Living Back on Country

Waka Ŋurrkanhayŋu – Regenerating the existence of life: Utilising Lived Yolŋu Experiences & Knowledges to Co-create Living Back on Country to Restore Harmony and Health of Humans and Country

Indigenous knowledge and disaster risk

Indigenous ways of being-knowing-doing are increasingly recognised as the antidote to the diverse global existential crises humanity is experiencing including health crisis, climate change and disasters. Yet, Indigenous peoples living in very remote Indigenous communities and homelands in the Northern Territory are high-at-risk due to the NT being a hotspot of diverse extreme events and these communities suffering stark health inequity caused by historical and contemporary colonisation whilst being the least resourced to prepare, respond, recover and rebuild.

A Yolŋu-led response to disaster risk

In response to the devastating impacts of two Category 4 cyclones in 2015, Senior Yolŋu Elders living in the very remote community Galiwin’ku on Elcho Island requested research to reduce disaster risk, and strengthen resilience and preparedness to get ready for future disasters.

Since 2021, the Waka Ŋurrkanhayŋu Yolŋu Ŋorru-ḏawalaŋu (clan leaders) and Djuŋgaya (guardians/CEOs) from across 15 of the 16 clans, and Indigenous and Western ally researchers have been co-leading, co-developing, co-implementing and co-refining a long-term Indigenist Participatory Action Research initiative to:

  • holistically identify the aspects that strengthen us Yolŋu,
  • identify and address the root causes of what weakens us Yolŋu, and
  • pathways for strengthening us Yolŋu to restore our health and the health of our respective clan countries.

Living back on Country

One of the key resilience pathways that emerged is living back on Country/homelands.

The related knowledge is contained in video and voice recordings of conversations with Senior Elders and Elders across all 16 clans. The stories are mostly in the diverse clan languages as speaking their languages empowers Yolŋu, gives Yolŋu a strong voice, and leads to deeper and richer stories.

Project aims

To be able to make the above contributions to policy and practice, this project aims to:

  • conduct two-way feedback yarning circles with the Waka team and Senior Yolŋu Elders from the diverse Yolŋu clans living in members
  • interpret and transcribe the aspects of the recordings spoken in Yolŋu
  • systematically analyse and write up the data as two Q1 journal articles; one policy report for the Department of Health, Disability and Aging; & one grant application for the co-implementing the resilience pathways, especially the living back on Country pathway

Researchers

Project Resources

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