How to cite and reference material with Indigenous knowledge?
The following pages aim to help build a more critical and robust process when considering attribution, using and citing material related to Indigenous knowledges.
Once you have found a material that is considered relevant and appropriate, the next step is to properly attribute the Indigenous knowledge in the material.
There are three ways Indigenous knowledge can be used in a material:
Material created by Indigenous author/s
Material created by an Indigenous author/s that cited Indigenous knowledge
Material created by non-Indigenous author/s that cited Indigenous knowledge
What is the purpose to citing and referencing material?
Citing and referencing material created by others is a useful method for:
- helping to build and share the knowledge and work of others.
- demonstrating how you engage critically with the knowledge and work of others.
- acknowledging the work of others that you have used as supporting evidence in your own work.
What is meant by Nation, Country or Language group?
You need to bring attention to Nation, Country or Language group when citing and referencing works that contain Indigenous knowledges. This is due to historical misinformation, poor recordkeeping, purposeful destruction, and the privileging of the collector and Western perspectives, when it comes to handling Indigenous knowledge.
When citing or referencing material by Indigenous author/s that contains Indigenous knowledge, always check how the author self-identifies and describes themselves. Authors can identify themselves by Nation, Country or Language group. Some authors may choose to describe themselves in a combination, such as Language group first, then Country and Nation. The order of how an author identifies is unique, so can vary among authors.
How to cite and reference a combination of Nation, Country, and Language?
If an author identifies as a combination of Nation, Country or Language group, The IKAT suggests using the semi colon to separate Nation, Country and Language.
However, some authors do not use a semicolon in this way. Instead, authors may use a coma to separate Nation, Country and Language or no coma at all.
In-text example: Couzens (Keerray Wooroong; Gunditjmara) (2018)
In this in-text citation example it identifies Dr Couzens is Gunditjmara from the Western Districts of Victoria and the work she has produced in 2018 contains knowledge from her mother tongue language, Keerray Wooroong.
APA referencing style
The American Psychological Association (APA) have developed a referencing style commonly used across different educational institutions and scholarly disciplines. The most recent version this referencing style is APA 7, which consists of:
- In-text citations are presented in your piece’s body, typically including a work’s author/s and the date of publication.
- References at the end of your piece, giving full bibliographic details of all in-text citations.
Note
Study Skills has a comprehensive Deakin Guide to Referencing which covers all the main referencing styles used in Deakin.