in the back, and various children and pets wriggling in between. <\/em><\/p>\n

While going about our work for one of our research projects, we\u2019re also talking about these new micro-credentials, these badges that CDU is starting to develop. As we talk more about what these badges might look like, and how they could be earned by people in the team, we start to talk about how there might be two different ones \u2013 a badge for Senior researchers that recognised cultural authority and existing experience, and a badge for younger people who do a lot of the face-to-face facilitation of interviews and meetings and other aspects of the research process, but who are also keen on receiving more training and support. <\/em><\/p>\n

The idea of both these badges is welcomed by Rosemary and Stephen, recognising different levels of authority and expertise. But amidst this enthusiasm, Rosemary also points to another young man in the car who would be missed out by both of these badges. A \u2018junior mentoree\u2019 just out of school, working with his family just learning what it means to collaborate with university staff and Balanda (non-Indigenous people) visiting this Yol\u014bu community. <\/em><\/p>\n

Later that day, we sit on the veranda of Rosemary\u2019s house, and she insists that this young man, who is often very quiet as we go about our work, is an important part of the team. He is generally there carrying the iPad, and recording or taking photos of what we do. At the same time, he is also watching and learning, seeing how the more experienced people go about doing what they do. His role is crucial, she tells me, because the young people can only learn to be experiences and qualified by watching their Elders at work. So<\/em>, we realised that we had to create another badge and once this third badge fell into place, it suddenly felt like we had the set now.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

……………………………………..\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ……………………….<\/a><\/span>\"\"\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Finding means by which these credentials may perform credible qualification in both Yol\u014bu and modern academies is a work in progress, and we continue to labour around this together. However, were gradually learning that embedded in this work are multiple means by which qualification may be recognised, with the university (as an institution of the modern academy) seeking to attribute properties of qualification on a person from the outside, while Yol\u014bu expertise is often something elicited from the inside, as an emanation of what already-always was within Yol\u014bu structures of people and place through kinship relations.<\/span><\/p>\n

To elicit the performance of credibility in both modes, looks to means by which they will be visible and circulate online as university educational products, and how they may (or may not) make visible always-already present enactments of ancestral relation which need to be expressed through Yol\u014bu research practice – together, and on-country.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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