Positioning Indigenous Knowledge as Philosophy
Mark Rose (La Trobe University)

April 29, 2015, 12:00pm - 2:00pm
Philosophy program, La Trobe University

Humanities 2, Room 431
La Trobe University
Melbourne
Australia

Organisers:

Aaron Harrison
La Trobe University

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The reach of the colonial arm was much broader than mere land acquisition and military appropriation.  On the homelands of nearly five hundred Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations the might of the clenched colonial fist swept away much of everyday life for the Indigene on their conquered land.  While spoils were abundant for the acquirers in their haste to satisfy their insatiable economic thirst they purged Indigenous Knowledge and Knowledge Systems, tens of thousands of years of philosophy.

Modern day empirical evidence in the form of carbon dating validate what Australia’s First Nation people have always known and claimed, that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people date back to between forty and sixty thousand years.  With this in mind and accepting the premise of being the ‘world oldest culture’ then the corollary must be that Australian First Peoples are the world’s oldest intellectual tradition and philosophical tradition. 

The development of an active and vibrant Indigenous academy combined an emerging appetite aboard for ancient knowledge that has spurned the elevation of ‘old knowledge’ and ironically called it ‘new knowledge’.  At present around the world ‘Traditional Knowledge (TK)’ and of more relevance here in Australia ‘Indigenous Knowledge (IK)’ has emerged as a recognised academic pursuit and may be considered as something as a new frontier in ‘knowledge production’.  While ‘Traditional Knowledge’ and ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ is said to eclipse Western knowledge by literally tens of thousands of years it is viewed more often as a ‘curiosity’ than a credible knowledge system of rigour and meaning. 

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