Yandaarra

Giinagay, hello, from Gumbaynggirr Country

In Gumbaynggirr language, Yandaarra means “to shift camp together.” As Yandaarra, we walk together, shift camp together, and live and work in, with and as Country. We are at a point where a radical shift is necessary, to learn how to better live on and with Mother Earth. When this shifting happens, it needs to occur on many different levels: in our lives, our dreams, our work, our homes and our families, and through broader structures that can allow a genuinely respectful coming together.

Yandaarra is a collaboration led by storyholder for Gumbaynggirr Country, Aunty Shaa Smith under the guidance of the Old Fellas and Gumbaynggirr Country with her daughter Neeyan Smith. Yandaarra includes non-Gumbaynggirr academics Sarah Wright, Paul Hodge, Lara Daley, and Liz Murphy-May from the University of Newcastle and the Jaliigirr Biodiversity Alliance as partners.

We come together as Yandaarra to build and research a better understanding of what a Gumbaynggirr-led “caring for Country” might look like today. This involves the collaborative development and trialling of resources and protocols to help support natural resource management organisations to attend more deeply to Indigenous ideas of Country, and to Country itself. Protocols are ways of doing and being with Gumbaynggirr Country that are guided and supported by Gumbaynggirr lore/law, the fundamental lore/law of Gumbaynggirr Country. This lore/law is about living in harmony and being as one.

This research collaboration requires us to know our place and our different histories as Gumbaynggirr and non-Gumbaynggirr people living and working on unceded land. Our focus in Yandaarra is to learn to care for Country and ourselves from a Gumbaynggirr perspective.