A note on our positionality and standpoint

Despite its benefits of generating knowledge, it is well known that research has contributed to the oppression and marginalisation of Indigenous peoples worldwide, as it is often used as a form of colonial and imperial expansion (Watson, Reference Watson2014). Therefore, working within these unceded places and spaces of knowledge production and transmission, such as universities and research institutes, we need to be aware and responsible for how we act within these sometimes harmful and oppressive systems. We acknowledge that neither of us (Peta and Manuel) are originally from where we live and work, and yet we maintain a sense of care and connection.

We both have expressed our discomfort with claiming to be experts in and of these unceded spaces and places where we live and work. For example, my (Peta) work is transdisciplinary, working in a very privileged and influential role in academia as a practising visual artist, qualified (Eco-) social worker, historian, and lecturer in Indigenous studies. I (Peta) acknowledge my (her) own family history and heritage, which family oral histories recognise and some proudly respect as being of either Indigenous, Islander and/or Māori descent – but it is unknown for certain, as there are only traces of evidence. This lack of certainty is most likely due to colonial practices and policies, because the documented hegemonic and meticulously constructed facts of this heritage and history and therefore identity have been intentionally erased, burnt, and as such cannot be proven and legitimately claimed; that is, according to the standards set by the same (colonial) system. Either way, I (Peta) commit to this ongoing critically self-reflexive inquiry into Australia’s shared and contested history from this somewhat grey positionality.

We also acknowledge that all research is carried out on Indigenous peoples’ lands and waters, specifically, that all research is “on Country” even in built-up urban places. I (Peta) live and work in Wiradjuri Country, and Manuel in Gadigal Country, which is part of the larger Eora Nation. My (Manuel) academic journey began in Mexico, where I (Manuel) always felt a deep connection to nature. While not Indigenous to these lands, I (Manuel) seek to maintain a sense of care, humility, and connection to place, and try to cultivate a relational and ethical connection to Country, acknowledging the deep histories, sovereignties, and custodianships that infuse these landscapes beyond what is visible or documented. Since moving to Australia in 2015, I (Manuel) recognise that it is not always evident how researchers can work directly with Traditional Owners or rightful knowledge holders, yet I (Manuel) consider it essential to explore respectful, reciprocal, and creative approaches in their absence.

Manuel and I (Peta) have critically reflected (via online communication) on how engaging meaningfully with Traditional Owners (or Aboriginal individuals and/or communities) and knowledge holders remains both a priority and a challenge, particularly where direct collaboration is not always feasible. We recognise it is not always evident how researchers can work directly with traditional owners and or the rightful knowledge holders, and if this is not possible what other options exist. It is for each of these reasons listed above, that I (Peta), have been working with Phillips’s ISP for over ten years within academic learning and teaching, and research, all as my EcoSocial work critical field of practice. As will be described further in the section below, EcoSocial work is a multidimensional systems and futures-focused field of social work practice that is distinctly political and transformative.

Indigenist Standpoint Pedagogy (ISP)

Phillips’s ISP was originally developed as a critical approach to teaching and learning that supports education of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, but it has since evolved into a practice framework that supports curriculum and course design and transformative research for all. ISP is a critical approach to teaching and learning that is somewhat influenced by the “writings of Frantz Fanon’s (Reference Fanon1970) text ‘White Skin, Black Mask’, Whiteness theory, and bell hooks’ (1994) ‘Teaching to Transgress’”(Phillips, Reference Phillips2011, p. 2). Phillips was drawn to these works because they validated her discomfort with teaching about Indigenous peoples, which, when placed in or assuming this position, made her “feel like an apparition, performing a supposedly ‘lost’ culture (Langton, Reference Langton1996), yet remaining invisible in the process” (Phillips, Reference Phillips2011, p. 2). Indigenous cultures are not lost. In addition, other Indigenous scholars have reflected on their discomfort with what they have explained as a performative Indigeneity (Harris, Reference Harris2013) under the colonial gaze (Paradies, Reference Paradies2020). Based on these sorts of experiences, Phillips’ research helps to identify the problems with teaching and learning that focuses on learning about Indigenous peoples, cultures and knowledges as the reproduction of deficit discourse, and harmful Othering, without minimising the very real experiences of racism and marginalisation.

Harmful Othering often occurs where the representation of Indigenous peoples’ cultures and histories are positioned through narrow, descriptive and circumscribed cultural identities, usually of the past, minimal inclusion in the present and subsequently erased from the future. For example, through the process of developing curriculum and teaching that educates about Indigenous peoples and cultures, identities and cultures are often homogenised, essentialised and historicised. These acts of homogenisation and essentialism may create a greater distance between the stereotyped image or identity of Indigenous peoples and the non-Indigenous (and sometimes even Indigenous) students who maintain, from their own privileged positions, the “uncritical consumption” of the information (Phillips, Reference Phillips2011, p. 196). Further, the historisation of Indigenous peoples, cultures and knowledges can relegate important ideas and insights to the past.

Usually, this form of teaching and learning about Indigenous peoples and cultures is an attempt to fit Indigenous knowledges into dominant colonial systems and paradigms, an extractive approach, having the effect of reproducing what Professor Larrissa Behrendt termed, psychological terra nullius (Reference Behrendt1998). Subsequently, ISP was developed to address the need for education to:

• “[P]rovoke a shift that makes a difference to how individuals relate to knowledge about Indigenous issues, and their relationships with Indigenous peoples beyond the classroom” (Phillips, Reference Phillips2011, p. 2), and

• “[E]nable students to become critical readers in both public and private domains and across these spaces by drawing distinct connections between abstracted theory and the chaotic, yet powerful, spheres of our social existence that organise our world” (Phillips, Reference Phillips2011, p. 2).

Therefore, here, we come from the standpoint that representation has a very real, if somewhat symbolic, individual and therefore political impact. Aligning with ISP instead of representing Indigenous peoples and knowledges as homogenised, essentialised and historicised fixed identities, we focus on centring Indigenist and Indigenous knowledge perspectives as gained from published and publicly available records (Phillips, Reference Phillips2012; Wilson, Reference Wilson2007). We choose this approach to examine our positionalities and standpoints, and to imagine new socially and ecologically just systems and futures (Phillips, Reference Phillips2012, Reference Phillips2019). Here, the metaphor of becoming-intersectional in assemblage (Puar, Reference Puar2020) provides a way to visualise not only the importance of centring Indigenous and Indigenist knowledge perspectives but also what this may involve. At the same time, it draws attention to the varied positionalities of researchers and decision makers, which are shaped by social – cultural, institutional, and historical factors such as race, ethnicity, class, gender, and community.

Becoming-intersectional in assemblage

Drawing from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Jasbir Puar describes assemblage as the design, layout, organisation, arrangement, and relations – the focus being not on content but on relations – relations of patterns and intersections – drawing from Brian Massumi, who said “grids happen”, which can mean rigid boundaries and thresholds, of often fixed binary identities. Instead, Massumi and Puar are concerned with co-becomings of movement, flux, and potential (Puar, Reference Puar2020, p. 50; Massumi, Reference Massumi2002, Reference Massumi2021). Puar states, “subject positioning on a grid is never self-coinciding; positioning does not precede movement but rather it is induced by it: epistemological correctives cannot apprehend ontological becomings; the complexity of process is continually mistaken for a resultant product” (Puar, Reference Puar2020, p. 50). The merging of these two concepts, which are somewhat oppositional (Puar, Reference Puar2020), shifts beyond binary othering to instead create the required friction and dynamism needed for thinking through and with the complexity of Indigenous and Indigenist knowledge perspectives in relation to and with dominant colonial systems, such as those currently governing urban forest management, planning and governance.

The colonial load

Returning to the idea of identity where we see attempts to “fit” Indigenous knowledges into dominant colonial systems and structures such as universities, institutes and organisations, we usually see identities that are homogenised, essentialised, and historicised. Fixed identities, those that align with binary definitions, align with dominant colonial systems and understandings, and are therefore supported and nurtured because they reproduce knowledge that is comfortable and familiar to the dominant culture, repositioning some in positions of power over Indigenous “others” (Phillips, Reference Phillips2011). To gain and or maintain any sense of power, dualistic identity constructions are reinforced as a form of legitimacy – whether that be Indigenous or non-Indigenous.

This creates a culture where specific “authentic” identities – usually defined by the same colonial systems – are celebrated and welcomed, often resulting in Indigenous peoples carrying a colonial load. This colonial load usually involves Indigenous peoples teaching non-Indigenous about their experiences, history and culture, rather than the institution celebrating and genuinely embracing Indigenous knowledge, ideas, and innovation. This colonial load has the effect of maintaining settler colonial power, dominance and knowledge systems (Lowe & Manjapra, Reference Lowe and Manjapra2019). But, as some Indigenous scholars who research in Indigenous identity politics explain, “there are very real material and non-material rewards for those [who closely align with what is perceived as authentic Indigeneity] and who can perform this [I]ndigenous ‘otherness’ in visible ways” (Harris, Reference Harris2013, p. 6). This often occurs at the expense of those very real others, those others who challenge the dominant norms and stereotypes.

The celebration of a singular or essentialised Indigenous identity can inadvertently erase the true diversity of Indigenous cultures and identities, often reinforcing settler-colonial narratives. What we aim to highlight here is that Indigenous identities and positionalities are inherently political, particularly within colonial contexts like Australia, where clear distinctions exist between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations (Lowe & Manjapra, Reference Lowe and Manjapra2019). We also aim to stress the importance of respecting Indigenous sovereignty and rights, acknowledging the racism Indigenous peoples face, and we are calling for a move beyond simply fitting Indigenous knowledges (and identities) into colonial frameworks. Instead, we advocate for transforming existing systems and schemas that are failing, which requires understanding the relationality between different approaches to knowledge, crucial for this change. We argue for new systems that genuinely accommodate diverse Indigenous realities rather than maintaining dualistic colonial dynamics, which is where and how the becoming intersectional assemblage becomes a useful metaphor.

Becoming-intersectional in assemblage supports individuals and collectives to map their inter/intra-connected social – cultural, institutional and historical factors (Jeffries, Reference Jeffries and Hytten2025). For example, the historical interconnectedness of settler colonialism with the positivist and interpretivist dualism, originated during the Enlightenment era, industrialisation, and modernity (Mathews, 2020, 2022; Rigby, Reference Rigby2022; Rose, Reference Rose1996), has contributed to the siloing of professions and disciplines. This historical context has significant implications for how research is today designed, carried out, and communicated for educational purposes.

As an example, the interpretivist ontology views reality as socially-culturally-historically embedded, where knowledge is jointly understood, interpreted, and co-constructed by the researcher and researched, identifying patterns and meanings by giving voice to the subject matter. In contrast, the positivist approach typically analyses data from an allegedly distant or neutral position. The harmful colonial logic of believing detached objectivity leads to facts and greater truths is problematic (Mathews, Reference Mathews, Bartel, Branagan, Utley and Harris2020, Reference Mathews2022; Rigby, Reference Rigby2022), as it can reproduce unconscious bias and the very issues research claims to address. This is particularly relevant in areas like climate change and social and ecological injustice. For example, and as it is illustrated in teaching and learning environments, students may deny non-Indigenous responsibility by expecting Indigenous peoples to carry the load (both colonial and cultural) and to teach them, thereby legitimising their (non-Indigenous) innocence or ignorance.

Beginning to practice Indigenous Standpoint Pedagogy (ISP)

To counter these harmful colonial logics, we advocate for the practice of ISP, which is our chosen methodology, because it supports the critical self-reflexivity required for us to disrupt or transform the colonial logics outlined above, and to begin imagining Indigenous and Indigenist knowledges and futures. Rather than placing the (colonial) load on Indigenous peoples, ISP involves learning about oneself, including examining the origins of one’s knowledge, why it is believed to be true, and who benefits from inherited knowledge systems (Phillips, Reference Phillips2011). Drawing from various sociological theories and terms or concepts, a core part of beginning and maintaining a practice of ISP involves identifying, considering and understanding ones:

• Position which is recognising one’s role and identity - one‘s position - within social or cultural structures

• Positionality which is being able to identify, understand and describe how one’s intersecting social identities shape their worldview – including recognising and understanding personal bias’, how they are formed and how this shapes one‘s interpretation of the world. It also includes understanding how one’s past influences and shapes one’s present.

• Standpoint is one‘s viewpoint, or knowledge, as derived from one’s lived experience

through proccesses or methods that support:

• Reflexivity which involves critically and responsively analsying each of the above aspects of the self, including examining intersecting identities, assumptions, norms, values, actions and beliefs to gain greater insight and awareness into how one’s presence and perspectives affects others, and

• Critical self-reflexivity which is all of the above combined, but importantly, it is a deeper and more relational process that involves transformation or change. In the practice of ISP, this process is informed and guided by Indigenous knowledge perspectives.

In the practice of ISP, all of this critical self-reflexivity is in relation to what (and how) knowledge is known, constructed/created and unknown (erased/forgotten), about Indigenous peoples, cultures, and any identified challenges, barriers, and opportunities. The transformation that becomes possible through the practice of ISP must be informed by Indigenous knowledge perspectives. For this reason ISP is different to standpoint theory. Grasping these terms or concepts is a crucial yet initial step in teaching, learning, education, and research that aims to move beyond merely exploring and describing identities, experiences and realities. This encourages taking responsibility for how these processes reconstitute identities, experiences, and realities. The goal is to avoid reproducing the same problematic realities that teaching, learning, education, and research claim to address. Through the critically self-reflexive practice of ISP, we aim to share insights on how and why Indigenous and Indigenist knowledge perspectives should be centred in critical urban forest studies and environmental education, particularly in addressing the onto-political dilemmas of urban forest management, planning, and governance by working across disciplinary differences. However, simply using or citing these terms is not sufficient. This relational and responsive work is much deeper.

Onto-political dilemmas in urban forest management, planning and governance

The way in which Indigenous peoples, cultures, knowledges and values are represented shape our reality and lived experiences of and with each other, whether we are Indigenous or non-Indigenous. Phillips’ ISP teaches us that institutional, historical, and social – cultural factors determine what is known and unknown through representations (Phillips, Reference Phillips2011). This is relevant, for example, in urban forest management, planning and governance where Indigenous knowledge perspectives are often excluded for various historical, social – cultural, and or institutional reasons, usually based on binary distinctions and representations around identity, temporality, and value. Explicit examples of potentially violent and racist onto-political dilemmas we are referring to here, many of which are grounded in essentialised and homogenous representations, are temporalities of Indigenous and settler colonial identities, relationality, and values that inform current urban forest management, planning and governance. These include:

1. 1. What we today call urban forests are in fact the unceded lands and waters of Indigenous peoples that are controlled and managed through settler colonial (Wolfe, Reference Wolfe2006) logics and psychological, utilitarian, and aesthetic or symbolic (Bonyhady, Reference Bonyhady2003) desire for:

   1. a. A Romantic reclamation and conservation (Mathews, 2014, 2020; Rigby, Reference Rigby2004, Reference Rigby2022) of wilderness (Mathews, Reference Mathews, Bartel, Branagan, Utley and Harris2020; Langton, Reference Langton1996), in the hope of reconnecting with some form of wildness (Rigby, Reference Rigby2022), soul healing (Prechtel, Reference Prechtel2001) and, or

   2. b. an imperial pastoral [and or cropping] economy (Rose, Reference Rose, Rose and Clarke1997; Griffith, Reference Griffiths2002)

2. 2. Forests are often assumed to be a group of trees; however, history reveals they are multispecies kin (Poelina et al., Reference Poelina, Perdrisat, Wooltorton and Mulligan2023; Milgin et al., Reference Milgin, Nardea, Grey, Laborde and Jackson2020; Salmón, Reference Salmón2000), inclusive of grasses, understory, shrubs, water, and all the more-than-human inhabitants (Poelina et al., Reference Poelina, Perdrisat, Wooltorton and Mulligan2023; Griffith, Reference Griffiths2002), although often framed through or as:

   1. a. Spaces and even shadow places (Plumwood, Reference Plumwood2008) of white possession (Moreton-Robinson, Reference Moreton-Robinson2018), a “gentleman’s park” (Griffith, Reference Griffiths2002, p. 380), or even the “biggest estate” (Gammage, Reference Gammage2011; Pascoe, Reference Pascoe2014), and, or

   2. b. The view of nature as a resource (Mathews, Reference Mathews, Bartel, Branagan, Utley and Harris2020; Rose, Reference Rose, Rose and Clarke1997), where the utility value of plants is prioritised (Rousell & Tran, Reference Rousell and Tran2024) and, or

   3. c. Conservation, where anthropocentric bias and methodological solipsism is reinforced (Mathews, Reference Mathews2022), leading to marginalisation of local values and realities (Vaccoro, et al., Reference Vaccaro, Beltran and Paquet2013), problematic models (van Beek, Reference van Beek2025; Alba et al., Reference Alba, Krueger, Melsen and Venot2025), exclusion (Vaccaro et al., Reference Vaccaro, Beltran and Paquet2013), and even where Indigenous knowledge is referenced or included, it is assimilated into dominant western mindset (Mathews, Reference Mathews2022; Griffiths, Reference Griffiths2002), and Indigenous peoples are often excluded from decision making (Alba et al., Reference Alba, Krueger, Melsen and Venot2025).

Although ISP asks us to consider the historical, institutional and social – cultural domains within which our knowledge about Indigenous knowledge perspectives exist and or emerge, it is not suggesting that we can predict the future from the past. It is, however, asking us to consider – in this case – how urban forests have been socially and culturally constructed to maintain settler colonial desires, while embracing Indigenous knowledges on one hand, and erasing them with the other, through binary assumptions and perceived knowledge hierarchy. This requires listening to understand how the past is still present today and how this can inform or shape our futures.

As a colonised continent, Australia is uniquely positioned to understand and learn how to adapt to the impacts of climate change. With the raft of introduced species, and diverse ideas about land use and practices (Rigby, Reference Rigby2022), rapid extinction over a 250 year span (Paradies, Reference Paradies2020), and our uniquely shared (and often silenced) histories (Phillips, Reference Phillips2019; Jeffries, Reference Jeffries2023), by acting responsively, we can learn from Indigenous knowledge perspectives about managing disaster and rapid climate change, plus, and how to co-develop new systems in place of those that are failing us (Mathews, Reference Mathews, Bartel, Branagan, Utley and Harris2020; Poelina et al., Reference Poelina, Perdrisat, Wooltorton and Mulligan2023). As already mentioned, ISP highlights that harmful binary assumptions exist within historical, institutional, and social – cultural domains. In urban forest studies, these binary distinctions may be witnessed in (1) positivist scientific sense-making through ecological and biophysical sciences, such as through techniques or methods of data modelling and sampling, and (2) interpretivist sense-making, such as what is typically evidenced in the social sciences and humanities, including through methods from the more creative processes of art practice, narrative or story, poetry, and fictional writing (Mathews, Reference Mathews, Oppy and Trakakis2014, Reference Mathews, Bartel, Branagan, Utley and Harris2020; Rigby, Reference Rigby2022). What ISP offers, is an emergent and generative way of, that supports the individual and collective practice for the kind of future that is just and fair. ISP offers a methodology to identify the dilemma or problem and respond accordingly, in a manner that aligns Indigenous knowledge perspectives. However, this paper does not and cannot explain the whole process and method of ISP. This is just a small sample of our experience of a much larger and life-long process of and commitment to learning and critical self-reflexivity.