The webinar will share some of my more affective experiences of human connection through on campus, on country and online cultural mentoring to support Indigenous Australian cultural competence. I will speak from my reflections on the curious ways of working when on one shoreline I feel deeply drawn towards Indigenous pedagogies and research methods, and in my own doctoral research, whilst on the other I experience intellectual shame risking cultural protocols and insensitivity. Based on my history, identity, and biography I feel I have to flow like a tide, seeking humility and agility whilst building relationality with people, forms of knowledge and their systems, the natural and social worlds, and through insights of my many selves. 

I offer an analogy of the river, where sometimes we may feel adrift, lonely, and disconnected, at other times, sublimely in the flow to the touch. Exploring these interplays through grounded practices and protocols aims to invite navigational stories in teaching for learning, and developing sensitivities written into Indigenous scholarship. Built on culturally nuanced relationships, these ways of working can be deep and rewarding.

Presented by Melinda Lewis. 

Melinda, a non-Aboriginal woman from the Hawkesbury Valley (Dharug nation) on the outskirts of Sydney has worked across USYD, CSU and now UTS supporting Indigenous curriculum and teacher professional learning. The privilege of sitting on country experiencing and supporting cultural immersions motivates Melinda to position the voices and presence of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Elders, scholars, and students as a deliberate act of reciprocity for generous mentoring. Her PhD thesis explored the unsettled nature of academic work for health professionals, where feelings of rigidity in academic practice frameworks were producing a sense of individual imposterism. Reimaging the research-teaching nexus through ways of working with Indigenous curriculum, pedagogies and methodologies is a current focus. As a Senior Lecturer in the Teaching and Curriculum Team at UTS, Melinda coordinates learning, teaching, and educational research in support of a social justice ethos, inclusion and belonging, work-integrated learning, and the Indigenous Graduate Attribute.