Land is at the core of all our knowledge production and practice. We bring together Senior research fellows from across Australia in bi-weekly think tank yarns built around protocols of knowledge exchange and innovation from an ancient centre of continental embassy in the Bunya Mountains of southern Queensland. Individually and in groups we conduct research projects across many disciplines to inform innovative knowledge and solutions designed to return all human beings to their ecological niche as a custodial species embedded in regenerative landscapes.
Aboriginal Memory Technique
Aboriginal memory technique may work better than Sherlock's 'memory palace'
An ancient memory technique developed by Aboriginal Australians may work better than the “mind palace” invented in ancient Greece and popularized by the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes.
Both methods involve mentally attaching information to a physical object or location, but the Aboriginal technique adds a storytelling component. Researchers aren’t sure if it’s the narrative element or some other aspect that seemed to boost the Aboriginal technique’s effectiveness, and the study is small. But the research highlights that cultures put in a lot of effort in order to pass along information without modern-day technology or even writing.
'All our landscapes are broken'
Right story and the law of the land
IN THE WINTER of 2020 there was a fair bit going on, so not many people noticed what was happening with the whales in the far north of Australia. But Elders noted the unusual behaviour – the whales swam inland along freshwater rivers – and contacted Bunnarong Elders thousands of kilometres to the south in Melbourne, where I’m camping while I write these words. That northern whale story connects all the way down here, along trade routes that have been managed across diverse bioregions by interdependent, autonomous peoples for millennia …