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Aboriginal ways of communicating through storied yarns is central to an individual’s knowing, being and belonging. Yarn, as defined by Geia etal. (2013) is a two-way exchange of shared experiences through stories. Storied yarns have been passed down from our Elders and provide a deep connection to storylines, kinship, history and Country. These stories and lived experiences belong to and are the intellectual sovereign knowledge of the diverse Aboriginal nations across what we now call Australia.
This presentation will be expressed in the way of a storied yarn, centring Aboriginal intellectual sovereign knowledge and truths. Yarns will reveal our shared history in terms of settler colonial attempts at erasing Aboriginal languages, stories and yarns; the resistance and refusal Aboriginal people have displayed as sovereign people; and the ways in which our profession has been complicit in the denial of Blak humanity through language assimilation and ideology. This presentation will also discuss how we can change our shared history and work together in acknowledging yarns as Aboriginal intellectual sovereign knowledge and engaging in yarn to ensure services are of benefit to Communities and one in which Aboriginal people themselves define and are in control of culturally safe and responsive service provision.