Funding to help develop an Australian site for Indigenous Knowledges and Western Science Centre

Archaeologists from Charles Darwin University (CDU) and Flinders University will help lead the National Science Funding (NSF) Centre for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS), a five-year, $30 million international NSF Science and Technology Centre based at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the USA in collaboration with international satellite centres in different countries.

Wiradjuri Archaeologist and CDU Northern Institute Research Fellow Dr Kellie Pollard will work in partnership with Flinders University Professor Claire Smith to develop the new Australian Centre.

In her research at CDU Dr Pollard is leading the development of new models of epistemology based on the worldviews, knowledges, and values of Indigenous people in Australia to forge new pathways in archaeological theory and methods of practice.

Dr Pollard said the discipline of archaeology has decolonised since the late 1990s in Australia to be more inclusive of Indigenous people’s knowledges about history, heritage and culture and decolonisation in methodology and in teaching curriculum.

“Where there is still a lot of work to do is in the decolonisation of epistemology, theory, paradigm, and discourse to reflect the validity of Indigenous ways of doing science,” Dr Pollard said.  

Dr Pollard said the CIBKS grant application was selected from four hundred international applications and short-listed to the final ten applications for interview,

“It was the first time the NSF had short-listed an Indigenous-themed application and an application led by Indigenous academics who are seeking new ways to collaborate Indigenous knowledges and philosophies with Western science, in effect, new ways of doing research together,” Dr Pollard said.

“The success of the grant application validates CIBKS as ground-breaking in embedding in higher education institutions the formal recognition of the equality of Indigenous and Western epistemologies.”

“While the two systems of knowledge making are very different, the work of the Centre will be to demonstrate how they can work alongside each other and produce new ways of theorising knowledge to benefit humanity and the Earth”.

The two ways of doing science will work on complex and evolving impacts wrought by climate change on Country, water, plant and animal life; the impacts of climate change on archaeological sites, places sacred to Indigenous peoples, and cultural heritage; and the complexities of insecure food systems which disproportionately affect Indigenous communities around the world.

The new Centre will address these pressing issues in new ways.

The Centre takes a transdisciplinary approach to community-based research methodology to work in local, place-based studies and research projects but in partnership with the international institutions and 57 Indigenous communities from around the world with the satellite Centres.

Upon the completion of the initial five-year award, the Australian research will be eligible to receive further funding from the NSF to continue its aims.

Dr Pollard emphasised that this is not just a solo professional achievement, but also an achievement for CDU.

“CDU has a vision of being recognised as a world leader in Indigenous studies, particularly in collaborations with institutions who are at the vanguard of recognising how Indigenous people’s knowledge and wisdom can solve some of the most urgent societal issues of our age,” Dr Pollard said.

“I welcome students and colleagues to yarn with me about CIBKS and the opportunities that will flow from it.”

Dr Pollard was part of an international team of Indigenous academics and allies on the grant application to the NSF. The NSF is open every three years in the USA and attracts applications from around the world for this prestigious funding.

More information about CBIKS, including lists of partner institutions, researchers, and Indigenous communities, can be found at www.umass.edu/CBIKS.