Gamarragu - Towards Dharug Intermediary Practices
Gamarragu – Towards Dharug Dharug Practices is the title of my Macquarie University Fellowship in Indigenous Research, which honours a legacy of value-based relational knowledges and lesser-known stories, memories, Country and kinship philosophy (previous use of language: Gamarada).
The research reveals lesser-known Indigenous intermediary practices, including a heritage of intercultural communications that facilitated understanding between my Dharug and Irish ancestors.
By activating archives as connections to land, memory, material cultures and artefact collections alongside written and graphic records, I advance a legacy of earth-based and more-than-human relational knowledges, including shared cultural knowledges, migration and diaspora and hidden stories. Thus, an ancestral legacy of intercultural communications continues to bridge knowledges and ignite relationality through visual art and critical Indigenous theory.
This research is significant because it offers important insights into Dharug and broader Indigenous and Irish relationality and truth-telling, and it preserves Dharug cultural values. My experiential research model is an innovative intermediary practice. For example, Ngurra Bayali (Country speaking) resonates with and furthers my personal murugu (a path towards) walking as footsteps and voices of my ancestors and acknowledging Ngurra (Country) as my teacher.