Big Boss or Dark Emu? Indigenous Wisdom for the Academy

This chapter, focusing on indigenous wisdom, offers something of a challenge to the premise of this book by asking not only what indigenous wisdom has to offer to the disciplines, but to ‘religion’ as well. Indigenous wisdom, being wholistic and ancient in Australia, locates beyond notions of separation of knowledges (disciplines) or the arrival of religion into ‘terra nullius’ in the 1700s. Three areas of indigenous wisdom common across Australia that matter for broader and larger understanding in the academy will be explored: belief in a higher authority; interconnectedness; and the divine made visible.