INDG3002 Decolonising Institutions: Indigenous Critical Creative Praxis

2020

4.5

5 x 7-hour intensive workshops per semester
5 x 1-hour field trips per semester

Critical Reflection, Critical Creative Response, Group presentation, Workshop participation

This topic will propose that foundational and historical aspects of Institutional knowledge and practice are built upon racist ideologies. These ideologies include social and racial hierarchies that have specifically excluded Indigenous peoples as experts and knowledge holders. This topic will consider decolonising scholarship and ask what it means to decolonise and Indigenise knowledge that has been and is generated through contemporary Institutional practice. Through a series of local and global Indigenous texts/performances/resistances the topic will situate and deconstruct knowledges and disciplinary histories relating to Institutions such as Museums, Archives, Libraries and Universities. Through analysis of the partiality of knowledge generated within these spaces the topic will consider what is lacking or yet to emerge as well as responding to ideas like intersectionality, racialised assemblages, entanglement theories, gender and ability, ethnographic refusal and engaged creative resistance. The topic will be taught from Indigenous perspectives and will focus on Indigenous creative praxis as central in expressing Indigenous peoples cultural and political concerns.

This topic aims to encourage students to critically reflect on racist ideologies and histories of institutional knowledge while developing their understanding of the intersections of recent Cultural Theory and Posthumanities, Indigenous philosophies, and Museum/ Archival/ Institutional protocols and gain insight into Indigenous creative arts praxis that is decolonising and transformative.

On completion of this topic, students will be expected to be able to

1. Critically analyse historical and contemporary cultural protocols in local and global institutions

2. Examine how Indigenous creative arts contributes to decolonising institutions and broader society

3. Debate understandings of Indigenous creative works through analysis of key ideas.