Women,(re)birth and collective wellbeing on Barkindji Kiira

Abstract

The overall goal of this article is to present a fresh entanglement of diverging and converging cross-cultural perspectives on land, wellbeing and people. At times, what we weave is tightly bound, and at other times it frays off because that is life, relationship and research. We word-weave the complexity of our intersecting standpoints like a traditional Barkindji Club Rush emu net. One aim was to amplify and preserve Barkindji ecological and cultural knowledges and define a context-specific framework for conceptualising and practicing wellbeing. This framework builds on the work of others by including the importance of land-based participatory action, the potential for social change through traditional ecological plant knowledge, and highlights the significance of Indigenous women’s roles in this space.

Emu net weaving: entangling cross-cultural knowledges

The overall goal of this article is to consider the entanglement of diverging and converging cross-cultural perspectives on land, wellbeing and people afresh. We word-weave the complexity of our intersecting standpoints like a traditional Barkindji emu net woven of Finica nodosa (Club Rush) blades, collected by Barkindji women from the banks of the Menindee Lakes. These lakes are part of a series of ephemeral water bodies located along the Darling Barka River in far western New South Wales (NSW), Australia (Hartwig et al., 2018). Emu nets are very strong and can stretch to 150 metres (Bulmer, 1999). They were strung between trees not far from watering places such as the river lifeblood of the far west. The nets were designed to catch Emu, allowing them to be caught by waiting Barkindji hunters.

Singular strands of the rushes of 1m long were dried, rehydrated and woven into a longer twine, each piece becoming part of a larger whole. Hundreds of grass lengths made up this long net. They overlap, intersect, become one, and fray off at the periphery into sky and soil. We weave together what is synchronous and accept what may fray off, perhaps loosening the bounds of this weaving metaphor itself—we are not isolated monads—but individuals in relationship attempting to better live and die together on Australian soils.

To begin with, we place and locate ourselves (Koster et al., 2012) and our research project at the intersection of land and Indigenous Country, Jungian psychology, Barkindji models of wellbeing, and traditional botanical knowledge. We hold these four themes and consider them from multiple angles, weaving them into a greater and more meaningful whole. We explore ways to tighten our relationship with our Self and each Other through psychospiritual growth, between each Other and Country through land-based collective action, and highlight the essential role of Indigenous women in so doing. We aim to:

• describe our co-designed Barkindji Wellbeing Framework (the Framework) and visions for the future

• deepen our understandings of our methods through a novel analysis of the deeper archetypal stories and myths at play in our relationships and our work

• pose questions borne of this woven enterprise,

• and make shared commitments while offering practical lessons along the way.

Each of the following sentences is an individual rush, and each paragraph is a twine of rushes, and each paragraph links - as an overlapping twine - to each other paragraph so that an integrated narrative is woven. We know that English language writing is limited in what can be conveyed, compared with visual weaving or oral yarning (Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010; Bocanegra-Valle, 2014; O’Shea et al., 2024; Terare & Rawsthorne, 2020). Our description is based on our unique relationships and a relational approach to this local project, and therefore, our lessons are offered as guidelines – not rules – that could inform culturally safe work with other First Nations communities. This means that paragraphs explaining background, methods, results and discussion appear throughout the narrative, rather than under one heading, for example, “methods” and “results” are presented together, weaving on top of and under each other—it is a word-mandala. Our regular “practical lessons” serve to signpost the end of each theoretical section and offer safe passage to the next.

Practical lesson 1

Read about First Nations knowledge construction methods (Andrews, 2020; Ryder et al., 2019; Wyatt, 2009; Yunkaporta, 2019), especially from the community where you work and live, and talk to First Nations artists, and visit First Nations exhibitions. This is to gain an appreciation of relationship building, of interconnections of land and Country, of ways of knowing and of practicing wellbeing.

Defining First Nations landscape research

For Aboriginal Australians, the English word “Country” comprises the complete more-than-human world, including plants, the land, rocks, winds, waters, spirits, and indeed the entire Universe (Darug et al., 2021). Country is responsible for the flourishing of life above and from within it, from time immemorial—thriving and not thriving, abundance, periods of drought, scarcity and affluence—is influenced by what the Country provides. But Country is more than a passive setting for life; it is everything, as well as being an active participant in the world. Country authors life (Bawaka et al., 2015).

First Nations landscape research is relational and multidisciplinary research embedded in the knowledge that First Nations Australians’ wellbeing is irrevocably tied to Country. It aims to understand the essential connection between humans and the landscape through participatory and land-based research projects—centring the land in research outcomes and acknowledging both literal and spiritual contributions the land makes by embedding Country as author of published outcomes, among other decolonial strategies (Darug et al., 2021; Lloyd et al., 2012).

The authors of this article are members of a cross-cultural research collaboration based on Barkindji Country. The majority are First Nations Australians (D.D., A.B.Q., T.Q., J.C., C.P., M.J.L.). David Doyle, Aunty Barbara Quayle, Tannya Quayle and Jade Cicak are proud Barkindji and Malyangapa peoples, Cory Paulson is a proud Worimi man, and Dr Mark Lock is a proud member of the Ngiyampaa clan. Sophie Zaccone is of Irish and English descent, Vanessa Latham is of mixed Anglo-European and Aboriginal lineage, Dr Graham Jamieson is Australian-born descended from Scots and North Sea People and Professor Clara V Murray is a recent Irish immigrant to Australia. Although we do not all reside on Barkindji Country, our cross-cultural collaboration is Barkindji-led, following the Buran Nalgarra Darug-led model of cross-cultural collaboration (Darug et al., 2021). Barkindji Traditional Owners David Doyle and Aunty Barbara Quayle guide our collective actions through their communication with Aboriginal community-controlled organisations Kinchega Elders’ Group and the Barkindji Native Title group, and their special relationship with Barkindji Country (Hartwig et al., 2018).

In the small snapshot of time in which we have been collaborating with Barkindji Country, or Barkindji Kiira (Kiira means Country in Barkindji), she has provided much more than a physical setting for a research project; she has been our guide, teacher, knowledge keeper, healer, food source and a source of personal, professional and social growth. For these reasons, and as guided by others (Bawaka et al., 2015; Darug et al., 2021; Lloyd et al., 2012), we consider Barkindji Kiira a co-author of all our creative and community outputs (Shawanda, 2023). We are aware that what we write, design and build, and what we teach our children and our children’s children, is what will contribute to a thriving future for generations of Barkindji and all First Nations Australians. We do not take lightly this opportunity to create contemporary cultural artefacts and acknowledge our important role in ensuring the cultural safety of our Indigenous members and the protection of their cultural and intellectual property, for both themselves and their communities.

Country authors life and our multidisciplinary collaboration contributes to a future thriving Country.

Barkindji country: Menindee: 32.39290 S, 142.41860 E

The machine of modernity crashed onto the ancient soils of the continent now known as Australia in the late 1700s with the arrival of the First Fleet of predominantly Irish and Scottish convicts and their English jailors (Gibbs, 2009). Before this time, the inhabitants of the continent possessed 260 distinct language groups with up to 800 dialects being spoken (National Archives of Australia [NAA], 2024). These varied groups of people practised varied and unique cultural traditions grounded in caring for Country and kinship systems specific to the tract of land to which they were linked (Kinnane, 2005). First Nations Australians were custodians of the land, caring for and maintaining a harmonious balance between Country and the collective—an attitude different to the land-hungry British colonists.

Barkindji Country encompasses an area of 128,000 km² (Hartwig et al., 2018) and stretches from “Bourke in the North to Wentworth in the south and travels along the Darling Barka” as described by Barkindji women Cheryl Bates Blore (department of planning, industry and environment [DPIE], 2021). It is dry and flat in parts, rocky and green in others; there are red sandy soils and grey clays, and both desert and riverine ecologies (Pardoe, 2003). In the past few decades (1997–2019), Barkindji Country has experienced intense drought and the drying up of the Darling Barka—the lifeblood of the region—due to human-induced climate change and the mismanagement by the Murray Darling Basin Authority (Bureau of Meteorology [BOM], 2024). Barkindji Peoples are the River People, their name derived from the word “Barka” meaning river. Barkindji peoples have inhabited this Country for 65,000 years or more, living in close and reciprocal relationship with the land, plants, animals and sky (Cumpston et al., 2022).

Barkindji Country has featured in more recent news events due to a series of fish kills – 2018/19 and 2023 – at Menindee, which lies in the centre of Barkindji Country. These mass fish extinctions are a result of mismanagement of the Darling Barka and water distribution issues that see water taken from the river system further upstream and downstream for domestic, agricultural and mining uses (Absolon & Willett, 2005). These factors, in combination with water loss due to high evaporation rates in the hot summer periods of December 2018 and January 2019 and high rates of blue-green algal blooms, caused a depletion of oxygen throughout the Barka (Australian Academy of Science [AAS], 2019; Office of the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer [OCSE], 2023) and led to the death of over 1 million native fish including Parntu (Murray Cod), Pangula (Silver Perch) and Kunpali (Golden Perch) (Ellis et al., 2022). In 2023, this event occurred again due to similar causal factors—this time, it is estimated that 20 to 30 million fish perished (OCSE, 2023).

Barka wellbeing links to people’s wellbeing

For Barkindji peoples, similar to other First Nations communities across the continent, events that injure the land (Pearson, 2020), plants, water and animals also injure the minds and hearts of the Country’s First People (Weir, 2011). Badger Bates, a Barkindji Elder, community leader and renowned artist, recounts:

. . .when the river is healthy, everything flows and Baakandji people are happy. However, when the river is sick the Baakandji people are sick both physically and socially. Crime rates, family violence and mental health issues rise when the Barka doesn’t flow (Ellis et al., 2022, p. 264).

However, recent 2021–2024 wet weather patterns (OCSE, 2023) have seen a flourishing of native plants and wildlife on Barkindji Country. Native lemongrass (Cymbopogon ambiguus) sprouts by roadsides, and mangarta (wild spinach; Tetragonia moorei) and kaanpi (pigface; Sarcozona praecox) grow in abundant tapestries under groves of kiikila (gumbi gumbi; Pittosporum angustifolium). A shared love for this unique and beautiful landscape is the genesis of our research collaboration. Despite the unsuccessful attempt at erasure, Barkindji peoples and culture are strong, resilient and in a continual state of self-realisation (Museum of Contemporary Art [MCA], 2022; Way et al., 2023) and rebirth (Australian Museum, 2023; Mitchell, 2023).

When Country is renewed, so are First Nations peoples, whose wellbeing is irrevocably tied to the wellbeing of the land (Stocker et al., 2016). As Bawaka, including Suchet-Pearson et al. (2013) explain, we are not researchers or people working “without Country about her, we are part of Country, and we research and care for Country as Country.” This is research acknowledging the unbreakable psychosocial spiritual connection between Country and her First People, particularly significant in Australia, where those lands continue to be illegally occupied by the British Crown (Dharug et al., 2025).

Practical lesson 2

Be sure to critically reflect upon all forms of knowledge you access, noting the author/s professional or academic position, race, gender and who they are writing about and why. If they are writing about First Nations communities and issues, how have they included these communities in the creation of the new knowledge, and how have they gathered and protected the traditional knowledges within their work (Harfield et al., 2020). Lack of methodological guidance for non-First Nation researchers working with and in First Nations spaces poses a risk for First Nations individuals and their communities. Be sure to have examined and reflected on foundational sources describing cultural safety in research with First Nations people as a first step – among many others (Ramsden, 2002; Smith, 1999).

Methods and results: a Barkindji wellbeing framework

The First Nations landscape research project on which this article is based focused on both community and academic outcomes. One of the key community outcomes is the connection and formation of new – and culturally safe – relationships between community members who have a shared concern for the wellbeing of people, plants and land, which will endure beyond the life of this project and which will spawn other ideas and projects. The participatory action research (PAR) cycles gathered shared knowledges on wellbeing while co-designing a native edible and medicinal plants field guide, accompanying an Indigenous knowledges mandala calendar and the co-design and installation of a Wellbeing Garden featuring the plants of the field guide. One of the academic outcomes of the project was the co-design of a Barkindji Wellbeing Framework.

Our framework is a context-specific answer to the call to develop more Indigenous-led models of wellbeing by Dudgeon et al. (2014)(eds.). Dudgeon et al. (2014) present a national social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) framework to make clear the relationship between SEWB, mental health and mental disorder from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Wellbeing perspectives. Their aim, to educate and assist health professionals providing services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This framework is multifaceted, fusing typical SEWB principles within a framework that centres Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander worldviews and cultures.

Our aims are similar, and we seek to refine this framework from a context-specific Barkindji perspective; however, we present a diverging structural approach for how we make sense of psychology as a discipline. There are some fundamental differences between the conventional cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) approach employed by most practicing psychologists and researchers (O’Shea et al., 2024) and the Jungian analytical psychology sensibility. We also place emphasis on the importance of land-based local employment opportunities to Barkindji peoples, the significance of traditional botanical knowledges and Indigenous women’s roles in mediating successful outcomes.

This divergence is not an argument to develop the basis for a new structural approach to psychology in Australia. It is founded on the importance of a pluralistic approach to psychological research and practice (Kendall et al., 2019), suggesting that all dominant structures, ways of thinking and codes of practice require regular reflexive recalibration (Russell-Mundine, 2012) against minority and alternate theories (Taylor, 2007) co-designed with local communities. We have attempted to model such a recalibration of a “way of thinking” by recasting the Jungian psychology framework on which our research rests (Zaccone et al., 2022b), building on the work of other unconventional psychology researchers (Gridley et al., 2011; Petchkovsky et al., 2007; Quayle & Sonn, 2019).

As an Aboriginal health care worker and artist, and co-author of this article, David Doyle describes his own cultural philosophy and ways of delivering health care services:

Aboriginal people have been working this way, practicing holistic health principals for hundreds of generations. That a whole idea of looking at the person as a whole is interesting, like it’s new for some people. We kind of blow that holistic perspective right out to not just the whole human, but the whole of the community, the whole of their lifestyle. I think that’s one of the things that really makes a huge difference.

The funny thing is sometimes when we go into a community that doesn’t have any Aboriginal people, a white person may come in and when they see me they say, “why do I need to see an Aboriginal health worker?”, they’re a little bit standoffish, but by the time they leave, they’re almost giving me their phone numbers and inviting me to dinner, and I don’t mean to be sound so immodest but (the holistic model) it changes the whole relationship you have with that client—we have a waiting list now. Whether the issue was big or small, it’s because but you're looking at them as a human.

This holistic or integrated framework described here echoes beyond the individual and their personal temporal bounds. It is imbued with layered meanings, reaching back into a beginningless time and forward into an infinite future thriving. It offers a theoretical start, acknowledging the limitedness of the one-on-one therapy model in addressing community-wide issues (Bennett, 1966; Sonn & Quayle, 2014) and the distinct difference between the lived experience of wellbeing or lack thereof and the fracture between Self and psychological experience created by western biomedical models of psychological disease (Redvers et al., 2022).

An Indigenist approach

Our Indigenist approach meant a deliberate and careful attitude to choosing methods of data collection; each method was assessed for reliability and validity in this setting (Dudgeon et al., 2010; Rowe et al., 2015). Indigenous research methods of yarning (Terare & Rawsthorne, 2020) and dadirri (pronounced da-did-ee) or deep listening (Ungunmerr-Baumann, 2017) were used in both the development of trusting cross-cultural relationships and in the collection of data—both in group settings and in one-on-one interviews (Young et al., 2016)—with a focus on oral traditions of knowledge sharing (Lutschini, 2005). Observational notes were taken during the three workshop cycles in tandem with regular critical reflexive practice (Hammond et al., 2018; Maso, 2001). In this context, this process was used to produce a rich and accessible body of personal and interpersonal data (Ngunjiri et al., 2010) that placed the locus of power with First Nations peoples to determine if the research project did not diminish, demean and disempower their cultural identity (Wood & Schwass, 1993).

Our original plan was to apply a combined Environmental Identity Scale (EID) (Clayton et al., 2021) and a Social and Emotional Wellbeing Scale (ESWB) (Kowal et al., 2007). Research revealed that the only culturally validated ESWB scale, the Negative Life Events Scale (NLES) (Kowal et al., 2007), had language with triggering potential, for example, “Have any of these things been a worry for you or anyone else living in this house during the past year. . .serious illness, death of a family member or close friend”. Despite the support provided by our relationships and given the significance of our potential results (<10 participants), there was no good reason to pursue this method. We assessed the EID scale with similar results. We queried whether questioning First Nations people on their connection to the environment in this way undermined our shared foundational experience that First Nations peoples are irrevocably connected to the land. Applying western psychometric tests in this context was at best futile and at worst further perpetuating colonial methods dehumanising Indigenous peoples (Tiwari & Stephens, 2020).

The philosophical rushes of the framework are PAR, context-specific co-design, Barkindji cultural philosophy, holistic framework, Indigenist approach, and rejecting psychical scales.

Traditional botanical knowledge: plants as land and kin

A distinct difference between our work and similar PAR projects (Bawaka et al., 2015; Darug et al., 2021; Lloyd et al., 2012) and psychological frameworks (Dudgeon et al., 2020; Garvey et al., 2021) is the inclusion of plants, as one facet of Kiira (Country) and therefore as kin. Over the course of our journey and as guided by the traditional knowledge held and shared by our Barkindji group members, we have come to love these plants as teachers themselves, relationship builders, healers and nourishers (Cumpston et al., 2022).

Not only have we shared ancient knowledge, but also built new frames for considering how these plants can care for Barkindji peoples. We have all learnt new ways of working with these plants in the current conditions we are faced with—contaminated and disturbed soils, colonised Kiira, changed climate, devastating weather events and food insecurity (Sherriff et al., 2022). In returning these Barkindji plants to their native soils, we heal Kiira and open new potentials for social, emotional and economic growth for her people (Jarvis et al., 2022).

This research project and outputs did not emerge spontaneously upon our first meetings—they are a product of an ecology of relationships that have been gathered over time, ancestrally and into the present moment. Research papers describing the process of collaborative work with Indigenous communities often fail to expand on exactly what developing genuine relationships looks like – or what constitutes a non-genuine relationship as non-genuine – or outline the true – and often unfunded – associated costs. In addition, beyond the practical, much of what occurs between people, and people and the land is unseen—our relationships and our research inevitably involving what we bring—our personal histories, learnt social and familial lessons, and the influence of our ancestors and our hopes for our descendants. Our relationship with our own Self within the container of our life is responsible for how our relationships with other humans and the non-human world play out (Zaccone et al., 2022a).

As our relationships grew stronger and our plans for the future coalesced, so did the wider family and kinship networks that support our lives. Each yarn flowed from the previous and was built naturally over time. This led to the first draft of the Barkindji plants field guide, which then became a cultural artefact to orient around, drawing in interested community members. Each member joins with their own set of knowledge and beliefs on or links to Barkindji plants, much like a network of expanding connections around a shared mandala—with our care for the land or Country as centre. Solidarity was built through setbacks and the reaffirming of shared goals after them. Our relationships were deepened through our pain at the outcome of the Voice to Parliament referendum (Berry, 2024) and our joy in reaffirming our local voices over shared meals and moments together on Barkindji Kiira.

As always, there were the plants, passed between hands, turned over, pressed into paper to trace and paint; or smelt, eaten, steeped in hot water and sipped in quiet moments between words and actions. Plans have not always flowed unhindered, like the Barka river itself; our plans have been thwarted, hampered, with some projects dried up or become disjointed. Yet our relational approach has made space for this natural unwinding of the reality of qualitative and community-based culturally safe research (Sherwood et al., 2015).

Trusting relationships grow and are strengthened when sharing plant knowledge and walking together on Country, enjoying as one the undefined and seamless experience of her plant–soil–Country–air.

Practical lesson 3

Deepen your engagement with your local Aboriginal community/s by educating yourself on the local edible and medicinal plant species and their typical environmental growing conditions. Take this a step further by seeking out local botanical knowledge keepers – making sure they are fairly compensated for their time spent educating you – and amplify their work by sharing with other people you know—these steps demonstrate a developing awareness of cultural safety. Consider the planting of a native garden, or even just a small balcony pot plant, with local species supplied by an Indigenous-owned local nursery.

Conventional psychology, Jung and Indigenous ways of thinking about wellbeing

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875–1961) states that conventional psychology is but one aspect of the greater discipline of psychology. For Dr Jung, conventional psychology described the neurobiological elements of psychological function rather than encapsulating the entire lived human experience. He positioned theoretical frames such as behaviourism, CBT and neuropsychology as scientific aspects of a larger, overarching whole (Stevens, 1991). For example, where behaviourism seeks only to observe and empirically research patterns of behaviour, Jung posited the wider discipline of psychology as seeking to explain the deeper, innate mechanisms responsible for those patterns (Stevens, 1993).

Jung believed that, rather than being born into this world as a psychospiritual blank slate, we are a living record of evolution where each of us is a representative of, and as having access to, a shared ancient past (C. G. Jung, 1942/1954). Each of us is in conscious or unconscious communication with an ancestry that transcends the individual. Thus, laying the foundations for a psychology in which we are all deeply connected to our past and to each other, which connects us with our common future. Jung presents archetypes as symbols forming the building blocks of the Unconscious, a language used by the human psyche to communicate the Unconscious to the conscious Self, which includes the individual Ego, which we inhabit for most, or perhaps all, of our waking lives (Samuels, 2003).

One aspect of Jung’s body of work, relevant where colonial mismanagement has led to environmental degradation of the Kiira and Barkindji peoples’ wellbeing, was his concern for the loss of connection with nature (Sabini, 2002), “I am still deeply convinced of the-unfortunately very mysterious relation between man and landscape” (C. G. Jung, 1989a, p. 338). He believed that human wellbeing is irrevocably tied to the wellbeing of the land and that fostering the human–land relationship promotes psychological wellbeing and personal transformation (C. G. Jung, 1989b). He suggests that western scientific progress has “completely despiritualised nature through its so-called objective knowledge of matter and, humanity’s mystical relationship with nature has been curtailed. . .disguising the inner wealth of the soul” (C. G. Jung, 1942/1954, p. 245).

Jung’s personal work and theory of Individuation also have much to offer the subjective process of developing a culturally safe way of relating to people of different backgrounds. His methods rely on the exploration of the Self as the source of all knowledge and personal growth, a process integral to the becoming of a culturally safe individual in interpersonal relationships with individuals from cultures, races and genders other than one’s own (Jones et al., 2023). Jung believed that how we perceive the outer world is a reflection of our internal relationship with our Self (Stevens, 1993). In other words, to heal one’s relationship with the Self is to heal all other relationships, both with other people and with the land.

This deeper exploration of psychological understandings seems to resonate with Indigenous ways of thinking about wellbeing, which are far broader than just the absence of disease, distress or other scientifically validated symptomatology (Redvers, 2019). Indigenous cultures worldwide share a similar understanding of wellbeing as a state of physical, spiritual and social health—including the health of the land, plants and waterways, which extends into the fabric of the universe itself (Redvers et al., 2022).

Recasting a Jungian sensibility

Our research design applies an Indigenist approach within a qualitative framework. This approach is guided by seven core principals (a) relational—prioritising the building of strong culturally safe relationships, between human and non-human landscape elements (plants, soils, waterways, animals and weather patterns) (Yunkaporta & Moodie, 2021); (b) reflexive—researcher commitment to reflexive practice for the purposes of ensuring cultural safety (Milner, 2007); (c) respectful—privileging First Nations voices, individuals, needs, desires and strengths (Kim et al., 2020); (d) reciprocal—benefitting First Nations first (Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council [AHMRC], 2020); (e) landscape-based—research processes prioritise land-based outcomes; (f) co-designed and transparent and (g) applying Indigenous methods (yarning and dadirri) to develop strong trusting relationships (Butler et al., 2022; Fleming et al., 2020).

Embedded in this Indigenist approach, we evaluate the appropriateness of the Jungian sensibility (Petchkovsky et al., 2003) for facilitating a deeper exploration of the psychological implications of our work. We attempt to recast this Jungian sensibility by focusing on Jung’s attitude to the human–land relationship, the spiritual nature of humanity, Individuation, the collective unconscious and myths, stories and archetypes.

In summary, critical examination of research processes involves delving into your Self through literature, conversations and getting out of the office and social media, and allowing Country into the psyche through, for example, seeing plants as spiritual well givers rather than as commodities.

Practical lesson 4

Be curious about the meaning of Cultural Safety. Check out Milner’s Research Racial and Cultural Positionality Framework (Milner, 2007) and answer these questions thoughtfully for yourself over a couple of sessions, journaling your responses as you go. Should you desire to take this Self-questioning further, what questions were particularly puzzling or engendered the deepest answers? Follow these threads.

Discussion: posing questions and weaving in archetypes

To co-write this article, we posed questions as to how we deepen our understanding of our method, the shared lived experience of our research. How do we describe the complexity of enmeshed cultures, stories of creation, plant cuttings passed between hands, lino prints of watercolour sketches, signatures on shared grant applications for growing plants on Country?

We try out the Jungian sensibility—releasing the research process, and the structure of this article, from its linear temporal description to explore the socio-historical archetypes at play in our relationships and our work ancestrally and into the future. We picture this set of Jungian archetype-threads as the growth of the Club Rush itself, starting in the earth, drawing up nutrients and different knowledges from the soil through plant roots nourished by water from the Barka. We expand as individuals and as a collective, air permeating our leaf-veins, old cells sloughed off as new understandings emerge. Our nature-based research experience is the nourishing soil for our souls (Sabini, 2002). We present this growth metaphor as an archetype for a new way of imagining psychological transformation and practices of wellbeing specific to Barkindji Kiira.

Applied archetypes and Jung’s individuation

When watching plum fruit fall from a Karnpuka (Quandong Tree) to be eaten by an Emu, later re-fertilising the soil in a warm dung heap, which also feeds the tree, we can come to understand the indefinite cycles of death and rebirth that characterise the entire Universe. When staring out at the deep blue sea, or the multitude of stars in the night sky, we see vastness, our own insignificance, but also patterns repeated at potentially endless scales and dimensions. The infinite emptiness that is the sky and the stars beyond is also impossibly full of energy, as is the nucleus in the cell of every living thing. Watching a solid transform to a liquid evokes the mutable power of a natural process that extends to all life on Earth. We too are solid, and liquid, vapour and one day, dust.

These natural processes are mirrored in the Self, both body and mind. Personal growth or Jung’s Individuation is the process through which the individual is iteratively grown or matured emotionally—an essential feature of a culturally safe researcher, psychologist and indeed person, as Jung states “an analyst (psychologist) can help his patient as far as he himself has gone and not a step further”(C. G. Jung, 1976, p. 449). As a cross-cultural co-design team, we find ourselves in the act of being transformed psychologically through our collective actions. These actions, like the stories we weave here—rational, ecological and spiritual—rebirth new cultural artefacts and new psychological frontiers.

Earth mother archetypes

Country or Kiira is both a physical reality and a setting or catalyst for personal cultural connection and growth. Kiira possesses an innate soul, or anima mundi (C. G. Jung, 1953). In our project, Kiira has facilitated the building of our relationships, guided our personal changes and shaped the community and academic outcomes. From an archetypal perspective, Kiira is a facet of the universal symbol of Earth Mother—for Barkindji peoples, this is known as Kulliwera, synonymous with God or the creator.

At the time of writing this article, our plans for the co-design of a Wellbeing Garden—comprising the plants detailed in the Barkindji edible and medicinal plants field guide—are well underway. This garden is a manifestation of shared goals but also an intersectional space where humans and Country meet. A garden is a place for humans to meet Earth Mother, to face Kulliwera; we see this garden as a venue for the transformation of the site, society and the Self. By working with Country in this way—through learning with soils and trees, facets of Kulliwera—we have all come to a deeper understanding of how to be with Kiira better, and with each other and our Self/s (Ammann, 1999).

Water archetypes

Menindee’s story is one of land and water. It is a traditional birthing place and a place of (re)birthing of culture (Australian Museum, 2023; Way et al., 2023), creativity (MCA, 2022) and technological advancement (Martin et al., 2023). Traditionally, water archetypes symbolise the conceptual, the unconscious and the feminine. The opposite of earth—stable, masculine, practical—water is changeable, fluid, deep and associated with the unknown depths of the human experience. If the earth archetypes, soil and roots are associated with concrete reality, then water is associated with its counterpart—the collective unconscious—ephemeral, changing, the timeless void, deep past, the dark womb of the unknown.

Water is something from which we emerge, in our evolutionary past and physically via birth. Through water, we are more than just our human bodies; water connects us to every living thing. We are born of water, once seeds that swelled our mother’s bellies, our feet touched soil and we grew. Myth and stories of creation often involve emerging from and returning to water. In Barkindji creation stories, Ngatyi, the rainbow serpent, creates the Barka River as they – Ngatyi is both male and female – emerge from the land. The river is created in their wake as they traverse Barkindji Kiira. At Menindee, Ngatyi returns to the land once more and creates the lake system. Consequently, Menindee Lakes are a traditional birthing place, a womb for (re)birth.

Water rights, Menindee, women and (re)birth

Native Title rights were won by the Barkindji Aboriginal People of the state of New South Wales in 2015 (Stephenson & Ratnapala, 1993), which is a recognition and protection of Aboriginal peoples’ rights to land and water. This legal 18-year battle was a powerful win for the Barkindji peoples as the Barka and its tributaries represent not only an essential water source, but a facet of cultural connection essential to psychospiritual wellbeing. Water, like land, is kin. Unfortunately, little change has been felt by Barkindji peoples in regards to their control over and access to their traditional waters due to layered restrictions created by Australian water governance regimes (Jackson & Langton, 2012).

There is a strong feminine presence within our research collaboration; two-thirds of our team are female (BQ, TQ, JC, VL, CD, PD, SZ). Collectively, we recognise the strong parallels between the colonial state mismanagement and degradation of Aboriginal lands and waters and the historical and continued mistreatment of Aboriginal women, evidenced in increasingly high incarceration rates and continued removal of children at numbers much higher than the general population (Fredericks, 2008). We also recognise the central and essential role Indigenous women play in familial and community wellbeing (Dudgeon & Bray, 2018) and collectively see a future where Aboriginal women play an integral role as both stewards of Country and healers of her people (Redvers, 2019). When women heal land, land heals women and women heal communities.

Further to this, Indigenous Australian women’s resilience and strength in keeping their communities intact is recognised as a core part in any effective strategy for combating colonial practices responsible for centuries of trauma and disadvantage. Such strategies include redirecting emphasis from privileged white male textual accounts of history and knowledge to focus on Indigenous narratives using symbols, objects, time and place. Such narratives highlight the championing of Indigenous women’s ecological knowledge and knowledge-keeping roles as methods for positive social change (Brown, 2016; Fleming et al., 2015). Here we attempt to shine a light on the importance of (re)birthing Indigenous women’s ecological knowledge, from within their individual communities, between Indigenous communities and into the wider Australian community. We recognise Indigenous women’s roles as caretakers of Country and the deep entanglement between Indigenous women’s rights, water rights and the flowing of the Barka as Barkindji elder Aunty Barbara Quayle describes:

We’ve got to get it right, they need to fix the flows up the top, to manage it better so it’s better down where we are. (When it doesn’t flow) with water we have poor health, we’ve had sorry business losing a lot of elders, we have family disconnection, sick children, sick environment. Our river needs to be connected. If they’re gonna manage it they gotta get it right, They got to listen to the people, the people who’ve been on this land for thousands of years. (Mitchell, 2023).

The seeds of wellbeing quite literally lie within each woman, capable of healing through their conscious life and through their lineage. Women arguably occupy a special place in the unfolding of community over time, and this is where and why women are especially important. Women sit nested within history’s unbroken human lineage, like an undulating human conception–birth and growth wave of blood–flesh–breath–death and soil. Women alive right now hold future potential human flourishing; if they are well, give birth well, are supported to care for well, the future of humanity is more likely to be well. To these ends, we continually recommit to Indigenous women and Country. Of course, these gendered commitments do not preclude the importance of well men. Where well land equals well women, there too are well men and of course children, woven so intricately in and out and through it all.

Wholeness archetypes: planetary health and connection to country

Archetypes of wholeness find myriad expressions across cultures and modes of spiritual thought. Earlier Christian mystics call this fullness or overflowing of being the Pleroma, later Christians refer to Divine Union and Buddhists to Enlightenment. This wholeness is described as encompassing everything and is reflected in the microcosm of the mind, where the mystery of the Self is a reflection of the mystery of the universe. Wholeness is a symbol of totality, oneness, encompassing all that is known—physical, cultural, spiritual—dark and light, night and day, good and bad, earth and sky. Even beyond disciples and creation serpents, beyond Ngatyi—wholeness holds all.

This archetype represents an exceedingly extended Self—expanded to include all—including every tree, every stone, every breath of air, every animal’s tail, there is nothing that is not your Self and your Self is everything (C. J. Jung, 1923). This is the highest state of consciousness and a product of all former experiences, including those built by the ancestors. This archetype of wholeness appears in Indigenous wellbeing systems and ways of knowing both the universe and human psychology (Redvers, 2019) that have led to the refined technological advances enabling millennia of a thriving human–Kiira relationship—enabling each one to live in close relationship with Self and Country, without ego. This is wellbeing.

Connection to Country is not a slogan; it is a lifeway, one deeply understood by the Barkindji. Intricate carvings at Mutawintji National Park (Collins & Kutjika Thompson, 2020) and compacted ground adjacent evidence tens of thousands of years of substantial organised gatherings, leaving only compacted ground as evidence to depict a culture privileging respect for Kiira, or “enoughness” (Babbitt & Lachney, 2021). According to Indigenous architect Daniele Hromek (Budawang and Yuin), “enoughness” is an Indigenous state or condition of having and being enough, of having contentment in sufficiency. The ancestors avoided wastefulness; if something was not used, it went back to the Country (Hromek & Porras, 2023). These ancient expressions of a complex cosmology and models of psychospiritual wellbeing predate the entirety of Judeo–Christian history and are evidence of a way of being deeply connected to the land, plants, animals and waterways sustained in Australia over 65,000 years. Being with Kiira, together, is enough. Human wellbeing is wellbeing for the land, and healthy land supports healthy people.

A summary of practical lessons and overlapping weaves

To commence our word-weave, we placed and located ourselves and described our first theme, First Nations landscape research. Running parallel, we expanded upon our views on traditional botanical knowledges, theme 2, and following this was our perspective on Barkindji models of wellbeing, theme 3. Theme 4 explored how the Jungian sensibility and conventional psychology converge and diverge, and theme 5 was a novel discussion on the use of archetypal imagery to make sense of the complex intersection of research, psychology, land and wellbeing that we have navigated here.

Four lessons overlap the themes. We suggested understanding more about methods of First Nations knowledge construction, being critically curious about the information you access and how First Nations knowledges have been gathered and protected within this work. We guide you in getting to know your local flora and local Indigenous suppliers, and end by suggesting a method of deepening your own understanding of cultural safety, which begins with examining the Self.

A narrative has become more visible as we continued to talk and write—the importance of long-term visions, actions and commitments. These words are not enough. We see that only shared intergenerational commitments between Barkindji and Barkindji-allies will see a flourishing future for Barkindji Kiira and her people.

Conclusion

Our goal in this article was to entwine cross-cultural perspectives by word-weaving a Barkindji emu net and making sense of our shared knowledges of wellbeing. We provide many ideas – each paragraph – for First Nations landscape research: themes, philosophy, practical lessons and approaches. We gained understanding that our paragraph rushes were not easy to overlap in a Western linear writing style; our main ideas provoked questions not easily answered in one article; our net is unfinished due to the time (24 months) it takes to weave stories of a long-distance (1,142km), cross-cultural project. The depth of our time spent with one another (relationality) cannot be meaningfully expressed in words, because words can only point to the truth but are not the truth; the truth lies in our firmly-held shared commitments to Country and her First Nations people, which are not mere words.

Our aims contribute to the emerging field of First Nations Landscape Research—a multidisciplinary field focusing on studies of land—including physical, ecological, psychological and cultural aspects—and how those meanings are tied to the wellbeing of First Nations people. We provided details on the co-design of a Barkindji Wellbeing framework and described the numerous project offshoots and expanded on Carl Jung’s cross-cultural archetypes to describe our human and more-than-human collaboration. It is our intention to share that others can build on our relational and participatory methodology and use our work to further expand on their own understanding. It is our hope to continue to build professional and economic pathways enabling social change for future generations of Barkindji and Indigenous communities.