19. Listening to Country [My Language My Country]

How has English dominance marginalised First Nations knowledges?

We hear from Gudanji/Wakaja author and academic Dr Debra Dank about how Aboriginal people’s expressive practices and deep relationships to Country are being erased.

How can we learn to listen to Country, to the ‘non-human utterances’ of birds, the wind, the rain?

And how do we listen to Country with our whole bodies, not just our ears?

Can we discover our own embodied wisdom, and how does this relate to our sense of belonging on this continent?

Guests

Carmine Gentile is an Associate Professor (Faculty) within the School of Biomedical Engineering (Faculty of Engineering and IT) at the UTS. He leads the Cardiovascular Regeneration Group, working on 3D bioprinting and stem cell technologies both at the Heart Research Institute and UTS.

Debra Dank is a Gudanji/Wakaja and Kalkadoon woman from the Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory. Dr Debra Dank is an Enterprise Fellow with the University of South Australia.

For 40 years Deb has worked in various roles in primary, secondary, and tertiary education in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory in urban and remote contexts.

She worked to establish the Indigenous Literacy Foundation which included extensive work with remote communities to develop a robust but flexible service delivery model that supported place-based, community-identified responses to literary needs in early childhood education, provision of appropriate literature for remote communities, and the production of reading material for English as a Second language contexts.

Reference: Terrraglossia is published by Echo Publishing.

Leah Subijano (she/her) is a Filipino-Australian, multidimensional soul, and a fierce advocate for racial justice and gender equality. She loves to deep dive into all things social justice, spirituality, and dismantling systems to birth a new Earth. Leah believes that drumming and dance are decolonising and embodiment tools that help people reconnect with themselves, their ancestral wisdom, community, and the natural world.

Odette Subijano is Leah’s mother.

Credits

This series was produced on the Lands of the Gadigal People, the Cammeraygal People, the Darug People, and the Guringai People.

Host: Elaine Laforteza

Producer: Masako Fukui

With the support of Jane Curtis and Sarah Gilbert of UTS Impact Studios

Tile artwork by Alexandra Morris

This podcast was created by the UTS Multicultural Women’s Network and is part of the broader UTS Acknowledgment of Country in Our Languages project.