00:00.00 archpodnet So. 00:00.30 Alan Everybody out here here's the third segment of our Australian Rock art journey and the the party we're having talking about the deep dive into our understanding of Australian Rock art with John Liam and Amanda in a in a way that. 00:08.90 Amanda Kearney Um. 00:18.61 Alan Probably none of us have really experienced it John you are getting into the kin-centric elements of trying to understand this australian rock card from the perspective of the natives who crafted it am I correct. 00:30.84 john bradley Yeah, and what I'm trying to say is that it's inherently political. You don't move out indiananua country unless you understand the politics of how people through time through to the present actually organize themselves. On that country entry Indiana country is not a free-for all, you have to understand who you have with you what their relationships to that country are and that's why you know Amanda brought up this idea of kincentrism but the specifics of that kincentrism are based. On basically an understanding of your dissent line in relation to any one country and as I said either through your father to your mother to your mother's mother or through your father's mother and each one of those particular aspects of kinship will determine. Your relationship to that country. What you can actually say about that country or what permissions you need to be able to talk about that country. So for example, we went into a ah, very big site. Um on southwest island Amanda was not allowed to travel into that site. Um, because it was a restricted men's only place because of certain ceremonial objects that were present there. Um, this wasn't seen by Amanda as something bad women senior women with Amanda had explained to her that you know they couldn't even enter into this place. This is the rules. This is. 01:54.82 Amanda Kearney Are. 02:02.63 john bradley What we would call the law. Um, so when we entered into that place. The people who called that country their mother had to lead the way because basically they are the guardians for their mother's country. They have to clear the access. And the people who call that country their own through paternal links follow behind because they don't have the authority to clear access into these really restricted places. So when we went in there. It was the people who called that country their mother's country that directed liam. 02:26.58 Amanda Kearney Her work. 02:37.30 john bradley As to what he could take how he could take it how close he could approach the rock art. Um, what he couldn't take then afterwards the conversation was about are we allowed to use these photographs publicly or have to do they enter into a restricted file. 02:56.13 Amanda Kearney Are. 02:56.92 john bradley And for me because I was so familiar with this place. The surprise for me is that in a modern sense because of the critical component of wanting young people to know wanting to engage in a contemporary event on country these senior men. Actually then said you can publish these photos in your book as long as you give no actual clear reference to where they're actually located so we are we were constantly involved no matter where we went on yanua country. We were constantly involved with this idea of politics and who could speak for what and how? um, Liam and Amanda and I went to 1 place where the person who called that country their mother was quite ill but he gave his permission. 03:41.27 Amanda Kearney Are. 03:51.94 john bradley To say you can still go there I give you my permission to actually travel to that country to do what you need to do and this was a constant the constant negotiation of who we needed to have with us while we recorded what was in that country. 04:11.87 Amanda Kearney And I might just add on there John as well because this is this was really um, a key part of what I was observing in the project I was really interested in the in. Ah, also young, people's relationship to the rock art. So. Ah, every one of our field trips whether it was for just a day trip or if it was going to be for camping out for a week we always had young kids with us in the company of their parents and grandparents and that was a real. Um. Ah, real point of of commitment for people in the annual community was that young people would come along and join us so it might be young young kids you know under the age of 13 or something who would travel around with us. Often helping Liam with his camera work and um, you know, actively involved in the recording process which was fantastic and then also when I say young people I mean ah people who are sort of. Ah, just not quite mid-generation so perhaps in their thirty s and they would also come along and actively join us in the process of being on country recording rock art and developing an understanding of this project and it was it was really important to to observe and to um. 05:22.00 Amanda Kearney Be cognizant of the fact that sometimes for those people who were a bit younger it was perhaps the first time they were visiting these parts of their country and it was the first time they were perhaps even seeing ah these these impressions and these markings on rock that were being made by their ancestors and. The emotional responses that came out in some of those experiences were really quite um, significant in that sometimes younger people were nervous that um they hadn't seen these places they they didn't feel they had enough of a political understanding of them to be there. And that may induce some feelings of being nervous and a bit anxious about that country or the old people might be a little bit upset with them and it might you know cause them harm and so it was a process of what this project also facilitated was. People having sometimes the first opportunity to start building these relationships with country in this kind of way through this thing we called rock art and and that begins often a lifelong journey of being in ah in a deeper relationship with their country. Their ancestors. And their law as it maps onto country as well. So so really that we were so fortunate to be in the company of very senior people with profound knowledge and understanding of this yannua world. But then also being in the company of people who were just building their relationship. 06:48.79 Amanda Kearney Um, and are in the process of growing their understanding and knowledge of law and country. Yeah, it was great. 06:52.41 Alan Fantastic! Just fantastic when we when we talk about the ah individuals that actually created painted you know produced the images were there specialists were they individuals who. Had to have certain training was there a class of individuals where they gendered etc. 07:18.15 Liam Brady Um, well, that's the really tricky thing is the fact that none of these images none of the rock art Onannua country is said to have been made by people. It was made by dreamings it. It was made by dreamings. It was made by spirits of deceased kin. 07:23.80 Amanda Kearney Um, yeah. 07:26.29 Alan There you go Thank you But they're made by dreamers right? Snake can so what? so was it. Of course it would yeah how could you be so silly you anthropologists archeologists these are these aren't made by people. 07:31.26 Amanda Kearney Um. 07:34.84 Liam Brady And it was made by spirits that inhabit countries. So yeah, it's you know this is the hard part for us as archaeologists. 07:41.57 Amanda Kearney Um, exactly. 07:45.41 Alan These are made by the yeah by the ah spirit world and and so why would you ask such a silly question. 07:49.90 Amanda Kearney Um, yeah, yeah. 07:52.88 Liam Brady Um, exactly and and look it's a bit. It's a confronting thing as well For people that have been trained in Western Science and archaeological science to all of a sudden look at at something like rock art and and realize that there's a whole other story attached to it and the way that you've been trained all of a sudden gets turned on its head. 07:53.80 Amanda Kearney Exactly. 08:11.40 Amanda Kearney Um, and. 08:11.27 Liam Brady And ah, that's frost is is something that's really interesting and we write about that in the book as well. Yeah. 08:14.14 Alan Absolutely. 08:16.66 Amanda Kearney And I actually love that this was ah this was a real you know challenge for us as as academics, we published a piece in American anthropologist and I remember we we were sort of we kept defaulting to using the word rock art and we were sort of like no, we've got to shake out of this way of thinking. That's not the word. That's not what people are telling us and we had to kind of fracture our habit and Realise. No, we've got to tell this story differently. We've got to tell this story in a way that really stands and holds true to the yannua voice that has led the project and and that has been. I Would I think for all of us That's a career long commitment. It's not just in the form of this book. It's in the form of all of our research as we move forward. 08:57.10 Liam Brady And Amanda just to just to build on so hang on who nice. Okay I'll I'll just jump in there really quickly now I just want to build on what Amanda saying there is that there is also you can still tell an archeological story about this, you can still. 08:57.69 john bradley Um, and I think what we did that? Ah, who's going can I just pop in on Amanda's thing 09:03.39 Alan John or Leon please go right ahead li him. 09:16.58 Liam Brady You know, do classification of Motifs you can still try and find stylistic boundaries and and different things like that. So in that sense The archaeology can also sit alongside that yanua knowledge. It's it's something that. 09:24.81 Amanda Kearney Are. 09:28.72 Liam Brady Yeah, we we can still sort of explore and we've done that in an archeological sense but all all the time recognized like that. It's just ah, another way of of knowing and seeing this annual rock art. 09:37.86 john bradley Yeah, and if I can come in there and I think the big overarching message of all of that is that we often use these terms indigenous knowledge or indigenous ways of knowing and when you Confront just. Even just what we're calling rock art here. Let alone anything else that might be in yanua country. What we're really dealing with are deep philosophies of being in a place that is called home by those people These are philosophical ways of knowing and. I'm fascinated with it because these philosophical ways of knowing just cut the joints of so much of what in the Academy or just Western knowledge more generally can't exist in yanua country properly that what we might consider a binary is no longer a binary. The binary makes no sense at all. 10:29.96 Alan So another so and so not so in other words John our cartesian western science. Ah the with the way in which we cut cut and shape the world doesn't fit as a paradigm or model to. 10:30.21 john bradley Um, so this is what keeps me. 10:48.21 Alan Understand and appreciate the indigenous knowledge of Australian Rock art that you have seen and experienced correct. 10:54.40 john bradley Well for yanua country. Absolutely and I think we do a great disservice when we try and make western ways of knowing fit into that and that point by Amanda then is so important as recorders as writers as academics. 10:58.30 Amanda Kearney Are. 11:12.66 john bradley Do we dare push the boundary far enough to say you know what guys we can't go there because we would then be misrepresenting a whole philosophical system that we have become privileged to know and this is a challenge across the board in universities about how then does indigenous knowledges. 11:24.20 Amanda Kearney Are. 11:31.43 john bradley Even come into the Academy and be allowed to be what they need to be without some default method of say only taking the bits that we want and it's an ongoing conversation. Really. 11:47.27 Alan It it is it is and I've we are dealing with that actively even in in the states and that's ah, that's ah, a huge challenge for us to try to appreciate reflect ah understand or somehow. 11:47.64 Amanda Kearney No. 11:54.26 Amanda Kearney I. 12:04.40 Alan Revere and Acknowledge Native perspectives indigenous perspectives on environment on landscape on what have you? it's um, it's it foot go ahead, go ahead. Yeah put. 12:14.58 Amanda Kearney Are. 12:14.68 Liam Brady Um, and Alan there's also broader implications to this is. There's also broader implications to this is that yes, we're looking at rock art through the lens of of kinship and concentric ecologies. It doesn't mean it's just restricted to rock art. This can also go on to things like stone artifacts and quarry sites. 12:22.50 Alan No please. But no, exactly guess right. 12:34.90 Liam Brady There's all these other sort of what we call archaeological features but all of these have this this rich context to it that we need to be able to explore and to understand and we do that through relationships. So we've started to do that with some of the stone artifacts from from neighboring Mara country to try and try and learn more about um, you know this. The the complex cultural story associated with these and you know that's really exciting and it builds on this rock art material. So we hope that we can sort of use these ideas to push archaeological research forward. 12:57.40 Alan Well let let me ask you 1 thing this is something that's come up very often. Yeah, yeah, so as physicists and other other scientists begin to understand the universe better and better and in different ways. 13:05.44 Amanda Kearney He. 13:16.17 Alan Is there a coming together is there any sort of indication that some of the things that indigenous knowledge have discovered is now being uncovered or verified or supported. 13:32.58 john bradley But I would say one in particular. 13:34.24 Alan By New ways of thinking in the so and the science and the scientific community. In other words, the sentience the the ability go ahead. 13:41.24 john bradley Um, well I'd say one in well I I think one of the biggest ones that we could relate to that is the whole idea of this notion of what is time. 13:52.47 Alan Okay. 13:55.10 john bradley You know Einstein said a long time ago that the way the west has constructed time is a nonsense. It doesn't exist like that and when you work with say people like the yanua people this is exactly the same time is not what we think it is time is totally. Viewed in a very very particular way where that which we in the west might say is 1000 years old 5000 years old is actually always present in the now and I think the notion of time is something that really comes up here where we could start to fit. 14:31.23 Amanda Kearney So. 14:32.29 john bradley More closely with some of the new modern ways by the physicists and the astrophysicists when they start talking about what is this thing we call time and I think that's 1 place where we could converge and have a conversation. 14:47.69 Amanda Kearney And I actually think that the the desire to to lean more into an understanding and appreciation of indigenous knowledges and indigenous understandings of the world is is being taken up far more readily than ever before in in the sciences if we want to call the hard sciences per se. But. You know I I work with marine geoscientists who are in awe of indigenous ah narratives and oral traditions that relate to changes in sea level and changes to sea country over time and. I Do believe there is you know it's It's kind of reaching a point where there's no longer any need for a hierarchy around ways of knowing that these are all just principled bodies of understanding that can be in relationship. It's it's the idea of plurality that we need to get our head around. Um, the centre is not going to hold much longer if we look at the the crises and the prevailing pressures and tensions happening to our environment and even just across cultures that the idea that a western way of understanding the world is the centre and that that will hold I think is perhaps foolish because. More and more there needs to be a vision of plurality in terms of how we start to address the the issues that are are prevailingly ah sort of challenging and pressing upon humanity and and I actually think there is a. 16:15.97 Amanda Kearney I would say over the course of my career at the moment at this present moment. There's more interest than ever before and I think it's a very exciting time to be seeing interdisciplinary and intercultural kind of approaches to ah human challenges. 16:33.37 Alan John and Liam is there a takeaway from all of this that you want to share as we and. 16:38.81 john bradley I will just I'll just leave you with one one of the constants that I've been told over my last 40 years that I know Amanda was told I know that Liam was told is the only way you will learn properly in a community such as the annual community is to listen. Is to have your ears opened and that's a direct translation from yanua and it literally means that if you listen you will grow in intelligence. 17:12.78 Liam Brady Um, and I guess just the final word for me then is that that this is a challenging a challenging way of of looking at at archeology looking at the archeological archaeological record everything that you've studied everything that you've learned in your first year archeology classes or your honors thesis or your ph d. Amazing how quickly it can get turned on its head and for me that's probably 1 of the most important things that I've learned from this project and I'm still learning today as I continue working in the gulf on on other archaeological projects and it's just it just adds such an important dimension to the way that we that we know about. 17:45.54 Alan Was is it a fabous bit. A fabulous set. Yeah, it's been a fabulous hour and I'm honored and blessed to have interacted with my Australian colleagues see in the flip flap gang and thank you so much. 17:46.83 Liam Brady Indigenous cultural heritage. So it's been been very fortunate to have been able to learn. 18:01.30 Amanda Kearney Thank you Alan. 18:01.11 john bradley Thank you Ellen. 18:01.46 Liam Brady Thanks! Alan.