In my opinion, the challenge of practice theory to pedagogy is how to frame curriculum in practice. Professional areas of practice like law and medicine have over time developed a series of strategies to bring practice (often figured as 'problem-based learning') into their curricula through placements and internships.
But disciplines like mine in the social sciences are still in the experimental stages of finding more effective ways to engage our students in learning practices.
Here I present a case study: an undergraduate unit that intentionally seeks to build a community of research-learning practice in a senior undergraduate course, 'Native Title Anthropology: Society, Law & Practice'.
A small group of colleagues working in the Locus of Social Analysis and Research (LocuSAR) at the University of Adelaide — Michael Maeorg, Lucy Hackworth and I — have been working to develop a 'practicum approach' to higher education to frame the Australian Native Title Studies (ANTS) program12 we are developing in Native Title anthropology, a specialised field of research- learning practice.13
12 At the time of writing, we are working to develop a national curriculum in Native Title anthropology. Scoping and foundational pedagogical work on this project has been supported by grants in 2011-12 and 2012-13 from the Attorney-General’s Native Title Anthropologist grant program.
13 Native Title anthropology has developed as an area of practice since the Mabo Decision of the High Court of Australia in 1992 and the bringing in of the Native Title Act in 1993, to give effect to that landmark judgement in Australian law (Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR; Native Title Act 1993 (Cth)). Native Title is a ‘recognition space’ in which Australian law recognises the law of Australia’s First People’s (see Mantziaris and Martin, 2000: 9-12). This recognition space is also a space for specialist anthropological practice. Native Title anthropology is also a hotly contested practice in Australian anthropology more generally. Some anthropologists declare it is not anthropology at all. Others assert that Native Title anthropologists fail to realise that they are
So what might a practicum approach look like? First and foremost a practicum approach pivots on practice. Our practicums aim progressively to open up and engage students with, and in, a field of research-learning practice. Secondly, our practicum approach works from the premise that learning and practice is socially situated and constituted in communities of practice, as it is constitutive of them.
For this reason we aim to bring participants into communities of practice firstly by intentionally establishing the class itself as a community of practice (see Figure 2.9) and then by facilitating participants to engage with members of this community of practice more broadly over the duration of the course and beyond it. We do this by bringing adept, expert and exemplary practitioners into our classrooms to engage with the class about their practice, but also by enabling students to join them in their places of practice (see Figures 2.8 and 2.10). Thirdly our practicum approach seeks to provide a framework for course practice through which participants can 'do', and in their practice progressively link, master and ultimately innovate from, typically patterned (albeit dynamic) actions and outcomes in these communities of practice. But this framework is not intended to provide a clockwise trajectory.
Rather participants have some control, particularly in the online portion, of what they do when. We anticipate trajectories that navigate back and forth around these planned pivots of research-learning practice (see Figure 2.7).
We open our own Native Title practice for inspection through 'Blue print briefs'. These 'interactive' briefing papers are so called because the links they provide to online material appear in blue print. By hitting a blue print link students are taken from the narrative of the brief to other relevant material that can extend perspectives. Typically these well-illustrated introductions to the field of practice provide links to official (court) accounts of the cases we introduce, films (including controversial films to debate), scholarly writing, radio, television and newspaper reports and documentaries and even publicly available primary evidence.
part of the governmentality of dispossession. Meanwhile there is a high demand for expert Native Title anthropologists and a recognition of the fact that there are not enough capable people coming through the ranks to take on these roles and indeed to replace aging experts who are leaving practice.
The ‘blockage’ in the Native Title system that this contributes to has meant that funds have been available to try and bring students into training and practice, increase the capabilities of practitioners in the system and retain practitioners in the system. Support for a number of projects under the Attorney-General’s Native Title Anthropologist grant program has enabled us to develop research- learning courses, and for Adelaide to become a locus for a national community of Native Title anthropological practice.
Figure 2.7: Pivots in a practicum-based research-learning approach
In the delivery of our undergraduate course in Native Title anthropology we seek community-forming from the start: by making a student's first task the posting on the class website of an introduction of themselves and their reasons for doing the course to everyone else. We encourage interaction by assessing the extent and quality of contributions to the discussion board in the first two weeks of the course. In an intensive on-campus week (in an otherwise online offering), we purposefully develop the class community through a number of class exercises.
Over the on-campus week we bring Native Title practitioners into this locus of learning to discuss their work and be available as exemplars of practice. Over the week we encourage students, course staff and visiting practitioners to lunch together in the 'University Hub' (see Chapter 7, this book).
Assessment strategies are central to these endeavours. Community engagement through online introductions and interactions is rewarded. Regular quizzes provide formative experience and incentives to engage with the scholarly literature. Practicum assignments require students to undertake a typical practical process in the terms of typical practitioners. Students already working in the field of Native Title anthropology are encouraged to negotiate a project with their
employer and the course co-ordinator so that their research-learning practice might also be integral to their work- place practice. ANTS also 'commissions' Native Title work through a 'Call for Contributions' brochure. Students may also negotiate a project with teaching staff who, in this course, take on the position of commissioning client. The staged assignment progression involves students in
• negotiating a project assign- ment (in this case 60 hours)
• finalising their project brief with their client
• developing a project plan with costings and milestone pro- gress and payment points
• delivering (for assessment)
and invoicing a specified progress milestone outcome
• delivering and invoicing for payment the final outcome against the brief.
At the time of writing, we are seeking virtual ways to bring exemplary prac- titioners and exemplary practice to students as an online community of practice.
Our online virtual space, 'the ANTS nest', is being further developed to support engagement in the broader community of practice in Na- tive Title anthropology. We are developing 'untethered' curricula organised around topical, skill-developing, re- Figure 2.8: Steve Goldsmith welcomed students to his country and gave his own perspective on Native Title, 20 January 2014
Figure 2.9: Maddison and Clara conferring as part of a workshop exercise, 20 January 2014
search-learning practice packages. One example revolves around a 30-minute re- search-learning film, 'Exploring Society', made by film-maker Caro McDonald for the ANTS program. The film introduces the 'genealogical method' developed by Rivers in the early twentieth century as practised by exemplary practitioner Profes- sor Peter Sutton, eliciting responses from Karina Lester, a Yunkunytjatjara woman.
In this package the key skills of eliciting a genealogy, and through it kin terminol- ogy, are introduced. The relevance of such material to the practice of Native Title anthropology is outlined. A core reading by the skill's inventor (Rivers, 1910) is attached and students are required to take 'research reading notes' on it. Students will watch the high-quality and engaging video of the practice in action and will 'write up' the case study. We have designed an interactive context for students to practise the skill amongst themselves. Then they will be asked to critically assess the usefulness of the method in Native Title analysis.
Figure 2.10: Guest panellists discussing the De Rose Hill Native Title case, (from left, top); Karina Lester (chair of the Native Title holding group), Susan Woenne- Green (senior anthropologist for the claimants), Jon Willis (witness for the claimants), Kim McCaul (anthropologist for the ‘State Crown’), Andrew Collett (lawyer for the claimants), and (bottom, far right) Peter Tonkin (lawyer for the State Crown), Native Title Summer School, University of Adelaide, January 2014
At the time of writing, other skill development learning packages are in planning with our film-maker. Planned for inclusion in these learning packages is a unit on Native Title litigation. Here we will use footage shot while our team has been doing the in-court fieldwork for our ethnography of Native Title litigation. This unit will not only include ethnographic film but will also draw on sketches made by an experienced courtroom artist, Bronya McGovern, whom we commissioned to make this visual record of court proceedings (see Figure 2.11).
The outcome will be research-learning exemplars — a richly illustrated and multi- faceted ethnographic monograph on Native Title litigation, and an enticing video documentary that will bring research-learners into the courtroom and the court into our research-learning practice. None of these products will be bound by 'traditional' teaching or research forms. All will make fundamental contributions to our community of practising Native Title anthropologists.