An Australian First Nations Ontology: Determining an Australian First Nations’ Epistemology of Belongingness, through examples of an Art Genre and Education Pedagogy of Aboriginality
Creators: name: O'Chin, Hope
Publisher: name: University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Year: 2021
Subjects: Aboriginality
belongingness
ontology
oral history
art practice
Cherbourg

description: Ontology emanates from a sense of Being. In Knowing that Kabi-Kabi people belong to Country by lore and law, articulated through story-lines, ceremonies, song-lines, provides knowledge of my Kabi-Kabi, my sense of Belongingness – my Dreaming.
description: This research proposes an Australian First Nations’ Ontology, and does so through defining knowledge within an Epistemology of Belongingness through the contributions of Aboriginal art and education (pedagogy) to an identity for Australian society.
description: This thesis purports to contribute new knowledge about Australian First Nations culture and learning based on a new conceptual lens, that I call an Ontology of Belongingness. Through autoethnographic, narrative, curatorial, and creative practice methods, I demonstrate a new interactional model of Artistic Pedagogy that aims to facilitate and promote mutual understanding through inclusive pedagogic innovations. The autoethnography sheds new light on the place of Cherbourg artists and the ways in which Kabi-Kabi culture has been maintained in the face of colonial oppression.
description: This thesis argues that living in a community or place that has respect of governance through lore and law determines one’s values and beliefs and that this forms the basis of a civil society. Ethnographic research methods are applied to examine art and educational practices in relation to Indigenous knowledge systems, which have provided, and continue to provide, a sense of self and place.
description: The thesis proposes that understanding the ancient traditions of storytelling, art and song-lines offered First Nations’ peoples a way of surviving the oppression and dislocation associated with colonisation. It also proposes that such richness of experience needs to be harnessed and extended to the broader Australian society to effect real reconciliation.
description: It considers the non-citizenship of Australia’s First Nations for nearly 200 years, and how those barriers impeded access to and participation in Australia’s civil society. By drawing on the history and experiences of one Aboriginal community in Queensland: Cherbourg, the research offers evidence in the form of existing artworks, exhibitions, written and recorded recollections through oral histories.
description: It suggests that culture is not static and is influenced by many changes, some with distressing impact on individuals. Aboriginal lives certainly changed as a result of the newcomers’ European influences. Recollections from people and artistic portrayals depict forced round-ups away from the land to which they had traditional ties, away from the people related to them by ties of kinship. They were locked away, not being able to speak traditional languages, or practise any of the ceremonies that ensured the religious continuation of their group. Despite attempts to oppress them, it is now apparent that the fundamental values of Aboriginal culture were still being maintained.
description: As a narrative history, which weaves together the personal and the political, the thesis introduces art works from Cherbourg artists, and my own studio works, to demonstrate educational and art practice. The thesis concludes that in order to enable an united civil society, (an ‘Our Australia’ identity) the richness of Indigenous pedagogy needs to be incorporated into the national curriculum.