Everyday watching and learning in an Indigenous Australian community

Abstract

language, ways of being, cultural practices and beliefs, and local history have been limited by changes brought on by formal education, modernity and globalisation. However dynamic these factors and processes may be, introduced Western institutional practices, values and expectations have nonetheless eroded the learning that occurs in the everyday environment, and schooling has reduced the time spent acquiring culturally-specific knowledge systems, languages and worldviews. Research has demonstrated that shared cultural practices and beliefs are vital for identity strengthening in Indigenous Australia. However, studies of the process of this learning and teaching remain few. Examined here are three learning events embedded in the everyday social context of a remote Aboriginal community in Australia. Based on an anthropological and art historical research project that investigated the creative, social and cultural world of an Aboriginal community, this paper focuses on community-based learning events in the quotidian environment. Revealed here are the immediate needs and desires of community members and the manner in which local-specific values, practices and knowledge are transmitted intergenerationally. We argue that these events are a key factor in identity strengthening, cultural continuity and cultural renewal.