Family, Kinship and Kamilaroi

First Nation Aboriginal Australian pedagogy incorporates a circular and nonlinear notion of life. It is a philosophy that brings together ways of knowing, being, and
doing that is at the very heart of self-governance and custodial obligation for the
Kamilaroi First Nation Aboriginal People of Australia. This is contrary to the university
setting where “Indigenous” or “Aboriginal” pedagogy remains in danger of becoming
lost in translation with various contexts and meanings attached. Rather than custodial
First Nation governance a system of pan-Aboriginality has prospered within the
comparatively recently established Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academy,
where it was used as a strategy in the formation of a political community. Unfortunately
such positioning also resulted in every Aboriginal Australian being branded, without
regard to their individuality, through stereotyped images that exist in the popular
imagination. Consequently connection to traditional Aboriginal knowledge production
is falling victim to stereotyped romantic visions of Aboriginal identity only being seen
authentic if “traditional” or “remote enough”. As a result “traditional practice” is now
becoming synonymous with Whiteness. While there still remains authentic Aboriginal
pockets of identity connected to a traditional pedagogy of “multi generational learning”
these are located outside of the current university setting, situated within many
individual Aboriginal families and kinship systems throughout Australia. Kamilaroi is
one of these locations. Traditional language acquisition remains pivotal in reintroducing new generations of Kamilaroi children to a number of ritual ceremonies
throughout their lives as an ongoing process of life long learning. This is achieved via
Kamilaroi knowledge production in such a way to inform decolonising methodologies
seperate and unique to that of the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
academy.