To uphold the intention of integral and inherent cultural responsibility and obligation through a promise and action in regenerative reciprocity. It is the promise of continuance, of futurity; enacted and maintained through caring for, of and with Kin and Country; transmission of Knowledge, learning and teaching. It is legacy.
(Yoonggama is a Keerray Wooroong cultural value principle)
Yoonggama Ma Nga is a co-designed project in development by Dr Vicki Couzens (RMIT University) and Professor Suzi Hutchings (Swinburne University of Technology). The Yoonggama Ma Nga vision centres on crafting pedagogies, learning environments, courses and pathways, that grow learning outcomes and contribute to the prosperity of Indigenous peoples.
Yoonggama Ma Nga is founded in sovereign self-determined principles and values. These values centralise the importance of Indigenous leadership, sovereignty and self-determination in ensuring research impacts, knowledge translation, and outputs are culturally appropriate and represent quality and excellence in the field.
It provides an identified place and space that values First Nations Knowledge Systems and supports First Nations self-determined research priorities. A space and place where First Nations Knowledge Systems, epistemological, pedagogical, and methodological approaches are privileged and community identified research priorities are seeded, nurtured and supported to flourish.
A key focus is providing Indigenous Higher Degree by Research students a nurturing place to research, yarn, learn and share their knowledge, analytical skills and cultural understandings with each other and with Senior Indigenous Blakademics and visiting scholars.
The name Yoonggama Ma Nga combines Gunditjmara and Arrernte language terms meaning reciprocity, reflecting our passion and commitment to building and developing a First Nations cohort that is led by Indigenous academics and HDR candidates.
Join us during NAIDOC Week to celebrate the official launch of Yoonggama Ma Nga on Wednesday 9 July in the Storey Hall ‘Green Brain’ conference rooms, RMIT City Campus.
Details coming soon.
Vicki is a Keerray Wooroong Gunditjmara woman from the Western Districts of Victoria. Vicki has worked in Aboriginal community affairs for over 45 years. She is a Senior Knowledge Holder for Possum Skin Cloak Story and Language Reclamation and Revival in her Keerray Wooroong Mother Tongue. Vicki’s contributions in the reclamation, regeneration and revitalisation of cultural knowledge and practices extend across the ‘arts and creative cultural expression’ spectrum including language research and community development; public art, community arts, visual and performing arts, writing, publications and her own creative expression. Vicki acknowledges her Ancestors and Elders who guide her in her work.
Vicki was gifted a vision ‘to bring cloaks to live back in community’ from the Ancestors. This work alongside and in collaboration with other cloak makers, has seen the revitalisation and reinvigoration of Possum Cloak praxis into our lived cultural life across southeastern Australia. Vicki continues knowledge translation within her family and communities.
Suzi is a member of the Central Arrernte Nation. She is Director, Indigenous Research Development, Indigenous Engagement, Swinburne University of Technology. Her anthropological research centres on Indigenous native title claims; the impacts of criminal justice on Aboriginal youth; and she collaborates with First Nations producing music and performance.
Suzi holds positions on the boards of the Ilbijerri Theatre Company and PBS Community Radio, and she is the Indigenous member of the Swinburne University Human Research Ethics Committee. She hosts Subway Sounds on Melbourne community radio. Suzi is co-editor of Activist Scholarship with Indigenous peoples in the Global South (AlterNative, 2022) and author of ‘Liminal ambiguity: the tricky position of being Black in white skin’ in The Anthropology of Ambiguity, Alimardanian & Heffernan (eds), (University of Manchester Press, 2024).
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Yoonggama Ma Nga image credit: Ngalammeen by Vicki Couzens.
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.
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