The only secure way to store data over deep time is in intergenerational relationships embedded in meaningful landscapes. We understand that digital information decays and is impossible to store for more than a few decades, so we hybridise our relational technologies for everyday use in order to keep humans in the loop in the project of long-term knowledge retention. For example, we continue our widely-acclaimed research in Aboriginal memorisation techniques, which utilise local landscapes to embed narrative, symbolic, relational and linguistic mnemonics for learners to utilise in their studies in any discipline. Ultimately this also produces a profound sense of connectedness with the landscape and community, while also improving outcomes in education and training.
“Landlessness” project
With escalating numbers of unhoused people, refugees, disaster survivors and itinerant populations, we think we have more than a homelessness problem – we have a landlessness problem. We hope to explore this deeply over the next decade, applying Indigenous Knowledge solutions and drawing upon the unique skillsets and experiences of our itinerant communities to design mobile, self-organising communities on seasonal estates. These will be movable villages that cycle through half-a-dozen locations on a large property every year, caring for the land, harvesting, burning and regenerating in a way that is not just ‘rewilding’ ecological zones, but actually reinserting humans back into their correct ecological niche as a custodial species.
We know that the land gives us everything we need when we are in right relation with it – from nutrition to calendars to meaning-making to wellness and learning. In this way, landlessness is a problem for many people, including those who are lucky enough to hold real estate.
The scope of the study will include designing micro-economies, governance models, food systems, mental health, intentional community design, technologies and built environments. We hope to complete at least one trial community after five years. This is the project that ties all of our other research together. We have identified that this kind of community is of little importance or value today, but will become very important in the next few decades as large sedentary settlements on a vulnerable coastline become increasingly unviable. We propose a large-scale spreading out of such communities in the centuries ahead as a way of mitigating problems such as climate change, systems collapse, economic contraction and ecological damage.
Chapter 12_IKS as a Pathway to Regenerative Cities_Chels n Jason_cl (3).pdf https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u4fTiDVNp02woD-TBFkPZY5qtnHN-tWD/view?usp=sharing
Regenerative Songlines Australia is working to create a continent-wide network, that connects regenerative projects and practitioners https://www.regenerative-songlines.net.au/about/regenerative-songlines-australia/