LAL Seminar - Robyn Ober

Slipping and Sliding – Moving in and out of Social, Cultural and Linguistic spaces in an Indigenous Educational Context

Robyn Ober, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education

'Slipping and sliding' is a term coined by an experienced Aboriginal academic at Batchelor Institute to express how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics and students engage and interact within a both-ways Indigenous tertiary educational context.

Slipping and sliding in the inter-cultural learning environment is not a new concept in public life. When the conditions are right, slipping and sliding is often triggered in diverse contextual situations by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is such a powerful yet simple, subtle and organic phenomenon that even the very existence of slipping and sliding in public life may go unnoticed by non-Aboriginal people and sometimes Aboriginal people themselves. There are cultural rules, processes and protocols that are instigated when Aboriginal people come together thus bringing a significant shift to the cultural dynamics of the teaching and learning space.  This social, cultural and, importantly, linguistic shift is one of the conditions that enables slipping and sliding to flow thereby minimising obstacles, barriers and boundaries which often occur in the more traditional classroom space, which tends to stifle and downplay true authentic and genuine conversations.

3pm, Thursday 11 February

https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/81562252063?pwd=MmJWMUxDaXo2aVE3M2dEQlBnRlVPdz09
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