Building relationships on and with Mother Mountain : women incorporating indigenous knowledge into outdoor learning

In this chapter, we explore some of the affinities that developed amongst three women outdoor educators, one Indigenous (Lynne Thomas) and two Anglo-Celtic (Nicole Taylor and Tonia Gray), whilst on Mount Gulaga in remote southeast Australia. The relationship that formed between us and the Mother Mountain Gulaga is key to this chapter, in which we seek to demonstrate how Indigenous Australian knowledge can be respectfully taken up within outdoor learning contexts, such as those provided through outdoor education. Outdoor education programmes, in their various forms across Australia, are still largely approached through Western knowledge systems and academic structures (Kingsley, Townsend, Henderson-Wilson, & Bolam, 2013; Truong et al., 2018). Whilst there is some evidence of small shifts to include Indigenous Knowledge in outdoor or environmental education programmes (Birrell, 1999, 2001, 2007; Gray, 2005; Spillman, 2017; Whitehouse, 2011), these are not often documented or made explicit for others in the field to take up and learn from. The work in this chapter identifies how a space exists between Traditional Knowledge, non-Aboriginal people, and the Mother Mountain Gulaga, where similarities, connections, and stories can be shared as a way to build respectful relationships with people, Country, and the self (McKnight, 2015). This space, which is referred to as the “in-between-ness” of cultures, provides the foundation for outdoor education teaching and learning that occurs for the authors of this chapter. What follows can be considered an example of how the authors navigate this space together, sharing their experiences and stories of connecting with Country. This chapter can be useful as a guide for others in the outdoor learning and outdoor education fields, where not many explicit resources currently exist for non-Aboriginal people to think about, or implement, respectful teaching and learning that connects with Indigenous Knowledge.