Exploring Decolonizing Methods in Place-Based Research: Weaving Together Archival Research, Yarning, and Walking With Audiovisual Recordings

The case study draws on a collaborative First Nations Australian and non-Indigenous research project that engages with a particular place, Cullunghutti Mountain. The project brings Indigenist research principles into conversation with approaches grounded in environmental humanities and cultural geography that recognize the vitality and assemblage agency of more-than-humans. It aims to contribute to decolonizing place-based research practices by exploring the generative potential of three key methods: archival research, yarning, and walking with sound and image recording. We show how these methods can disrupt the dominance of colonial approaches through the privileging of embodied, multisensory encounters with place that support culturally appropriate research practices. The research approach and methods outlined here will be useful to students attempting to engage in Indigenous-led research that resists dominant colonial representations of people and place and the associated practices of displacement and disempowerment of First Nations people and their ways of knowing, being, and doing.