Tabla de contenidos para Vol 60 No 3 2025 en Agora

On 10 October 1798 there was a meeting on the beach at Nalluccer (Twofold Bay, NSW) between a senior Thaua Yuin man and Matthew Flinders. Twenty-six-year-old Flinders was sailing south from Port Jackson (Sydney) with George Bass on the sloop Norfolk, on their way to try and map what would become Bass Strait. The Norfolk had been stuck in Twofold Bay by inclement weather, and was being carefully watched by the Yuin people, but they had so far made a point of avoiding the visitors—that is, until an emissary approached. Matthew Flinders described the scene. He was of a middle age, unarmed, except with a whaddie, or wooden scimitar, and came up to us seemingly with careless confidence. We made much of him, and gave him some biscuit; and he…

On 7 June 2023, the Queensland government restored K’Gari as the official name for the island off the Queensland coast that had been known as Fraser Island since 1836. This name restoration was the culmination of decades of advocacy and consultation. The Butchalla people, who are the traditional owners of K’Gari, had campaigned for decades for the name restoration as part of their native title claim.1 By 2011, the Queensland government recorded two alternative names for the island: K’Gari and Gari.2 In 2021, the Fraser World Heritage Area was renamed to K’gari (Fraser Island) World Heritage Area, and the Queensland government commenced the process to officially rename the island. Finally, after the largest placename consultation ever undertaken in Queensland, and more than 6000 submissions, the official naming restoration process concluded…

At the opening of the University of Melbourne in 1855, the first chancellor, Redmond Barry, defined the purpose of the new university to be supplanting Indigenous knowledge. Barry explained that the University of Melbourne would rise above the ‘first rude efforts of constructive efficiency … such as we behold amongst the remnant of aboriginal inhabitants of the soil still lingering around their former haunts’. The university would replace these with ‘progressive improvement of architectural, mechanical, and scientific invention and intellectual art’.1 For much of its history, University of Melbourne academics took up this calling and dismissed Indigenous Australians, their customs and knowledge, but the story was never quite so simple. Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne documents both the worst excesses of race science…

Following changes to the Australian and Victorian History curriculums, teachers are increasingly expected to embed First Nations perspectives. Yet, units still frame First Nations peoples chiefly through stories of loss. This ‘deficit discourse’ focuses on what was done to First Nations communities rather than what those communities have done—and continue to do—for themselves and their nations. This article provides strategies and examples that enhance student understanding of First Nations peoples so that others can implement practical, evidence-informed teaching ideas in their own classrooms. Understand the Problem Deficit discourse presents a group ‘primarily in terms of their disadvantages or struggles’.1 This implies that disadvantage is inherent rather than socially produced. When we teach only oppression, or a ‘blood-and-guts’ approach to history, students may internalise the message that First Nations peoples lacked…

Research with more than 1000 non-Indigenous educators across Australia highlights that ‘not knowing enough’ or being concerned about ‘getting it right’ when teaching First Nations (Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander) curriculum content is a common concern.1 While this article is focused on exploring why non-Indigenous educators might feel apprehensive about such curriculum content, it is designed to empower them to work with First Nations content in purposeful and authentic ways. The article will unpack how two fundamental systemic factors influence on-the-ground practices of pedagogical inclusion, and provide evidence-based recommendations for integrating First Nations histories in culturally appropriate ways. To draw connections with readers, I am a non-Indigenous woman whose ancestors were German and Welsh nineteenth and twentieth century migrants. I was raised in the 1990s on Gundijtmara Country in Warrnambool,…

The Ngarigo Nation, reaching from the sweeping Monaro plains of NSW to the heights of the Snowy Mountains, has a rich culture and history spanning at least 20,000 years. In 2021, Canberra Grammar School joined with Ngarigo Elders to create a deep time unit with two key goals: • creating a meaningful and authentic program that was accessible to Year 7 students • ensuring that First Nations voices and cultures were celebrated. At the same time, a council of Ngarigo Elders was creating the Waligada Program, a year-long program that allows First Nations students to explore their culture and identity through practical, hands-on experiences.1 The creation of these two programs has taught us both a great deal and has reaffirmed the importance of coming together as teachers of all backgrounds…

Positioning Ourselves We introduce this article by focusing on our positionality. This is deliberate and purposeful; it is based on Indigenous protocols, and is also central to the ideas we are considering. Critical reflection on one’s assumptions and biases is the starting point for reauthoring Indigenous voices in the discipline of History. We acknowledge the Elders of the communities we share and the Indigenous teachers reading our yarn. For this article we move beyond the personal and offer a position that incorporates our disciplines. Scott I am an Indigenous fella descended from Kamilaroi Country through my mother and Chilean lands through my father. I have lived most of my life on Djaara Country in central Victoria after an army upbringing took me around this country of Countries. I am privileged…

In 2020 we set out eight principles for teaching the Frontier Wars in an Agora article.1 At that point, the Voice referendum was still some years away, the COVID-19 pandemic had not yet triggered lockdowns, and ChatGPT and its generative artificial intelligence (GAI) siblings had not yet impacted how we work, learn and interact with technology. Given the upheavals and constant media churn of the past five years, the failure of the 2023 Voice referendum to achieve just one of the objectives of the Uluru Statement from the Heart has been easy for many non-Indigenous Australians to forget.2 For many First Nations Australians, however, the Voice represented a hope for a better future. The referendum’s failure leaves unfinished business. The Uluru Statement is a core response to a continuing historical…

It has become a contemporary tradition in Australia for Meat and Livestock Australia to promote the sale of lamb with a patriotic advertising campaign centred on the Australia Day public holiday.1 Over the past twenty years, the marketing in these themed advertisements has shifted from having well-known sporting figure Sam Kekovich rant at the audience to eat more lamb on ‘our national day’, to more considered and structured advertisements that engage with current mainstream Australian culture.2 The result has been a series of advertisements on themes such as intergenerational differences, interfaith understandings, online comments, cancel cultures and, in 2017, Australian history.3 This article will analyse the 2017 advertisement and consider how this could be incorporated into an Australian History classroom. Context It has been well documented that the Australian History…

Engaging students in Australian history prepares them to become citizens in a complex and challenging society. If they are able to understand the context they live and engage with every day, they are able to ‘become lifelong learners’ who actively contribute to a ‘diverse and changing world’ as learned people.1 Students of the twenty-first century may initially find it difficult to relate colonisation and its impacts over time to their own experiences and circumstances. However, through the topic of Indigenous rights and freedoms, students can see the development of our society through historically significant events, and become discerning contributors to an ever-changing landscape that involves conversations around treaty and voice. In Levels 9 and 10 of the Victorian History curriculum, the ‘Investigation: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Rights and…

There is a great desire in Australian schools to put more Indigenous narratives into the teaching of history. But where do you find those narratives? This was one of the driving forces behind a project to collect First Nations stories of Lt James Cook’s voyage along the eastern seaboard of Australia in 1770. The basic concept was to visit all the places that Cook named on his charts and talk to mob, finding the real names and the stories of the land and peoples, as well as early contact. This resulted in a 4500 km journey, from Victoria to the Torres Strait islands, talking to about seventy knowledge holders who shared stories that were often in strong contrast to the stories that have traditionally been taught in classrooms, based on…

The recent recommendations of the Yoorrook Justice Commission highlighted the importance of truth-telling and the role of education in addressing the long-standing impacts of colonisation in Victoria. The introduction to the report emphasises: ‘Tracing the history of this place post-colonisation reveals a tangled, jagged-line.’1 Part of tracing that jagged-line involves examining and learning about the frontier wars that took place across the Australian continent between colonisers and First Nations people. The frontier wars feature in both the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 (Levels 9–10) and in VCE Australian History (Area of Study 1: Power and Resistance).1 However, many teachers from non-Indigenous backgrounds worry about how to approach this topic. Research undertaken by Ngarrngga into teacher engagement with Indigenous knowledge found that many educators are concerned about not getting it right with regards…

The inclusion of Australia’s deep time history in Version 9.0 of the Australian Curriculum finally recognises the depths of Australia’s past and the meaningful engagement of First Nations people with the continent.1 It symbolises an important maturation in Australia’s historical psyche away from the Western notion of Australia as a young nation, and provides us with an early opportunity to decolonise history. Too often, students embarking on their Year 7 study of History have preconceptions about what they will be doing, and come with visions of pyramids, Roman soldiers and Greek Gods because that’s what ‘ancient history’ is. Replacing this with ‘deep time’ gives teachers the opportunity to open up worthwhile discussions about who decides what ‘history’ is and what’s worth learning. We framed our approach so that students could…

Lake Mungo is one of many lakes within the Willandra Lakes Region in NSW. It is well-known for the remains of Mungo Man and Mungo Lady, which have been dated to 40,000–42,000 years ago.1 While there has been much focus on what these remains can teach us about Australia’s ancient history, there is another discovery on the edges of the Willandra Lakes region that students can investigate to understand connection to Country, preservation of place, and continuing Aboriginal culture from deep time to today. In 2003, a group of traditional custodians and archaeologists discovered a set of footprints in the ground. Mary Pappin Jr knew from the outset that they were Aboriginal, and that they were old. The group was originally looking for and identifying bones, not footprints. What they…