Indigenous Studies: Bringing Knowledge Forward

Event program

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• Day One - Wednesday 28 October 2026

   

  Time	Session	Details/Panelists
  10:30am–10:45am	Acknowledgement and housekeeping	Acknowledgement: Aunty Glendra Stubbs, UTS Elder-in-Residence   Opening:  Professor Kyas Hepworth (Associate Dean, Indigenous Leadership and Engagement, Faculty of Design & Society)
  10:45am–11:15am	Morning tea
  11:15am–12:30pm	Panel discussion -  Country as Teacher: Looking Back and Looking Forward	The Country as Teacher project has been operating for over five years, with steady success embedding Indigenous knowledge into school curricula. Join the people at the heart of the academic work for a discussion of the past and future of Country as Teacher in schools and universities.      Panel host/lead:  Professor Benny Wilson (Institute of Education, Faculty of Design & Society)   Panellists: David Spillman is a man with obligations to Jagera/Ugarapul Country and who underwent his cultural learning on Karulkiyalu Country. He is one of the co-founders of the Country as Teacher approach and was the first to implement it in university classrooms. He is a well-respected and widely referenced educator and researcher.    Jordan Harrison is a former research assistant on the Country as Teacher research project, and co-founder and facilitator of the Country as Teacher Practitioner Network. His passions lie in the Dolphins finals hopes and invigorating humans desire to know, love and care for the places they live.   Monty Nixon is a PhD candidate, former research assistant on the Country as Teacher research project, lecturer and co-founder of the Country as Teacher Practitioner Network. His work seeks to help teachers embed their practice in Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing that centre learning from and caring for Country.   Eli Archer is a Palawa woman, mother, educator, and artist. Her main interest is in reinvigorating Indigenous pedagogical processes in schools in order to help students and families know and understand their local places, explore their own stories of relationship and connection to those places, and live their obligation and commitment to care for them.
  12:30pm–1:30pm	Lunch
  1:30pm–3:00pm	Panel discussion -  winhangali bu winhangagi bu ngurambang gu	Western cartographic practices have caused ongoing harm to Country, Aboriginal Peoples and cultural belonging by supporting terra nullius, dispossession, erasure and extraction, while Indigenous mapping practices have long held radically different relationships and obligations to Country. Through Aboriginal, migrant and diasporic Australian perspectives, this panel explores counter-mapping as an act of refusal and a way to assert and defend relationships with Country, home and homeland(s).      Panel host/lead:  Matte Ager-McConnell (Lecturer, Discipline of Architecture, Faculty of Design & Society)    Panelists: TBC
  3:00pm–3:30pm	Afternoon tea
  3:30pm–5:00pm	Roundtable Panel discussion -  Indigenous Higher Degree Research Trajectories: Travelling with and alongside the academy	Pathways in and out of PhD research are increasingly diverse and open-ended. This roundtable considers the opportunities, challenges and unexpected turns in higher degree research in Indigenous Studies and research with Indigenous communities.     Panellists:   Dr Latoya Aroha Rule, Research Fellow, Jumbunna Institute   Dr Grant Saunders, Writer/Director/Producer, UNSW   Genevieve Murray, Lecturer in Architecture, University of Sydney    Chair: Associate Professor Timothy Laurie, Higher Degree Research Coordinator, School of Communication and Social Sciences, Faculty of Design and Society
  5:00pm–5:30pm	Networking and break

• Day One Keynote Session

  Title: A writing life – Tony Birch in conversation with Anna Clark

  Date: 28 October 2026

  Time: 5:30  - 7 pm

  Acknowledgement: Aunty Glendra Stubbs, UTS Elder-in-Residence

  Introduction by: Professor Kyas Hepworth (Associate Dean, Indigenous Leadership and Engagement, Faculty of Design & Society)  

  Speakers:  

  Professor Tony Birch, Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature 

  School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne 

  Professor Anna Clark, Australian Centre for Public History, UTS 

• Day Two Program - 29 October 2026

   

  Time	Session	Details/Panelists
  10:30am–10:45am	Arrival and morning tea
  10:45am–11:00am	Acknowledgement and housekeeping
  11:00am–12:15pm	Panel Discussion - Is Agri-Solar (Agrivoltaics) the "Key to Energy Security and Self-Determination"?	Could agrivoltaics help remote First Nations communities achieve energy and food security, create local on-Country employment and improve biodiversity management? This panel examines research using agrivoltaics to reduce carbon footprints, strengthen local food production and deliver educational outcomes.      Panelists:   Dr Allan Teale, School of Architecture and Built Environment  Steve Jones, Ochre Ventures  Peter Irga, UTS researcher
  12:15pm–1:00pm	Lunch
  1:00pm–1:45pm	Paper Presentation -  My journey as a Koori Girl from Beach to University and Academia, and all that is in between	Presenter:   Frances Grant, Lecturer, Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Design & Society    Frances Grant will share her story of growing up in social housing, developing her aspirations, and her journey to becoming an academic at UTS and beginning her PhD.
  1:45pm–2:45pm	Panel Discussion -  Media Literacy in Communities	How do we get good information out to communities? This panel will use case studies from Media Diversity Australia and its relationships to explore what media literacy means and how this meets (or does not meet) community needs. Format: In-conversation discussion.      Panel lead: Associate Professor Liz Guiffre, Journalism, Faculty of Design & Society    Panellists: Paula Kruger, Peta MacGillivray and Tasha James – specialists in Australian media, communications and the contemporary media landscape, bringing perspectives from industry, broadcasting and community engagement
  2:45pm–3:15pm	Afternoon tea
  3:15pm–4:45pm	Panel Discussion -  Sovereign Stories: New Indigenous Writing and Literary Leadership	Inaugural Copyright Agency–UTS Indigenous Writers' Fellows Mykaela Saunders and Darby Jones talk with author and UTS Creative Writing lecturer Tess Scholfield-Peters about new work, cultural authority on the page, and what literary leadership asks of emerging Indigenous writers. Panellists:    Mykaela Saunders    Darby Jones    Lead: Tess Schofield, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Faculty of Design & Society
  4:45pm–5:00pm	Closing

• Day Two Keynote Session

  Title: Power, institutions and the public good

  Date: 29 October 2026

  Time: 5:30 - 7 pm

  Introduction by Professor James Bennett, Faculty of Design & Society

  Speakers:  

  Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt AO, Laureate Fellow, Jumbunna Institute  

  Dr Archie Thomas, Chancellors Research Fellow, Social & Political Sciences, Faculty of Design & Society