Emma Gavin / Jillian Holt - Cilect Congress 2023

Associate Professor Emma Gavin is a Garrwa Aboriginal woman from Borroloola in Australia’s Northern Territory. Emma is an Associate Professor and the inaugural Associate Dean (Indigenous Advancement) for the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Emma’s research harnesses audio-visual mediums, such as film, to extend and decolonise academic discourse.

Dr Jillian Holt is a Senior Lecturer in the Swinburne University of Technology Bachelor of Film and Television (Honours) program. Recently, Jill has extended her interest in creative practice and pedagogy to recording indigenous storytelling/knowledge within an academic framework and archiving the history of the Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association.

Associate Professor Emma Gavin is a Garrwa Aboriginal woman from Borroloola in Australia’s Northern Territory. Emma is an Associate Professor and the inaugural Associate Dean (Indigenous Advancement) for the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Emma’s research harnesses audio-visual mediums, such as film, to extend and decolonise academic discourse.

Dr Jillian Holt is a Senior Lecturer in the Swinburne University of Technology Bachelor of Film and Television (Honours) program. Recently, Jill has extended her interest in creative practice and pedagogy to recording indigenous storytelling/knowledge within an academic framework and archiving the history of the Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association.

Decolonising Research and Publication Methods: Using Audio Visual Literacy to Aid Decolonisation Efforts in Education Settings

Between 2020 and 2022 the authors created Where We Stand, a 30-minute documentary film that encapsulates the barriers faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics within Australian tertiary institutions.
The film focuses on the role and place of Indigenous knowledges within the Academy and acknowledges the role of Non-traditional Research Outputs (NTROs) in Indigenous research publication (particularly film and photography), as a vital means of ensuring research with community is also for community.
The film documents how the audio-visual medium is a valuable tool, to not only disseminate Indigenous knowledges, but to protect and safeguard them as well. Through this medium, the authors can record Indigenous knowledges as they are spoken, they can share these knowledges through an accessible and tangible medium, aid in decolonisation efforts, and ensure the knowledges are protected for future generations.