Blak Focus May 2025 Edition – Citing and referencing Indigenous knowledges
Indigenous knowledges refer to the unique ways of being, knowing and doing that have been developed by the world’s diverse indigenous peoples over thousands of years. These knowledge systems are grounded in the cultural, spiritual and historical contexts of specific communities and are often passed down through oral traditions, storytelling and community practices.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples maintain knowledge traditions with their own philosophies and epistemologies that originated in ancient Australia tens of thousands of years ago. Many of these knowledge traditions continue today (Langton, 2023, p. 11).
Why seek out Indigenous knowledges
Elevating Australian Indigenous knowledges is essential for understanding the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and promoting a more nuanced and inclusive approach to knowledge production. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Code of Ethics (2020) outlines protocols for acknowledging Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights in research and publishing. However, to encourage ethical and culturally respectful research, this work needs to start at the undergraduate level.
Highlighting Indigenous knowledges and authors may be difficult for undergraduates. It can be challenging to determine if the Indigenous knowledges being used and cited are trustworthy or respected. Further, Indigenous knowledges have historically been recorded by non-Indigenous authors in ways that do not accurately represent Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing.
While academia values citations as a measure of intellectual contribution, it can be an exclusionary and discriminatory practice (Motts & Cockayne, 2017). The Indigenous Archives Collective stresses the importance of undergraduates understanding ‘the social and political context of information creation and how power shapes how information is created, made accessible and used’ (2023, p.3). This is particularly important in the context of ethical research and respecting Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) rights.
Critical information literacy approaches can be further enacted by recognising Indigenous people’s rights for attribution and representation (Indigenous Archives Collective, 2023, p. 4).
Challenges with citing Indigenous knowledges
Indigenous knowledges are often ignored in academic spaces (Littletree, Andrews & Loyer, 2023, p. 12), and referencing and citation standards struggle to accommodate Indigenous community-held knowledge, and culturally embedded ways of knowing. Indigenous knowledges are frequently cited without properly acknowledging community origins or the cultural protocols attached to use (Chong, 2022).
In 2024, Deakin Library’s Indigenous Programs and Library Partners teams collaborated with faculty members from the Faculty of Health, Faculty of Arts and Education and unit chairs at The National Indigenous Knowledges Education Research and Innovation Institute (NIKERI Institute) to test students’ use of the Indigenous Knowledges Attribution Toolkit (IKAT) which is part of the Indigenous Archives Collective’s, (2023) Indigenous Referencing Guidance for Indigenous Knowledges.
The results of this initiative highlighted several key challenges that students faced.
- General referencing practices: This suggests that students may require additional support in developing overall referencing and citation skills.
- Understanding the diversity of Indigenous communities around Australia: The many and varied cultures, languages and experiences of Indigenous peoples and experience can be overwhelming for students.
- Understanding differences between nation, Country, and language: These terms may be used interchangeably, but they have distinct meanings for each Indigenous person and community. Students may have struggled with understanding the nuances, leading to confusion and misrepresentation.
- Indigenous authorship: The extra effort that might be required to determine if an author is Indigenous. Students may need guidance on how to verify the identity of Indigenous authors if the author has not stated this in the source material.
- Non-assessment vs. assessment-based approaches: For testing purposes, the teaching staff decided on their teaching method with some minimal guidance from the Library. Two particular units used annotated bibliographies as an assessment task. The students may have found it difficult to balance critical analysis of resources with the need to complete referencing using the IKAT recommendations. Further, the students had to balance summarising Indigenous sources and providing cultural contexts.
How the Library can support you
Based on feedback from these sessions, the Library unpacked the IKAT as a library guide: Citing and referencing Indigenous knowledges. The goal was to provide students with:
- a more in-depth understanding of terms used in the IKAT, such as contemporary, informed consent, and ways of being, knowing and doing
- colour-coded examples of how to reference materials created by Indigenous author/s, materials created by an Indigenous author/s that cited Indigenous knowledge and materials created by non-Indigenous author/s that cited Indigenous knowledge.
The testing also showed varied teaching methods using the IKAT. The method used may determine the success of students’ understanding.
Based on feedback from teaching staff, the Library and Deakin Learning Futures (Arts&Ed) have invested in creating an OER Teachers’ Toolkit to complement the IKAT. In 2025, Library Indigenous Programs and Deakin Learning Futures (ArtsEd) were awarded a Higher Education Participation and Partnership Program (HEPPP) Funded OER Grant for creating the toolkit. The team will be hosting workshops later in 2025.
Blak Focus is a monthly edition of Indigenous-focused content, created by Deakin Library’s Indigenous Programs team. Blak Focus is intended to share Indigenous ways of being and knowing to help facilitate the transition to embedding Indigenous knowledges into academic practice. For enquiries about Blak Focus, or to request topics for future editions, please reach out to lib-indigenous@deakin.edu.au.
References
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies AIATSIS. (2020). Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research. Retrieved from https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-10/aiatsis-code-ethics.pdf
Chong, Rachel. (2022). Indigenous Information Literacy. Retrieved from https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/indigenousinformationliteracy
Indigenous Archives Collective; Faulkhead, S; Thorpe, K; Sentance, N; Booker, L; & R Barrowcliffe. (2023). Indigenous Referencing Guidance for Indigenous Knowledges. Indigenous Archives Collective and the UTS Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education and Research. Retrieved from https://www.caval.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/CAVAL_Indigenous_Knowledges_Citation_Guide.pdf
Littletree, S., Andrews,N., & Loyer, J. (2023). Information as a relation: Defining Indigenous information literacy. Journal of Information Literacy, 17(2), pp.4–23. https://journals.cilip.org.uk/jil/article/view/8.
Langton, Marcia. (2023). The Welcome to Country Handbook: A Guide to Indigenous Australia, Hardie Grant Explore, ProQuest Ebook Central, Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/deakin/detail.action?docID=30620011.
Mott, C., & Cockayne, D. (2017). Citation matters: mobilizing the politics of citation toward a practice of ‘conscientious engagement.’ Gender, Place & Culture, 24(7), 954–973. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1339022
Image credit for First Nations Hub/featured tile artwork: Through Learning We Heal by Talitha Podger (Wemba Wemba & Mutthi Mutthi)
