The ripple effect: epistemic and professional justice in Indigenous education

Abstract

I was honoured to have been invited by the Editorial team of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (APJTE henceforth) as part of a panel at the Australia Teacher Education Association Conference 2021, which was a robust discussion about the eight challenges the editorial team set for the field of teacher education (Biesta, Takayama, Kettle, & Heimans, 2020). Before I share my thoughts in responding to the challenges set out in the paper outlining the statement about teacher education between principles, politics and practice by the APJTE editorial team, I centre my epistemic and ontological protocol of introducing my relatedness. My maternal connections are to the Daly River region (Wagiman Country) in the Northern Territory of Australia. I was born in Brisbane and raised around Southeast Queensland where my family have many community connections. I am fortunate to have a full appreciation of the many strengths, knowledges, and wisdoms in our communities, from Elders and diverse knowledge holders. The panel discussion had landed in NAIDOC week in Australia. NAIDOC stands for the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (Commonwealth of Australia, 2021). It originally emerged from Aboriginal groups about 100 years ago in the 1920ʹs which aimed to improve treatment and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples – but of course the resistance and advocacy started well before this in earlier colonial times. Our fight for survival, recognition and justice in this place is a long one. The theme for the 2021 NAIDOC is “Healing Country.” It is a timely reminder of the significant and existential crises we are facing in the world today, and how important Indigenous knowledges are in finding solutions to these crises (Tom, Sumida Huaman, & McCarty, 2019). The focus of my panel response was about epistemic and professional justice. These two concepts go hand in hand when considering the eight challenges to the field outlined by the editorial group of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education. Biesta et al. (2020) outline that the tensions between “the practicalities of the job” and the “engagement with educational theory, history, and scholarship” is “probably as old as the institutionalisation of teacher education itself” (p. 455). I argue that the struggle for justice in education and teacher education for Indigenous Australians is as old as the institutions of Australia itself. I want to be future focused in my response but to know where we are