UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY - SYDNEY 3rd & 4th October 2014 The Second Indigenous Knowledge Forum (IKF2): Comparative Systems for Recognising and Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Culture This Forum will bring together key speakers from around the globe representing those nations with either existing legal frameworks or nations in the midst of developing such regimes for the protection of Indigenous knowledge and culture. IKF2 will facilitate dialogue and discussion, and information exchange bringing together government officials, decision makers, scholars, and especially Indigenous and local peoples’ representatives. Dr Virginia Marshall Principal, Solicitor Triple BL Legal A reconstructed metaphor for Aboriginal property rights and interests: The challenges in normalizing Aboriginal ontology into Western concepts of knowledge and resources. Dr Virginia Marshall is Wiradjuri Nyemba and is connected in kinship with Nyikina Mangala. She is a Sole Practitioner in NSW Australia (Triple BL Legal) primarily in intellectual property and commercial law. She is an active NSW Law Society committee member in the Indigenous Issues Committee (Acting Chair), Litigation Practice and Law Committee, and teaches her peers in legal practice. Virginia has practised in criminal and civil law and has an LLM at the Australian National University. Her doctoral research thesis, awarded this year at Macquarie University, is on Aboriginal water property rights and interests in Australia. The thesis develops original Aboriginal frameworks such as intellectual property, reframing Indigenous research, conceptualising difference in Indigenous water values and Western legal concepts. Abstract: A conundrum arises when one tries to define Aboriginal property interests through Western legal concepts, because the values, beliefs and law inherent in Western and Aboriginal ontological concepts exist within polarized cultural paradigms. The theoretical legal framework needed to develop a conceptual framework of Aboriginal interests should not merely ‘accommodate’ or ‘integrate’ Aboriginal knowledge, but must provide a ‘voice’ of Aboriginal peoples through the ‘cultural linkages’, inherent in Aboriginal laws, language, and the layers of relationships that are embedded in ‘country’. The unique characteristics of Aboriginal property rights exist as a ‘nexus’ to how Aboriginal communities engage in natural resource management and why such property rights, woven through generations of ancestral relationships, permeate the cultural and contemporary Aboriginal concepts of values and use. From an Aboriginal perspective, the land and the waters are inseparable. In Australian legislative regimes both water and the land are separate entities. How should then we protect Aboriginal values in Aboriginal knowledge resources when Western policy and legislative regimes are so divergent? Aunty Frances Bodkin, Mount Annan Botanic Gardens Frances Bodkin (Aunty Fran) is a Dharawal elder of the Bitter Water Clans and knowledge holder, storyteller, and teacher of Aboriginal knowledge. She is also a botanist, and Indigenous Education Officer Gardens having degrees in climatology, geomorphology and environmental science. She works tirelessly to teach traditional Indigenous science and enable a deeper understanding of, and an ability to care for, our natural environment. Frances received her Aboriginal knowledge from her mother, who was also a storyteller, and her grandmother and great grandmother, who were medicine women. She is the author of Encyclopaedia Botanica, which has over 11,000 entries on Australian native plants. Her Western scientific training combined with her invaluable knowledge of Dharawal creation, history and law, provides Frances with a truly holistic approach to understanding our earth. Uncle Gavin Andrews Banyadjaminga, Dharawal Traditional Descendants and Knowledgeholders Circle Uncle Gavin Andrews is a Dharawal man from the Sweet Water Clans (Nattaimattagal). He graduated from UNSW with degrees in Science, Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and from MU with a Diploma of Environmental Studies. Gavin worked in the Schools Section of the Public Works Department for about ten years, He was the NSW Aboriginal Land Councils first Treasurer, taught Landscape Design at Ryde TAFE, was Aboriginal Adviser with the Department of Mines, National Parks, then the Sydney Harbour Managers Office, and then returned to Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Michael Connolly, Kullilla Art Michael is an Aboriginal man from Charleville, south west Queensland and a descendant of the Kullilla tribe from the Thargomindah/Eulo region [on his fathers side] and from the Muruwari People from Goodooga/Brewarrina region of north-west New South Wales [on his mothers side] who can trace their traditional trade and diplomatic links with Central Desert as well as South Australian and Northern New South Wales Aboriginal Communities. Together with this rich Indigenous background and unique style of interpretation of his cultural heritage. Michael is able to represent a unique perspective in the visual and performing arts. This is evident in his artwork, craftsmanship, didgeridoo playing and storytelling as a result of blending his own contemporary or urban indigenous style with the traditional style of the Kullilla Peoples under his business name of Dreamtime Kullilla-Art. cultural lineage / teachings. Our human rights as a community needs to be recognized and restored, empowering the people through a strong sense of identity and stability in belonging through ‘finding our families’ which determines Emelda Davis, President - Australian South Sea Islanders (Port Jackson) Limited TheAustralianSouthSea Islanders – Port Jackson (ASSI-PJ) EmeldaDavis isa TannaIsland,Vanuatudescendant oftheblackbirdingtrade of theSouthSeaIslands. Emelda’s mother was born into slavery. In advocating for her people Emelda isamemberofthe Pacific Programs Advisory Board to the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre NSW and has played an integral role since 2011 in her capacity as the main coordinator and then the interim national body president for the development of a National Australian South Sea Islander (ASSI) Association through the delivery of Wantok capacity building workshops. These workshops saw the establishment of a National ASSI Governance Working Group to write the first ASSI national constitution. Her diverse expertise and innovative capabilities stem from a vast history in community development, education, training, media, marketing and awareness campaign strategies having worked for Federal, State Government, Community and Grassroots organisations. Abstract:TheAustralianSouthSeaIslanders–PortJackson(ASSI-PJ) represent the interests of the Australian South Sea Islander (ASSI) people with regards to supporting and promoting ASSI culture, identity, human rights, well-being, economic, social and educational interests within the context of being one of the many contributing cultures of non-European origin in Australia. The term “Australian South Sea Islander” refers to the Australian descendants of people from more than 80 islands in the Western Pacific including the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) in Melanesia, and the Loyalty Islands, Samoa, Kiribati, Rotuma (Fiji), Tuvalu in Polynesia and Micronesia who were recruited to the indentured labour trade akin to slavery to work and establish Australia’s economic base in sugar cane, maritime and pastoral industries. Today ASSI people remain marginalized, unrecognized, and even unknown to exist as citizens of Australia, with their labour contribution to the nation’s economic base hidden in history, and their own history hidden even from themselves as a community. The generational trauma from the blackbirding past, still so recent that some are only one generation removed from it, and lack of certainty of the past - a literal and cultural amnesia due to the circumstances of their lives - continues to have lasting personal, social and economic effects on ASSI community.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 06:50:33 +0000
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