DeakinSeaweed and Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative have been working together for six years on a seaweed culture revitalisation project, aimed at engaging the Indigenous community on Wadawurrung Country with both cultural and western knowledge of seaweeds, with insight into the developing seaweed commercial industry in Australia.
This project was a collaboration between Aboriginal community members and DeakinSeaweed researchers, with involvement from design, development, delivery and handling of results and data post-events. Engagement in this process has a strong focus on reciprocal and ethical partnership with Aboriginal collaborators, which drew a spotlight on both the ways in which Indigenous collaborators are expected to mould to existing western research paradigms or ‘business as usual’, and the ways in which research in general is often inequitable and relies on entrenched power hierarchies to succeed. Rethinking who is and isn’t a “researcher”, this presentation will explore the ways in which the usual process of conducting research had to be rethought for this project to be successful, including the levels of training for non-Indigenous volunteers, the development and management of a research team of 32 people, and what participant consent, data collection and analysis look like in a community setting.