Yarning is not a metaphor: Problematising the over-reach of Yarning as an Indigenous research method in education.

While scholars have engaged in rich self-reflexive discussion on the messiness and dirtiness inherent with Indigenising research, rightful caution remains on the potential to be complicit in further cultural appropriation and the silencing of Indigenous knowledge systems (Tuck & Yang, 2012). This paper contributes to the conversation by examining the challenges and risks of recontextualising Yarning in Australian education research through the voices of Author 1, an Australian Indigenous scholar, Elder and songwoman, and Author 2, an Australian settler music educator and researcher. Conceptually a yarn was described as the emergence or origin of communication as practice, with one of the earliest academic uses of the colloquial term by Indigenous woman Diane Roberts, sharing her story at the 2000 Annual meeting for the Australian Association for Research in Education (Power & Roberts, 2000). Later, Roberts’ co-presenter Kerith Power (2004), would go on to theorise about yarning from a non-Indigenous standpoint, taking an Indigenous understanding of a non-Indigenous word into the Western research academy. Over a period of twenty years, Yarning has evolved and emerged as a methodological practice of relational exchange, and is now utilised systematically and systemically in Australian Indigenous research (Atkinson et al., 2021). As such, we should look back to look forward, and understand the widespread use of the term, investigate origin versus evolution, and consider the future implications of using Yarning methodology as practice, in Indigenous education contexts. Drawing on differing perspectives, as sceptic and advocate in dialogue, we seek to share provocations that reinforce the need for time and space, relational accountability, constant negotiation and questioning when engaging in research collaboration. 

References

Atkinson P., Baird M., Adams K. (2021). Are you really using Yarning research?: Mapping social and family Yarning to strengthen Yarning research quality. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 17(2), 191–201. https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801211015442

Power K. (2004). Yarning: A responsive research methodology. Journal of Australian Research in Early Childhood Education, 11 (1), 37–46.

Power K., Roberts, D. (2000, December 4–7). Early childhood education as a contact zone: Emergent Indigenous leadership in Australia and Canada. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Australian Association for Research in Music Education. Sydney, Australia. 

Tuck E., Yang K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40. http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/19298692/v01i0001/nfp_dinam.xml