Difference within Identity: Recognition, Growth and the Circularity of Indigenous Knowledge

ABSTRACT The concept of circular thinking is readily attributed to patterns of Indigenous knowledge, characterised as distinct from the supposed linearity of Western epistemology; to approach epistemology through this metaphor is to anticipate identity by difference and underscore the autonomy of knowledge within bounded cultural coordinates. In seeking a more nuanced appreciation of the interwoven contours of human knowing, I consider some leading Indigenous Australian thinkers who understand cultural identities to be consolidated through creative repetition and recognised within dynamic relationality. These explorations include Mandawuy Yunupiŋu’s interpretation of Yolŋu thought as a process of making “new connections and new separations”; the performance of manikay (public ceremonial song) by Wägilak singer Daniel Wilfred; Tyson Yunkaporta’s conceptualisation of “turnaround”; Wanta Jampijinpa Pawu’s framework of ngurra-kurlu (home-having); and Stan Grant’s interpretation of an Indigenous Voice to the Australian Parliament. In contrast to the circular demarcation of identity by difference, these voices demonstrate how difference within identity can give impetus to mutual formation and growth, suggesting a Hegelian twist on notions of circularity in which critical differentiation generates an expanding gyre of recognition and meaning.