Indigenous Knowledge: the wisdom of deep listening | RSA Replay

Summary

The discussion argues that Indigenous knowledge is grounded in relationships: between people, Country, other living things, and place. Knowledge is not simply information that can be extracted, written down, or taught as a detached subject. It is learned through observation, participation, care, and respectful interaction with a living world.

Main Ideas

• Knowledge as “action-relations”: Norm Sheehan describes knowledge as relational and enacted. Events in nature can communicate information. For example, a fly bite near a river might signal something about crocodiles and the possibility of collecting their eggs. Knowledge exists in relationships and systems, not only in human minds.
• Country is alive and intelligent: The speakers describe Country and ecosystems as living systems that hold knowledge. Humans are participants in these systems, not observers standing outside them. The idea that everything is connected is more than a metaphor: interactions make up life.
• Respect is essential: Tyson Yunkaporta and Sheehan argue that people must approach the world with humility and respect. Respect means recognizing that we do not fully understand the systems we depend on, and being willing to listen, learn, and adjust our beliefs. Sheehan contrasts this with empathy, which he calls a starting point rather than a substitute for sustained respect.
• Colonial and extractive assumptions damage relationships: The speakers criticize worldviews that treat land and living systems as property or resources to be used. They link environmental harm to disrespect for Country and other forms of life. They also challenge the idea that humans are separate individuals rather than interconnected with one another and the world.
• Education can be harmful when it turns knowledge into a token: Yunkaporta is skeptical that Indigenous knowledge can be meaningfully conveyed through worksheets, tests, or a standardized curriculum. He warns that institutions may take knowledge out of context, reshape it to fit their own systems, and then claim it has failed. Sheehan and Yunkaporta also describe schooling as competitive and damaging, often serving institutional and economic priorities rather than children’s wellbeing.
• Learning should be lived and place-based: The speakers describe learning on Country with community guidance as powerful because it involves actual relationships with place. A university program that brought students onto Country had a strong impact, but the speakers warn that such experiences lose meaning when reduced to a standardized, token version.
• Repair and care offer a way forward: The discussion highlights “cultures of repair” and “cultures of sustainment”—ways communities keep relationships and knowledge alive amid broader systems that pull them apart. Caring for one another, for children, and for Country is presented as more important than competition and individual achievement.
• Relation, not power, is a better way to understand life: Yunkaporta challenges the idea that living things are primarily driven by a “will to power.” He suggests they are driven by a “will to relation”: plants, animals, and people exist through their connections with others.
• Hope depends on respectful change: The speakers suggest that people need to change beliefs and practices so they better fit the living world. Knowledge and authority come from respectful attention to a place and its relationships, rather than from control or institutional power.

Approaches and Lessons Discussed

• Learn by participating: Treat knowledge as something developed through action and relationships, not just as material to memorize.
• Learn on Country: Where possible, learn in and with the place being discussed, guided by knowledgeable community members and Elders. Avoid treating this as a one-off excursion or a performance of cultural content.
• Practice respect before claiming expertise: Acknowledge the limits of what you know, listen to the people and places involved, and allow understanding to develop through ongoing engagement.
• Teach care and cooperation: Prioritize care for oneself, others, and Country over systems that rank people through competition.
• Use experiential learning to examine governance: Yunkaporta describes an exercise in which groups address the same task using different governance approaches—collaborative Indigenous governance, liberal consensus, and command-and-control—and then compare what happens. The aim is to learn by applying and experiencing different systems.
• Support community-led knowledge: Avoid extracting Indigenous knowledge and forcing it into institutional frameworks. Support learning through family, community, and place, while respecting the people responsible for that knowledge.

Speakers Featured

• Philipa Duthie — Director of RSA Oceania and event host.
• Professor Norm Sheehan — Indigenous knowledge scholar and professor at the University of Queensland.
• Dr Tyson Yunkaporta — Author of Sand Talk and senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges.