Atkinson, J. (2014). Negotiating worldviews: Indigenous place in academic space. In Mason, C. & Rawlings-Sanaei, F. (Eds.). Academic Migration, Discipline Knowledge and Pedagogical Practice: Voices from the Asia-Pacific, (pp.41-51). Springer Singapore. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-4451-88-8_4
ABSTRACT

This chapter describes and critiques, from the perspective of an Indigenous global scholar, the development and delivery of a series of degree courses of study designed to respond to the historical, social and cultural trauma consequent to colonial worldviews interfacing with Aboriginal Australian Peoples and the expressed need for healing – not a word commonly used in the academy. Indigenous pedagogical approaches have confronted the power and privilege of the academy, in a creative tension that has demanded negotiated space under principles of cultural safety and security. While that space was being negotiated (and continues to be), invitations to take our work to Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea, have provided opportunity to consider the international movement of Indigenous Peoples to negotiate place in the international academic domain, and for Indigenous Pedagogy to show its relevancy and transportability across cultures, with our near neighbours and others, who, while having diverse histories, often have similar worldviews.