Yarning about Pou

Leaning upon the cultural authority, knowledge and experience of elders is critical to creating the next generation of change makers and social leaders. AFSE’s highly valued Pou are Indigenous knowledge holders who work alongside Fellows; mentoring and offering guidance and cultural safety.

Listen to Professor Daryle Rigney and Mark Yettica-Paulson yarn about their role and reflections as AFSE Pou:

Transcript

Daryle Rigney:

So I guess when I was younger, one of the things that I really liked to do was to spend time with elders and leaders in my own community here, and to hear their stories. Stories of everyday life, but also stories of the kind of life worlds they were in, the kind of political struggle they were a part of, the decision-making efforts of the community and the nation to create better lives for their people.

So often, you know, not even necessarily having a question, but just listening and spending time with them was so valuable. And I still do it today, actually. I still try and gravitate towards people who have that kind of sense of they've done some things in their life, made a contribution, the contributions they make up for that kind of collective good of people in their communities. You know, there's a kind of public-spirited leadership that they show and they exhibit, and obviously they've got a knowledge base to that and practical experience, sharing the failures and what to look out for sometimes the things to be careful about.

And so that kind of sharing is what I think we do as a member of the Pou. But it's a role that I would do anyway by being in relationship to others.

And so that kind of being in relationship thinking about transformation, thinking about how do we build kind of civics knowledge, our conscientisation and understanding of the issues that we face, thinking about who are the people that are doing that kind of work and what kind of connections can be made and what kind of relationship we build in order to tackle those challenges and then actually doing something so, you know, understanding it and then actually making commitments ourselves to do the work, to act, to be transformative in ways that bring positive energy to the lives of the people that we engage with so that it changes colonising relationships.

It doesn't pull us back into things that don't work for us or don't celebrate and acknowledge and value who we are, what we have to offer in our contribution to the world.

Because I think so much of the work that the Fellows do, leaning upon the expertise and the knowledge and the experiences of the Pou and other elders and leaders who come into the program over time is to us, critical to building that sort of the next generation of changemakers and social leaders.

It’s certainly my way with our community you kind of have to demonstrate that your there and for the long haul and that you're going to give it time and you're going to make a contribution. And the idea that you can walk up, appear, and suddenly people are giving and sharing deep knowledges, that doesn't happen. You know, it’s a process of being there, being involved, developing relationships, building trust. I always talk in the kind of work that I do, nation building, is how do we build the next generation of citizens that come from your community and seeing them as citizens, not members of a board or community committee, but you're actually a citizen of your nation. And that brings certain kinds of responsibilities, I think. And so, you know, those sorts of ideas around collectivism and next generation and succession, I think is something that we as Pou, as I understand the conversations that I've had with other Pou, is always in the back of their minds.

Mark Yettica-Paulson:

What I liked about the role of the Pou or the value first, what I think I value is that we can take up a role that the faculty don't have to. So that role really shows up in that, you know; “Can I ask you a question, as a practitioner? Can I just ask you a question from your experience?” So that is qualitatively different to the question that gets asked from the education outcomes or the assignment work.

So that is valuable from that point of view, but it's also valuable from the point of view of demonstrating that there is a level of cultural authority in the room that this effort of the University of Melbourne and Atlantic Fellows to do something actually has some First Nations cultural lens on it.

Are we creating enough space for ceremony? Are we doing enough to make sure that the First nations and the Māori, and the other Pacific guys feel culturally safe? And, of course, we put things in place through structures and processes to also know that there are Pou in the room.