Doing Conceptual Multiplicity: Working cosmologies together and separately in northern Australia

• In Event: Aspiring Societal Impact. The Epistemological Politics of Interventionist Research in STS - III

Abstract

At the 4S/EASST conference in 20202, this group presented a Making and Doing exhibition called ‘Making and Doing TopEndSTS – on country (and online)?’ That presentation took the form of a website, and displayed a number of collaborative research projects working at the intersection of Indigenous and other academic traditions. Read together, this collaborative initiative explored what it means to do research and differing epistemics together in ways that entwines technologies of representation and people in generative ways. In revisiting this collaborative work again in 2021, we extend this initial exploration. Now, we focus up tensions between collaborative project research in northern Australia carried out as practical and interventionary, and the efforts needed to ensure the work can retain the epistemic flexibility to ‘work different cosmologies together and separately’, as a key element of generative research work. In presenting stories from our respective research sites, we suggest that beginning with recognising the significance of negotiating conceptual multiplicity, offers one way to work with an often-assumed contradiction between epistemically valid research and generative intervention.

Authors

• Michaela Spencer, Charles Darwin University

• Yasunori Hayashi, Charles Darwin University

• Leonie Norrington, Charles Darwin University

• Christine Tarbutt-Buckley, Charles Darwin University

• Simon West, Charles Darwin University