Deakin’s Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) Lab is a space where Indigenous practitioners can apply their thinking and systems to different contexts around the world. Established in 2021 by Dr Tyson Yunkaporta, the IKS Lab aims to attract and support a team of Indigenous researchers, Knowledge Keepers and doctoral candidates who weave First People’s thinking, policy and innovations into solutions for some of the most pressing issues of our time.
Our team of researchers apply Indigenous thinking to complex issues across economics, design, leadership, governance, evolutionary dynamics, environment, cognition and consciousness.
Individually and in groups we conduct research projects across many disciplines to inform innovative knowledge and solutions designed to return all human beings to their ecological niche as a custodial species embedded in regenerative landscapes.
In every application of knowledge we seek to build in affordances that increase relationships with humans, non-humans and entities of place, creating feedback loops that continue to generate adaptive responses over time.
Land carries networks of informatics that provide relational patterns for optimal knowledge transmission. This informs our pedagogies, communication protocols and governance structures, which we seek to translate into principles, frameworks and media that maximise both the sharing and protection of vital knowledge.
The only secure way to store data over deep time is in intergenerational relationships embedded in meaningful landscapes. We adapt our relational technologies for everyday use in order to keep humans in the loop in the project of long-term knowledge retention.
When you study a PhD or conduct postdoctoral research with the Faculty of Arts and Education, you'll be supported by world renowned researchers.
By shifting our thinking to be about the knowledge that exists in connected systems, we can solve a lot of the problems and issues we face on a global scale.
Dr Tyson Yunkaporta
Senior Research Fellow and Founder of IKS Labs
By making research and research translation public and transparent through very regular and open communication of activities and yarns, the IKS Lab seeks to be an open source agent for change for our world.
IKS Labs partnered with Cynefin Centre, Cynefin Centre Australia and Complexability, to present a series of wide ranging and emergent yarns held with Indigenous Thinkers from Australia, Wales, Papua New Guinea, Canada and New Zealand. The yarns explored concepts of language, culture, spirituality, scale, similarities, differences and more.
Our researchers are Indigenous practitioners and academics who bring a range of interdisciplinary expertise to spark new conversations.
Dr Tyson Yunkaporta is the founder of IKS Labs and senior research fellow as well as an author, academic, educator, Indigenous thinker, maker (traditional wood carving), arts critic, researcher and poet. Tyson belongs to the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. His research looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective, asking how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation.
Dr John Davis is a senior research fellow and a proud Murri Ambae man. He is a Traditional Owner of the western sides of Bunya Bunya Mountains (Boobagarrn Ngumminge). John’s research interests include Indigenous languages as LOTE, embedding Indigenous Knowledges and Indigenous ways to multimodal literacy.
Jack Manning Bancroft is an honorary fellow and the CEO and founder of AIME, an award-winning social movement that uses mentoring and imagination to unlock the potential of marginalised youth to create a fairer world.
Joshua Waters is a senior research fellow and a proud Gamilaroi man currently studying his PhD exploring First Nations spiritual protection, wellbeing and harm. His past research examines the key convergences between IKS and natural systems combined with Western scientific domains.
Take an in-depth look at our latest research, available in a variety of formats and publications. For a full list of publications visit the profile pages of our researchers.
Latest publications:
Our team is here to answer your questions and help you learn more about the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab.
+61 3 5247 9352
Email the IKS Lab team
