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We acknowledge the unceded lands, skies and waterways on which we come together for research, teaching and learning at Deakin. We pay respect to Elders and Ancestors of Wurundjeri Country, Eastern Maar Country and Wadawurrung Country where our campuses are located, and those of Country where we live and work remotely.

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Acknowledgement of Country: Deakin-wide and online

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Today we are inviting you in to our cooperative inquiry. Peta will introduce the Regenerative Futures RG and the project. Bron will share some insights into our principles and processes, and then Amanda will share some of her reflections on what’s happening to us - the impact / repatterning from her perspective. We will then head out for a walk, and invite you to cosnider what comes up about relationality while you relate with Country. Well come back for reflection…

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Deakin's Culturally Regenerative Universities project is hosted by The Centre for Regenerating Futures. The Centre is part of Deakin's research ecology, within the Faculty of Arts & Education at Deakin University. We are researchers responding to Anthropocene challenges through transdisciplinary research.

Our core group of co-researchers have participated in a variety of Centre activities and events over the last few years - On Country Days, Futures Forums, Regenerators, reading groups, research projects, conference presenting, leading workshops, collaborative writing projects and more.

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Culturally Regenerative Universities - CRF planning

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AI image created from the bullet points about cultural regeneration

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Our shared understanding is that cultural regeneration and culturally regenerative practices are a Katitjin bidi (knowledge path) towards

An ethic of care and kindness: Involves deep listening and creating space for being together

Respecting Aboriginal knowledge: Inclusive of Traditional Owner and First Nations people, cultural knowledge, practices, protocols and relations

The business of experiencing: Expanding capacity to respond to challenges through lived experiences of relating with sentient, animate places and kin in non-linear time

Place-based / place-led learning: Developing caring relations with community and learning from and with Country

Foregrounding Indigenous knowledges: Learning ways of being, knowing relating that support reciprocity, renewal and restoration

Accepting complexity and ambiguity: Transformative process that needs to be cross/inter/transdisciplinary approaches

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Grounded in ethic of care and kindness    Respects Aboriginal knowledges    Place-based (led by Country)     Cross-, trans- and inter-disciplinary       About the business of experiencing 

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Peta, Bron, Llewellyn, Jacqui, Amanda and Genee have been meeting regularly as a group since May, and weekly during the cooperative inquiry seminar season. We meet on Zoom, because we are spread out across 3 of Deakin's 5 campuses. Our conversations each Friday have become a 'beautiful and regenerative' space for reflecting, sharing experiences, yarning and thinking together about culturally regenerative practice within the context of Deakin University.

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Nature Journaling Arts-based Un-workshop at the CRF Retreat

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Our cooperative inquiry is very emergent. It's feels like a continuation of, or extension of, our participation in the centre. We didn't really 'start', so there isn't a beginning, or a project design. We're also finding that the different ways of knowing in cooperative inquiry (experiential, propositional, practical, presentational) are blending and folding over each other - they are entangled and relational!

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Mouth of the Hopkins River, Standing on Peek Whurrong Country looking across to Kirrae Whurrung , learning with Educator Brett (Boorook) during an "On Country" Day.

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We have loved meeting weekly after the seminars, reflecting together on how being part of this project is affecting us, recording the conversation, picking up where we left off the week before. We are all reflecting in our own ways, sharing our experiences of participating in, advocating for, and leading culturally regenerative practice in our workplaces. We've been using words like repatterning to describe what is happening to us through this deeper participation in, and intentional focus on, cultural regeneration.

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CRF Experience | Amanda

Amanda shares her experience of being part of the Centre, and the project, in this video.

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Genee's reflection

And so it has become a time for listening,

to let go of the raggle-taggle words

that I have always seemed to want to speak,

the words that keep tumbling out in my search,

and just to listen.

To listen and to learn.

Time to stand on Country,

and hear the whispers of the Ancestors in every breeze,

rustle and twig snap,

to hear the lure of the Songlines

in every pathway and track,

to hear the secrets
in every crash of the waves.

It is my time
to listen and hear the messages and lessons
in Country and Place.

It is my time to listen and to learn.

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Tree planting colleagues - Dr Llewellyn Wishart & Dr Rebecca Cairns (School of Education)

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Tree Planting on Delama Dja | Llewellyn

I've being based on three out Deakin's four Australian campuses. My place-based connections with each campus metropolitan, regional and rural has been an important part of making work in a performative academic institution livable. The non-human beings, trees, plants, creeks, wetlands and rivers that form the landscapes of these campuses in their own way express dāna (Pali/Sanskrit) unconditional generosity and remind me to be thankful (nyatne ~ Wadawurrung) for their presence and role in supporting spiritual wellbeing and sustaining the web of life. Re-minding also to see beyond anthropocentric self-occupation and the noise of neoliberal individualism that can easily condition University working life.

So getting out on Country, planting trees in one's workplace is a privilege, a regenerative practice but also a small expression of reciprocity and interbeing.

Tree Planting ~ Delama Dja (Embrace Country ~ Wadawurrung)

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Ripple effects of learning and leadership

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From experiential to practical knowing | Bron

In some ways, being part of this project feels like home to me because its and extension of a way of being, knowing and relating that we practice in the CRF. In our weekly catchups we've been talking about how these practices are a repatterning. But I'm starting to notice shifts in my work through the intentionality of cooperative inquiry. Being part of the project is creating space for a consciousness: how I can bring experiences of culturally regenerative practice into my new role, and team, in a different part of the university? It's become a way of working that I want to share with my new colleagues, as part of regenerating our team culture. In one small example, Acknowledging Country, and our Elders and Ancestors, at the start of our team meeting this morning was a lovely way to connect on a different level with my new team. I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes us next.

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Wetlands Deakin University Djilang Waurn Ponds Campus (Photo: Llewellyn Wishart)

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Tree Planting - EfS & regenerative practices Aug 25

1. Education for Sustainability (EfS) mightn't always describe elemental contact, being touched by, being in touch with other lifeforms and natural processes as EfS. In the video link above messaging about sustainability learning for children, young people and teachers is brought back to first principles: opening the senses, trace the movements of other beings across landscapes and on Country. Makes me reflect on how to build regenerative knowing and being through multi-sensory and ecosomatic pathways.

2. On coffee or lunch breaks I've taken to quietly walking and whispering to the big trees, birds and waters around my home campus workplace. Acknowledging Country by saying hello and paying respects to all custodians and ancestors in this place. Feeling presence and vibration of large river red gums (biyal ~ Wadawurrung), towering spotted gums, white faced heron, sulphur crested cockatoos (djirnap ~ Wadawurrung), magpies (parrwang ~ Wadawurrung), wood duck, swamp hen and ponds/wetlands (yaluk ~ Wadawurrung) that weave their way through parts of this campus. "Hello, this is Llewellyn my respects to you, and you and you..."

This restorative contemplative practice has emerged organically as connections to the natureculture of this University workplace have deepened over many years.

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Needle Bush (Hakea Sericea) in full bloom at my place - Wurundjeri Country, Cockatoo. 

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I woke up in the middle of the night after a challenging day at work, with the answer to what I needed to relieve the stress. "You need nature". It's coming into to Poorneet (tadpole season) on Wurundjeri Country where I live, and work for 2/3 of the week. The wattle (mootchong) are in full yellow display and the days are getting warmer. The frogs have definitely gotten louder this week, males calling for a mate, there will be tadpoles soon in the creek that runs from an underground spring next door. I mentioned to one of my new colleagues that taking regular breaks and going outside is part of what keeps me feeling well and grounded. When she asked how she could support me easing into my new role, I said she could check if I've been out for a walk. She did that today, and I went for a wander around Delama Dja, on Wathaurong Country. It was a quick walk, exploring a place that is new to me, noticing different bird life, blossoms, and smells...and there were frog sounds here too.

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Mindful meditative walking | Jacqui

At first it felt awkward. My weight was on the balls of my feet; urging me to propel forwards and move to the rhythm I was used to, and to the pace of my mind. But that was not the task and certainly not the rhythm expected in meditative walking. In resisting the rush, I became more aware – aware of my feet, my new rhythm, my body in space, but then, of my surrounds. Walking across the university campus, I began to feel some stillness amongst the busyness of campus life. It reminded me of the millions of things that rush at us across any day, and that take our attention; that we feel compelled to respond to; that contribute to us feeling overloaded, exhausted and wrung out. We hold up cars as we step mindfully across the pedestrian crossing, but nothing seems to matter. We have all the time in the world.

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Tree planting at University as culturally regenerative practice - Myself and colleagues in the School of Education have been involved in the University's tree planting initiatives at my home campus Geelong (Waurn Ponds) for many years now. With dedicated staff and students over 25,000 ground covers, herbs, grasses, shrubs and trees endemic to this corner of Wadawurrung Dja (Country) have been planted. The work continues year on year manifesting as linked biodiversity corridors and wetlands. Happy smiling humans getting off screens, out of offices, connecting with Country and...each other in a regenerative ritual.

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Tree planting - biodiversity corridors Aug 2025

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Tree planting on Wadawurrung Country linking Waurn Ponds creek to campus wetlands.

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CRF Members joining in a Critical Forest Studies Collaboratory workshop during an On Country Day at Sherbrooke Forest, Wurundjeri Country in the 'Potato Patch' 

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Tree Planting - Delama Dja Aug 2025

In October we are planning to host a "Regenerator" where we will share learnings from our cooperative inquiry with our Centre colleagues. Llewellyn will lead us on a walk on Delama Dja, so we can see this culturally regenerative practice, and think about how the centre has been supporting us to become culturally regenerative. What ripple effects are we noticing? We will also host an on Country Day on Wurundjeri Country, returning to what has become a special place for the centre - Sherbrooke Forest. We're looking forward to continuing our collaborations with Country and each other.

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Cultural Regenerative Regenerator

Inviting CRF members, allies and friends to be part of a CRF Regenerator focusing on culturally regenerative practices at Deakin. We will share a bit about the CRU project, walk together through Delama Dja, and yarn about how this project, and being part of the centre, is creating ripple effects into our research, teaching and leadership.

Friday 17 October, Waurn Ponds Campus, 10am-12pm followed by lunch from 12.15pm (Waurn Ponds Estate). Arrive 9.45am for a 10am start.

Meet at Building IC2.108 Meeting Room

10-10.30 Introduce the CRU project / our practices - Zoom for those who are not able to make it.

10.30-11.30 Deakin Delama Dja Walk

For those who aren't with us there will be an activity involving being with the Country you are on.

11.30-12pm Yarning circle which we will record (Zoom if possible).

12.15pm Lunch at Deakin Waurn Ponds Estate.

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Link to OISI - staff login needed

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Deakin wide acknowledgement of Country

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Deakin University acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of all the unceded lands, skies and waterways on which Deakin students, staff and communities come together.

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Deakin Pro-Vice Chancellor Indigenous Strategy and Innovation Mark Rose & Senior Manager Indigenous Programs Deakin Library Tui Raven conversation in 'On The Shoulders of Giants' series.

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'Graduate Learning Outcome 8: Global Citizenship' (GLO8) is committed to providing students with a practical, ethical and socio-cultural awareness and understanding by engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and diverse community perspectives. Our team has been tasked with preparing academic teams for integrating these Knowledges and perspectives into core University curriculum, across every Faculty and discipline.

"Our team believes that cultural diversity is a valuable resource in education and should be embraced. The GLO8 project positions First Nations voices and communities at the centre for positive change, self-determination and an inclusive future."

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Deakin University's response to the Yoorook Justice Comission

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Blak Focus blog post from Deakin Library on Indigenous Knowledges in Higher Education.

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Indigenous knowledges are shaped by tens of thousands of years of cultural, environmental, and ancestral continuity. Indigenous knowledges are increasingly recognised as being critical to the intellectual and ethical fabric of Australian Higher Education institutions.

For all of colonial history, Indigenous cultural heritage and peoples have been excluded, marginalised, fetishised and 'othered' (Bhabha, 1983 & 2004, Fanon, 2007, Hook, 2005,). This exclusion and othering have perpetuated deficit narratives and reinforced epistemological dominance (Rigney, 1999, Moreton-Robinson, 2015). However, the integration of Indigenous knowledges into teaching, research, and governance practices challenges colonial norms of knowledge production, offering a more socially just and relevant education system (Nakata, 2007; Martin, 2008).

Growing recognition of the significance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges has led to national strategies aimed at redressing these imbalances. The Universities Australia Indigenous Strategy 2022-2025 outlines a sector-wide commitment to embedding Indigenous perspectives and knowledges across institutional practices. It highlights the need for genuine partnerships with Indigenous communities and the recognition of Indigenous knowledge holders as experts in their own right (Universities Australia, 2022). The strategy also calls for the recognition of Indigenous knowledges as a distinct and unique intellectual tradition, yet challenges remain in embedding these knowledges beyond tokenistic curriculum additions. However, Nakata, Nakata, Keech, and Bolt (20212) highlight that there is a tension in embedding Indigenous knowledges in the curriculum without reinforcing colonial logics.

Through the Deakin Indigenous Strategy 2023-2028, the university aims to incorporate Indigenous knowledges into the curriculum and seeks to "position authentic Indigenous Knowledges into the fabric of Australian life." The university aims to inform the teaching and research spaces in ways that respect Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing, acknowledging epistemological differences while also critically engaging with colonial histories.

Curriculum Guide

The Australian Council for Dean Sciences research grant project Co-creation of Indigenous Curricular in Science has considered how tertiary students engage with Indigenous knowledges and systems in ways that question the impacts of colonialism. Through the creation of A guide for curriculum development First Nations Australians' Science, teachers can ethically engage with teaching about Indigenous knowledges in science without teaching Indigenous culture. The guide also addresses colonial practices by asking teachers to reflect on their own and their institutions' positionality (Ah Chee, Bennett, Cirkony, Coutts, Fairbrother, Gunning, Raven, Sambono, Singh, Uink, Ziebell, 2024).

Elevating Indigenous voices

The Deakin 50 th Indigenous Oral History and First Nations Education project aims to "interrogate the historical marginalisation of Indigenous worldviews and lived experiences in Western education and archival systems" (Raven, Fletcher, Minney, Potter, Lauer, Sabet Collins, Burgoyne, Wain, McCulloch, Catrice, 2025). The project will include:

Recording oral histories of at least 10 Indigenous people with connections to Deakin.

An Indigenous Community Yarn session during NAIDOC week. We encourage all Deakin Indigenous staff, students, and alumni to register for this event. We have limited capacity, so get in early.

Research the creation of a digital archive to increase accessibility for family members to recorded oral histories.

An exhibition including excerpts of oral histories, findings from the Community Yarn and university archival materials.

To move beyond symbolic inclusion and address the deeper epistemological and structural challenges, universities must commit to transformative and innovative changes grounded in Indigenous leadership and ethical and cultural engagement. It is only through these authentic and responsive partnerships that universities will be provided with the necessary expertise and innovation to succeed in this goal.

At Deakin Library, by collaborating with the Office of Indigenous Innovation and Strategy, NIKERI and faculties, we are working in these ways to genuinely integrate Indigenous knowledges.

References

Ah Chee, J., Bennett, R., Cirkony, C., Coutts, K., Fairbrother, L., Gunning, T., Raven, T., Sambono, J., Singh, L-J., Uink, B., Ziebell, A. (2024) A guide for curriculum development - First Nations Australians' Science. Australian Council of Deans of Science grant project. Published by Deakin University. Retrieved from https://www.acds.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/A-guide-for-curriculum-development-First-Nations-Australians-Science-Online-v2.pdf

Australian Government, Department of Education (2024) Australian Universities Accord - Final Report. Retrieved from https://universitiesaustralia.edu.au/policy-submissions/diversity-equity/universities-australias-indigenous-strategy-2022-2025/

Bhabha, H. K. (1983). The Other Question.... Screen, 24(6), 18-36. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/24.6.18

Bhabha, H. K. (2004). The location of culture. Taylor & Francis Group. Retrieved from https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=6574a8f7-ab77-3a6b-ab63-1455f1d4ab76

Deakin University. (2023). Deakin Indigenous Strategy 2023-2028. Retrieved from https://www.deakin.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/2568125/Deakin-Indigenous-Strategy-2023-2028.pdf

Fanon, F. 1925-1961., & Philcox, R. (2007). Black skin, white masks / Frantz Fanon ; translated from the French by Richard Philcox. Grove Press.

Hook, D. (2005). The Racial Stereotype, Colonial Discourse, Fetishism, And Racism. Psychoanalytic Review, 92(5), 701-34. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/racial-stereotype-colonial-discourse-fetishism/docview/195060764/se-2

Martin, K. L. (2008). Please knock before you enter : Aboriginal regulation of outsiders and the implications for researchers. 168 p. Retrieved from https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/family.a143001

Moreton-Robinson, A. (2015). The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. University of Minnesota Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt155jmpf

Nakata, M. (2007). The Cultural Interface. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, Suppl.1, 36, 7-14. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1326011100004646

Nakata, N. M., Nakata, V., Keech, S., & Bolt, R. (2012). Decolonial goals and pedagogies for Indigenous studies. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 120-140. Retrieved from https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18628

Raven, T., Fletcher, G., Minney, P., Potter, M., Lauer, K., Sabet Collins, M., Wain, J., McCulloch, A., Burgoyne, C., Catrice, A. (2025) Project Description Protocol - Deakin Human Research Ethics Application 2024-HREA0045

Rigney, L.-I. (1999). Internationalization of an Indigenous Anticolonial Cultural Critique of Research Methodologies: A Guide to Indigenist Research Methodology and Its Principles. Wicazo Sa Review, 14(2), 109-121. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.2307/1409555
Image credit: Through Learning We Heal by Talitha Podger. Permission for use by Tui Raven supported by 'Agreement for License of Artwork' (2024).

Post taxonomies

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Blak Focus June 2025 Edition - Indigenous Knowledges in Higher Education

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Indigenous knowledges are shaped by tens of thousands of years of cultural, environmental, and ancestral continuity. Indigenous knowledges are increasingly recognised as being critical to the intel...

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Experiential, presentational, proposition, and practical ways of knowing

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Four premises on which this research rests are that:

Universities can become culturally regenerative, by using revitalising practices in, of and through place-based teaching, learning, researching, governing and daily practice. Everyone has the capacity to learn to reconnect with their places and ecosystems.  This situates the research within the environmental humanities.

There is much to be learned socio-culturally, and cooperative inquiry emphasises that experiential, imaginal and practical ways of knowing, being and doing as just as important as propositional, abstract and verbal ways of knowing, and it is transformative of practice.  Cooperative Inquiry can enable the learning of place-based interconnectedness (Wooltorton & Reason, 2023), and bring about social change (Wooltorton et al., 2022).

These rich concepts – revitalising wisdom, practices and ways of knowing – are current and practical in Indigenous and place-based cultures and ways of knowing, being and doing – everywhere. As a place-based philosophy, Indigenous knowledge is replete with explanations and descriptions of a living, thriving world of relationships, which is still common in other parts of the world including parts of the UK and Europe.

This project is one of ‘walking together’ in deeply respectful ways of learning that need to form part of a new, mainstream socio-culture. (Wooltorton, Stephenson, et al., 2025)

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Michelle Maloney & Mary Graham session at the Climate Change Education Summit in 2024 - Caring for Country and Education

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CCE Summit - Caring for Country and Education

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Panopto is provided for official University practice.Content is copyright and communicated to you by permission, under licence or relying on exceptions in the Australian Copyright Act.Any further use of this material is subject to copyright. Please refer to the Conditions of Use and Copyright and Information Privacy Notice available through the “Panopto Info Help” page. CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B.

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Bron recommended Hospicing Modernity as a good read (Vanessa Machado de Oliviera / Andreotti) - great exercises / activities that help bring attention to and challenge the ways we participate in modernity. Peta shared the upcoming ‘sequel’ https://www.amazon.com.au/Outgrowing-Modernity-Navigating-Complexity-Accountability/dp/B0DMVDJ4VG  Jacqui gave us: Booko: Compare New and Used Book & DVD prices with Booko

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https://openurl.ebsco.com/c/np77rt/EPDB%3Acat00097a%3A3%3A1367587/detailv2?sid=ebsco%3Aplink&id=ebsco%3Acat00097a%3Adeakin.b5018675&x-cgp-token=np77rt&link_origin=none

Living on Stolen Land.

Authors

Kwaymullina, Ambelin.

ISBN

9781925936261

Publication type

eBook

Publication date

2020

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This is a recording of Bronwyn's Futures Forum presentation for Deakin's Centre For Regenerating futures. She talks about her PhD research which aligns in some ways as a form of cooperative inquiry. Her PhD Thesis is uploaded to the cooperative inquiry folder in the google drive.

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CRF - Futures Forum - Bronwyn Sutton - July 2025

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CRU Delphi research design

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This is Al Fricker’s latest paper, on Yarning as a decolonial praxis. Such a great contribution!

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Frontiers | Yarning as decolonial praxis in initial teacher training: an Australian context

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Yarning has been a widespread practice for First Nations people across the Australian continent for approximately 70,000 years. Yarning as a process of commu…

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At yesterday’s facilitators meeting, talking about Grant writings, Len Collard challenged us to consider the ways we are still thinking/talking in western mindsets, and the impact this has. This was in response to Sandra noticing we were still talking in a binary way about indigenous/non indigenous people and knowledges. Dualities and bifurcation, which was not the intention of our project. Interesting. Len went on to encourage us to ask questions in the academy, and asking us how we are moving things forward. He storied an aspect of lore that resonated with an experience I had last week. I felt challenged / uncomfortable by this and the response of one of the others in the group which came across to me as though they knew everything and were challenging what he was saying. I spoke about an experience that resonated, from last weekend, when Aunty Jo had asked me (basically) who are your people, and we found a connection that binds us. She also told me to stop apologising for talking so much, reminded me we were yarning and said ‘that’s what we do in our culture’. Sharing who we are, where we are from and what we are about is respectful, reciprocal and relational and a part of what us so very needed in the university. It takes practice, and paying close attention to what’s coming up. I’ve just read the attached article from Jidah Clark about treaty. Noticing the principles from aboriginal lore that are informing the treaty process (bullet points about 2/3 through the article) resonates with how I think we should be ‘leading’ organisations and people. To a degree it’s similar to my approach, and how I’m going about my work, but is more explicit. This is grounded in lore. It’s got me wondering about how I might read my leadership practice and theory through lore/law and treaty making. And, in relation to CRF and CRU, I’m wondering how the development of the CRF aligns with this (or is different). Could looking at the Centre in this way help us write something about how it is culturally regenerative, and what the future might look like, for the centre (maybe) in a different form? Still within the university, still with the same purpose. Could our appreciative/cooperative inquiry inform a proposal / grant bid to keep the centre running? Or to create a new iteration? Could the Ian Potter grant do this, and who else should we invite at Deakin? Who would host if it’s not the centre? All the questions. I want to write more about this in relation to positionalities because it’s activated something (affectively) within me!

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Recognition of Aboriginal Law, Lore and Cultural Authority in the Victorian Treaty Process - Treaty Authority

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Tarwirri Presentation by Jidah Clark, Chair and Treaty Authority Member

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This is a link to the Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property Protocol for the ABC’s Deep Time project. Speaking of ethics, to me this is an exemplary expression of research ethics.

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ABC News Story Lab collaborated with dozens of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge holders and scientists to explore 65,000 years of history.

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June 2025

Regenerative approaches to repatterning the cultural norms of the “research conference”

Breath, as (our) elemental connection to the web of life, as a way of leaning into the trouble of climate catastrophe/ecocide/inexorable change.

Breath was one of our premises from which to begin some of our planning for a research conference workshop within our University’s School of Education (SoE) – The Future of Education a futuring inquiry process. We found a reference point in Róisín O’Gorman (2024) What takes your breath away? Notes towards

somatic training in times of ecological crises, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 15:3,

518-538, DOI: 10.1080/19443927.2024.2372414

Our inquiry with our peers and colleagues interwove with whole and small group dialogue animated and mobilised by regenerative improvisational, dramatic and somatic movement practices exploring 2 questions:

·       How do we feel about climate change, biospheric, ecological and civilisational collapse? (small group)​

·       ITE and educational research continue to be a largely Anthropocentric enterprise! How does the uncertainty of our Anthropocene futures change the nature of education and how should the SoE respond, what are the implications for our teaching and research?​

In my planning journal notes I wrote:

Breath, movement, stillness and gravitational awareness (practices) what connects us to the web of life and our inquiry process reflects human systems implicated and entangled with nature’s systems. Somatic movement and improvisational practices provoke attention to our own body systems, that express our living process, connects us to the wider web of life rather than perpetuating nature-culture fractures and disjunctions which may lead to “othering” of our biosphere, bioregions, local ecologies, Country.

These regenerative practices of shake & stillness, breathing and stillness, whole group movement and murmuration, being earthbound connect body-feet to floor/earth, gently and playfully aimed to disrupt, interrupt habituated patterns of interaction commonly seen in academic cultures e.g., expert talking at you, talking with others as the only mode of dialogue, talking at each other, linear non-relational approaches. Everyone in this conference session (around 40 people) stayed with the process, stayed in the room, stayed generously with the uncomfortable questions being asked and the disruptive, curious practices we invited people to engage in.

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Regenerator-Exploring Delaware Dja, led by Llewellyn. 

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It was during our regenerator that Jacqui said ‘it’s this repatterning’. I wrote it across the top of my notebook page while listening to her reflections in response to our question of what is happening to us, how are we affected by being part of the project and the CRF. This question has followed us and led us since the cooperative inquiry season.

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Why this image?

Seemingly lost for words.

I'm expected to know what I'm writing, how to write and write and write and.....

But I don't know.

Knowing is more than the mind, the crafting of a sentence, the focus of energy from the (un-affected, conscious) brain through the fingers to type. Isn't it? Maybe?

Challenging expectations. Welcome my affected, unconscious self :) (Ready but not ready to embrace)

How and why am I patterned this way?

Perhaps I could dig into this patterning. But that seems somewhat scary, I'm not sure what will unravel.

Easier to stay structured, bounded, knowing 'what' to say, following accepted practices, established norms.

Disrupt (please, if that's OK). Asking permission. Why?

Entangled shifting. Noticing the unusual to realise the usual.

Altering to view, belong, become other-wise, self-wise.

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Responding to Week 2 of the cooperative inquiry seminar. This was a recording of Emily Poelina's conversation with Aunty Anne Poelina recorded at the AAEE conference.

Listening again to Emily speak about being back on Country after living elsewhere and working as an academic. Her life's work is

"Championing Willianu, protect it and share knowledge with future generations. There is no one better to do the research because of my relationship with Wiliayanoo."

She spoke abouit how wilianyoo was given to her as a totem, and what this means. And spoke about knowledge and learning in a way that resonated deeply with me, even though our cultures are different.

"Asking and talking is a way of learning knowledge about Wilianyoo, listening and behaving well is a way of earning it"

This was perhaps the comment that has stayed with me most from the whole cooperative inquiry season, something to think with about what it means to be part of culturally regenerative practice.

I also wrote in this reflection:

The pull of country,

A switch flicked

watching this

Connecting with the SBS show.

The birdlife where I live

{And as I write this, I remember}

Fieldwork with family, seasonal being with.

{And as I listen, I remember}

An antidote to climate

{And as I write this , I remember}

Recording our reflections of place

{And as I write this, I remember}

In ways that work for us

{And as I write this, I remember}

A place to share them

Researching and learning with place

{And as I reflect, I remember}

goes beyond the bounds

{And as I write this , I remember}

of reserch and place.

{And as I write this, I remember}

Thinking about time and slowness...

{And as I write this, I remember}

"More Than"

Co Researchers

I am a student to them

I am a student to place

And a reminder,

at some point,

to listen

to the last ten mins

of Emily's talk

An elder in training

As Emily talks

I listen,

I remember

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Ria Jago's presentation

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Seminar 4 Culturally Regenerative Universities Ria Jago.mp4

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 Yarn Circle | Delama Dja Walk | River Red Gum Canopy

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October 2025

Centre for Regenerating Futures (CRF) & Culturally Regenerative Universities (CRU) Regenerator Impressions

Lead up to this day 12-09-25

Why do we feel so connected in this (CRU) grouping/subculture?

Being witnessed and being held by the collective energy and ethos and then held by Country place, space…

Reflecting on Delama Dja (Waurn Ponds Campus Walk) and Wadawurrung Custodians Bunjil’s lore:

·       Do no harm

·       Have no greed

·       Love, respect and care for Mother Country and she will care for you

Cultivate a mind unsullied by greed, non-harm, reciprocity and interbeing with Mother Earth/Gaia no separation - trees, plants, skies, animals all are ancestors...

On the Day 17-10-25

Continuity of Country to all phenomena across country across places, space and time, all are kin, all is Country.

Shared insights from our walking and embodying Delama Dja Walk (Deakin University Waurn Ponds campus) and outdoor yarning circle at forest walk-wetlands site . People were online and in-person.

Our yarn circle (in-person and online) began with two combined practices “The Stand” (from Contact Improvisation) connecting vertically with self, earth and sky and “geographic listening practice” reaching into space with hearing only while being unsighted.

Zoom meeting camera pointing at the sky

Non-linearity, experiential, propositional, repatterning, leading from relationship, interbeing, connectedness and safety.

Quick! Don’t get ready” ~  John Tarrant contemporary Zen koan

The centrality of “affect” in our collaborative inquiry process.

One taste emotion ~ intellect

Eadie Mayhew – “The trees want to know how are you?

Grounded in place, space, interbeing, slow cultural practices, who am I?

Only one reality ~ Spinoza – no differentiation

All sounds express emptiness

We don’t pay enough attention to sound and aesthetics of noise

On this bright day, in this yarn circle, so many wise calm voices, murmurings, human, more than human, digital clouds and sky, bird and machinery chatter…

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Methodology - Appreciative / Cooperative Inquiry

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Understandings of Repatterning:

In our case  CRU process and practices afforded gentle interruption of patterns of normalcy around meeting, dialogue and academic research engagement. Repatterning as rewiring of schemas or habits of mind connected with research culture.

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Locating our inquiry within a higher education context

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Manuscript writing!

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“Research groups and networks provide friendship, mentoring, collaboration, advice, and help in crises.”

— The Good University: What Universities Actually Do and Why it’s Time for Change by Raewynn Connell
https://read.amazon.com.au/kp/kshare?asin=B0B5ZDLK25&id=bhxpiepgdzcktccqurmlxjjenu