"The Land Owns Us": Learning the global history of the natural world through Indigenous Creation Stories

These slides were presented by Michael Quinn, from the University of Glasgow, at the UNESCO RILA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2024 (Word Springs) on 22 May 2024. For more information about the event, please visit https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/unesco/events/springschool/

1. “The land owns us”: Learning the global history of the natural world through Indigenous Creation Stories Michael Quinn University of Glasgow Philosophy of Education

2. Contents Context Philosophy and Literature Philosophy of Education Science and stories Feyerabend & Turner Environmental philosophy Contents

3. More contents Uluru Dreamtime Tjukurpa Creation story Teaching Tasks Formative tasks Central teaching task Contents

4. Philosophy and Literature Calls for literature to be recognised as philosophy to challenge the ‘cultural homogeneity’ of western philosophy ( Jaima , p.26, 2019) Move towards a more inclusive understanding of philosophical ideas and the world Lynn Glueck and Harry Brighouse (2008) – Children’s literature ( i ) moral reasoning, (ii) capitalising on prior knowledge of fictional narratives and (iii) enjoyment Context

5. Philosophy of Education Encouraging students to critically reflect on their relationship with the natural world as a dynamic entity and to reflect on ‘the products of human cultures … equally as products of nature’ (Barnhart, 1997, p.427) Away from factually dominated pedagogies Stories, science and truth Fiction in the real world Context

6. Paul Feyerabend ‘Theories and … myths have the very same goal : to collect and causally explain salient appearances. Even the method is the same: it consists in drawing conclusions from existing observations. The differences in the results are due to the limitations of the observation material available to the myth’s original creators.’ Philosophy of Nature (2016, p.72) Science and stories

7. Paul Feyerabend For Feyeraband , ‘“facts” of the world are not just externally reflected by human ideology but are at least in part formed by it’ ‘Languages tend to change, they degenerate or develop, and what at first cannot be uttered may become a fundamental principle, often just because the imperfection of the language’s existing state is initially perceived in a manner that cannot be articulated linguistically.’ Philosophy of Nature (2016, p.78) Science and stories

8. Mark Turner Creation myths, such as Indigenous Australians’ Dreamtime stories, helps students to understand that allegorical, figurative and literal understandings of nature and of the world are not in conflict Instead, as Turner describes , a ‘conceptual blending [which] is a fundamental instrument of the everyday mind, used in our basic construal of all our realities, from the social to the scientific’. The Literary Mind (1996, p.93) Science and stories

9. Mark Turner A Buddhist monk begins at dawn one day walking up a mountain, reaches the top at sunset, meditates at the top for several days until one dawn when he begins to walk back to the foot of the mountain, which he reaches at sunset. Making no assumptions about his starting or stopping or about his pace during the trips, prove that there is a place on the path which he occupies at the same hour of the day on the two separate journeys. ‘Conceptual Integration Networks’ , Fauconnier & Turner (1998) Science and stories

10. Environmental philosophy Importance of environmental philosophies in Indigenous culture Without the richness of ‘narrative subjects that define and elaborate place, the connection between lived experience and the sense of this interweaving is lost, along with sensitivity to place’. ( Plumwood , 1999, p.158) Science and stories

11. Environmental philosophy Iris Murdoch – ‘unselfing’ Simone Weil – ‘ décreation ’ Our ego must be silenced in order for us to fully grasp reality in this sense Science and stories

12. Long, long ago in the Dreamtime the animals gave shape to some of the Rock. At that time a young Woma Python, called Kuniya was surprised by a group of Liru , which are venomous snakes. The Liru threw spears at the python and killed him. So hard did they throw their spears, that the points made holes in The Rock. The boy's aunt, also called Kuniya , was so angry that she killed one of the Liru with her stick. They made holes in the rock when the points of Kuniya's stick hit it. You can still see these holes today. Kuniya , the Woma Python can still be seen as a dark wavy line on Uluru.

13. Uluru Uluru Barbara Tjikatu , a traditional owner of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta region P resent tense “You can see her over there” Emotional intensity

14. TJUKURPA (chook-er-pa) These creation stories form part of Tjukurpa - stories that tell the creation of land and people  Tjukurpa is a religious philosophy, a moral compass. Tjukurpa is not written down. Tjukurpa can be seen at Uluru through the physical evidence of the activities of Ancestral Beings that still exist in the land. Uluru

15. Tjati tries to retrieve his kali In the creation period, Tjati , the small Red Lizard, who lived on the mulgi flats, came to Uluru.  He threw his kali, a curved throwing stick, and it became embedded in the surface. He used his hands to scoop it out in his efforts to retrieve his kali, leaving a series of bowl-shaped hollows. Uluru

16. The cave where Tjati died at Kantju Unable to recover his kali, he finally died in this cave. His implements and bodily remains survive as large boulders on the cave floor. Uluru

17. Why Uluru? Cultural and spiritual significance Strong and clear connections with the importance of the land and its markings and the story. Importantly, can be used for other landmarks (Stonehenge, Mount Etna, Giant’s Causeway etc) Focus on o ral traditional Uluru

18. Suggested formative tasks Matchup activity - understanding different ways of interpreting the Creation story Character interpretations – why did Kuniya act in the way that she did? What can we learn from this? Bringing it back to student’s personal experiences Teaching Tasks

19. Central Teaching Task Exemplar task Have students select a natural place that they are familiar with and are able to describe in detail (garden, river, tree etc.) Focusing on one particular aspect of the land Once they have done this, then create a story of how it came to be, how did it become unique? What marks does it have and how did it get them? Teaching Tasks

20. Conclusions Conceptual blending of fact, fiction and belief The potential of stories to bring places to life and the power of sharing stories Encouraging students to learn about other perspectives Attention shifted outwards towards the world, and the various ways we can understand, interpret and appreciate the land Conclusion

21. # UofGWorldChangers @ UofGlasgow Thank you! [email protected] @ SauvageTales

22. References Barnhart M.G. (1997) ‘Ideas of Nature in an Asian Context’. Philosophy East and West . 47(3). 417-432. Brighouse, H. & Glueck L. (2008) “Philosophy in the Teaching of Children’s Literature” in Michael Hand and Carrie Winstanley (eds) Philosophy on the School Curriculum (London: Continuum). 119-131. Fauconnier , G. & Turner, M. (1996) ‘Conceptual Integration Networks.’ Cognitive Science. 22(2). 133-268. Feyerabend , P. (2016). Philosophy of Nature. Cambridge: Polity Press. Jaima , A.R. (2019) ‘Literature Is Philosophy: On the Literary Methodological Considerations That Would Improve the Practice and Culture of Philosophy.’ The Pluralist . 14(2). 13-29. Plumwood , V. (1999). The Struggle for Environmental Philosophy in Australia. Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology . 3(2). 157-178. Turner, M. (1996). The Literary Mind . Oxford: Oxford University Press.