EveryWhen: An Australian Indigenous Knowledge System and Methodology

Abstract

Recently, there has been growing interest among the global marketing research community to create space for Indigenous knowledges and perspectives. This article introduces EveryWhen, positioning it as both an Australian Indigenous knowledge system that offers a nonlinear perception of time and a methodology with wide-ranging applications in marketing research. Time is culturally constructed, and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’, EveryWhen represents time as the infinite present—unmeasured, indivisible, and elastic, where the past, present, and future co-exist. Through a case study with Australian Indigenous doctoral student consumers, this article demonstrates how the multisensory EveryWhen methodology utilises Australian Indigenous storytelling/yarning, three-dimensional earth-drawn artefact creation, and an adaptation of Bishop and Tynan’s (2025) Kin and Country five-perspective analytical lens to capture nonlinear consumer temporalities. Conducted by and with Indigenous Australians and adhering to Indigenous research design principles, the case study also models best practice in Indigenous research. The EveryWhen findings revealed layered, dynamic consumer journeys, showing how new marketing research insights emerge when temporality is foregrounded. EveryWhen is portable across a range of contexts and applicable to all consumers, representing a pathway to decolonisation and Indigenising marketing research. For marketing researchers, the value of EveryWhen lies not only in introducing nonlinear temporalities but also in extending multisensory methodologies to broaden the ways consumer journeys are accessed, captured, and represented in marketing research.

Introduction

There has been a global resurgence of interest in Indigenous knowledges in recent times, including in marketing (Love & Hall, 2022). Indeed, the current Indigenous knowledges renaissance is inspiring, sparking a welcomed uplift in allyship and action from individuals, organisations, institutions and governments alike. There is an expressed curiosity in learning more from Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing (e.g., Hunt, 2020). At this pivotal historical juncture, the marketing research field has the opportunity to continue to expand its decolonisation and Indigenisation process, making more space for and legitimising the knowledge systems of Others (Greeff, 2023).

Decolonisation and Indigenisation within academic disciplines can take multiple forms. In some cases, scholars apply Northern/Western theoretical frameworks to interpret Indigenous knowledges (e.g., George et al., 2024). In contrast, this article centres Indigenous knowledges without translating them through non-Indigenous theoretical lenses. In either case, privileging Indigenous authored research is critical to ensuring cultural integrity, knowledge provenance and ethical cultural appreciation with Indigenous knowledges presented by those best positioned to speak from and for them (Cruz et al., 2024; Jones et al., 2025).

This article introduces EveryWhen, a nonlinear experience of time, as both an Australian Indigenous knowledge system and a methodology. This dual positioning parallels other established domains, such as phenomenology and feminist standpoint theory (e.g., Moreton-Robinson, 2013), which operate simultaneously as a worldview and approach. Framed this way, EveryWhen contributes to the decolonisation and Indigenisation of marketing research by offering Indigenous temporalities as a way to open up new possibilities for consumer journey mapping across a range of Indigenous and non-Indigenous marketing research contexts.

Literature Review

Decolonising and Indigenising Marketing: Making Space for Indigenous Knowledges

The pattern of historical silences regarding colonialism in marketing is increasingly being challenged by a growing critical mass of marketing academics worldwide (e.g., Dar et al., 2021; George et al., 2024; Greeff, 2023). As Eckardt et al. (2021) summarise, colonialism is central to capitalism, capitalism is central to business, and the beating heart of business is marketing. Decolonisation involves unsettling dominant Northern/Western-centric knowledge systems to make space for the knowledge systems of Others; while Indigenising refers to introducing and legitimising Indigenous knowledge systems in the spaces created to foster inclusive and equitable theory and practice (Greeff, 2023; Thambinathan & Kinsella, 2021).

There are several pathways to decolonisation and Indigenisation (Thambinathan & Kinsella, 2021). For example, George et al. (2024) illustrate one pathway by operationalising Indigenous knowledges in a bounded service context and articulated through the established Northern/Western actor network theory. By contrast, this research presents an alternative pathway that does not filter Indigenous knowledges through Northern/Western lenses (e.g., sensory anthropology or transformative services research). Rather, EveryWhen is presented as a legitimate Indigenous knowledge system and methodology in its own right, as “marketing’s intellectual health requires [I]ndigenous ¹ theory development” (Hunt, 2020, p. 8).

Unlike Northern/Western knowledge systems, Indigenous knowledge systems are integrated, transdisciplinary and embodied (Neale & Kelly, 2020), and already can be located in several marketing subdisciplines, including consumer culture theory (e.g., Eckhardt et al., 2021) and social marketing (e.g., Raciti et al., 2024). However, these subdisciplines are typically at the fringe of mainstream marketing research, limiting exposure to Indigenous knowledge systems. Recent contributions to Indigenous consumer research in mainstream marketing research include Chan et al. (2023). Building on this emerging work, Indigenous marketing research is most ethically and methodologically robust when conducted by and with Indigenous peoples, to support knowledge justice and cultural integrity (Jones et al., 2025).

EveryWhen as a Knowledge System

EveryWhen offers mainstream marketing a different way to perceive how consumers experience time. Time is culturally constructed, influencing people’s understanding and living of life (Gell, 2021; Manathunga, 2019). Adam (2004) describes time in the 21st-centrury as regulated, controlled, commodified, compressed and colonised, with world time zones imposing the Northern/Western Judeo-Christian conceptualisation and operationalisation of measured, divisible (e.g., seconds, minutes) temporality on all. Many Indigenous people, however, live for today—a ‘here and now’ approach that centres on what happens rather than when it happens—and this view of time as nonlinear runs counter to the chronological view of time as progressing in one direction (Gell, 2021; Moreton, 2006; Saunders, 2022).

EveryWhen is a term coined by prominent anthropologist W. E. H. Stanner in 1953 to describe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the Indigenous peoples of Australia, conceptualisation and experience of time as the eternal or infinite present (Stanner, 1979). The term EveryWhen has been widely accepted by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (e.g., Langton & Corn, 2023; Saunders, 2022). EveryWhen is a way of being in time that counters the Northern/Western view of time as only linear (Gilchrist & Skerrit, 2016). EveryWhen is the conceptualisation of time as (a) singular: unable to be pulled apart (e.g., into seconds, minutes, hours), (b) elastic and circular: the eternal present comprised of ‘time circles’ that may be concentric with the person at the centre, and (c) ever-present, living and not something to be ruled by in daily life (Saunders, 2022).

Indigenous scholar Saunders (2022) notes that for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, “time is inheritance” (p. 116), “time is consequence” (p. 119) and “time is deepening and accumulating” (p. 120) with peoples stories embodying the EveryWhen as “we look as far into the future as we do into the past” (p. 120). Saunders (2022, p. 120) also notes that while Northern/Western linear time “has been forced over us…EveryWhen engulfs colonial time”. Furthermore, Australian Aboriginal scholar Yunkaporta (2019) explains, Aboriginal notions of time are nonlinear “because nobody would consider travelling, thinking or talking in a straight line in the first place…One man tried going in a straight line many thousands of years ago and was called wamba (crazy) and punished by being thrown up into the sky. This is a very old story, one of the many stories that tell us how we must travel and think in free-ranging patterns” (p. 21).

EveryWhen as a Methodology

Storytelling/Yarning

Indigenous storytelling, known as yarning, is very different to marketing’s conceptualisation of storytelling (e.g., brand storytelling) (Forrest & Raciti, 2022). Storytelling in the marketing literature aims to influence behaviour, is structured with a beginning, middle, and end, and features a single, cohesive, and coherent linear narrative structure designed to be easily understood and persuasive, typically raising awareness or providing a solution (Weinreich, 2021). Conversely, Indigenous storytelling is integral to identity and cultural preservation, following a nonlinear fluidity, seamlessly integrating elements of personal experiences, history and connections to Aboriginal Country (i.e., traditional lands including waterways and seas, flora, and fauna) and kin and is used as a tool of cultural pride, healing, sovereignty and reconciliation (Behrendt, 2019; Yunkaporta, 2019).

Central to Australian Indigenous culture is the lore ² that everything is related (Langton & Corn, 2023). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ storytelling embodies this relationality, reflecting connections to kin and Country (Bishop & Tynan, 2025). As Aboriginal Elder Professor Wanta Pawa described: “Out of the land, our sounds become our words, our words become our stories” (cited in Langton & Corn, 2023, p. 62). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, like many Indigenous cultures, is an oral culture, a story culture, where stories symbolise the EveryWhen and stories are intergenerational, creating an unbroken memory (Moreton, 2006; Saunders, 2022). Indigenous storytelling is powerful and an essential vehicle for creating and disseminating knowledge (Yunkaporta, 2019).

Indigenous storytelling occurs through the cultural form of conversation known as yarning (Shay, 2021). Yarning is informal and flexible, with the conversation left to flow naturally, often with participants in a circle (‘yarning circle’) where everyone sits in a circle to symbolise equality and unity and to ensure everyone has an opportunity to speak (Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010). Yarning involves a nonlinear progression of topics with conversations meandering across many interconnected areas, such as sharing community news, personal stories, histories and general conversation (Bessarb & Ng’andu, 2010). Through yarning, stories are shared and gathered to establish relationality, and, over time, different types of yarning have emerged in Indigenous research, including social yarning to build rapport, research topic yarning focused on the research question and collaborative yarning that involves the co-creation of knowledge among participants (Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010; Shay, 2021).

Multisensory, Arts-Based Storytelling/Yarning with Earth-Drawn Artefacts

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge is embodied and is as much about the process of knowledge production as it is about the content itself (Yunkaporta, 2019). Marketing research is no different from many other disciplines in that it traditionally privileges writing, particularly in English; however, non-written formats are increasingly attracting attention. Marketing research has embraced multisensory research techniques, recognising their ability to gain deeper insights into consumption experiences (e.g., Nichter, 2008; Scott & Uncles, 2018). Llewellyn’s (2021) work on embodiment highlights the importance of shared, bodily experiences in multisensory knowledge making, while Chow et al. (2022) show how creative practices can reveal consumer meaning that other marketing research methods overlook.

Indigenous peoples’ preferred and traditional oral and visual modes of storytelling/yarning are central ways of sharing knowledge, perspectives and experiences (Moreton, 2006). Castro (2005) explains the dynamic relationship between Indigenous orality transcribed into the written word, noting that written texts derived from oral traditions such as yarning, retain the interconnectedness and holistic nature of Indigenous knowledge and have the power to engage audiences in a way that mirrors oral storytelling/yarning.

Arts-based methodologies, such as creating pictorial time maps, can better capture complexity and trace, in the case of this research, nonlinear conceptualisations of time (Manathunga et al., 2021). Art is a form of Indigenous expression, and research in disciplines such as anthropology (e.g., Bates et al., 2023) has utilised art to convey Indigenous knowledges, perspectives, and experiences. Time mapping is a multisensory arts-based methodology developed by Manathunga and colleagues (2021) to explore the impact of Indigenous and transcultural (migrant and refugee) geographies, histories and cultural knowledge in doctoral education settings. Time maps are a powerful multisensory arts-based tool for Indigenous peoples to re/tell life experiences, including moments not easily captured in written English words, such as those of joy, discrimination, survival, faith, reflection, growth and inspiration (Manathunga et al., 2021). Through time mapping, research participants can depict the interweaving of micro-personal biographies, meso-institutional interactions and macro-cultural social histories and futures (Manathunga, 2019; Manathunga et al., 2021).

This research extends Manathunga et al.’s (2021) time mapping methodology, incorporating earth-drawn, three-dimensional artefacts informed by Yunkaporta’s (2019) concept of ‘sand talk’, an Australian Indigenous pedagogical and epistemological practice that inscribes storytelling/yarning directly onto Country (nature/natural world). In his book Sand Talk, Yunkaporta (2019) shares this Indigenous Australian approach to multisensory storytelling/yarning, explaining how images and patterns are drawn in the sand/earth to convey knowledge with these land-based expressions, highlighting relationality and layered temporality.

These earth-drawn images are three-dimensional. As described by Yunkaporta (2019), by putting your cheek to the ground, you can see the “ant’s view” (p. 44), seeing the topography of the image on the earth/sand—the valleys, ridges, and the circles of the EveryWhen being past, present and future together at once as a living system where concentric circles represent “deep cycles of expansion and contraction, like breathing” (p. 28). By combining the approaches of Manathunga et al. (2021) and Yunkaporta (2019), our EveryWhen methodology offers a novel way of expressing and capturing nonlinear, relational, embodied, and co-present temporalities in marketing research.

Analysing Data through an EveryWhen Lens

Our methodology adapts Australian Indigenous authors Bishop and Tynan’s (2025) Kin and Country framework as the lens through which to analyse EveryWhen data (see Figure 1). Bishop & Tynan's (2024) Kin and Country framework utilises the guiding entities of eagle, ant, grandmother, and granddaughter to move between macro, micro, past, and future perspectives. At the centre of these guiding entities is a spiral symbolising how the relationships between these entities are never fixed but dynamic, moving, returning, and deepening, unfolding in cycles, patterns, and layers rather than sequentially or linearly (Bishop & Tynan, 2025).

Figure 1.

EveryWhen five perspectives data analysis approach. Source: Adapted from Bishop and Tynan (2025)

While Bishop and Tynan (2025) developed the Kin and Country framework as a relational approach to Indigenous data analysis, this study adapted it to emphasise temporal orientations consistent with EveryWhen. From Bishop and Tynan’s (2025) Kin and Country framework, we situate EveryWhen at the centre as the eternal present in which multiple layers of time co-exist. Around this centre, we interpret EveryWhen data through four temporal orientations:

⁃ Eagle (Horizon Gazing): Described by Bishop and Tynan (2025) as seeing from above, observing bigger patterns, overarching connections and the landscape as a whole, with the eagle symbolising lifting out of the detail to the broader significance and context of what is being shared. In terms of analysing EveryWhen data, the eagle represents analysis via ‘horizon gazing’ that presents macro arcs of time and broad sweeps of events.

⁃ Ant (Moment Noticing): Bishop and Tynan (2025) describe the ant’s perspective as moving close to the ground with attention to the fine details, textures, typology and seemingly small but significant elements that carry meaning. The ant symbolises attentiveness to nuances and particulars that might easily be missed. The ant temporal orientation for analysing Everywhen data we describe as ‘moment noticing’ that focuses on micro details and the immediacy of temporal events and expressions.

⁃ Kinship ³ Past: Bishop and Tynan (2025) use ‘grandmother’ to describe a perspective that embodies the past, including the carrying of ancestral knowledge, cultural memory, and the weight of history, symbolising wisdom, intergenerational responsibilities, and long-standing continuities with human and more-than-human kin who have come before. We replace the original ‘grandmother’ and reference to kin with the term ‘kinship’ to represent the more systemic, collective network of relationships and to minimise misinterpretation as gendered or limited to genealogy (i.e., family or ‘blood relations’). Our EveryWhen kinship past temporal orientation for analysing EveryWhen data involves noticing references to responsibility towards human and more-than-human ancestors, friends, and community, as well as histories, with an emphasis on collective and intergenerational continuity.

⁃ Kinship Future: Called ‘granddaughter’ by Bishop and Tynan (2025), this perspective embodies the future, representing possibility, hope and the continuation of knowledge and culture across generations, symbolising an orientation toward legacy and forward accountability. We chose to rename ‘granddaughter’ to ‘kinship future’ for the same reasons as explained for ‘kinship past’. Regarding analysis of EveryWhen data, the temporal orientation of kinship future guides researchers to notice mentions of responsibilities for future generations of kin (human and more-than-human) and awareness of legacy implications.

Overall, our EveryWhen lens, comprising the eagle, ant, kinship past, and kinship future entity configuration, retains the spirit of Bishop and Tynan’s (2025) Kin and Country framework, while aligning it with the temporal ontology of EveryWhen. Placing EveryWhen at the centre highlights Australian Indigenous understandings of time as nonlinear, layered, and co-occurring, where responsibilities both big and small, past and future, are enacted in the present.

Methodology

Australian Indigenous Research Design Principles

This research adheres to Australian Indigenous research design principles developed by Rigney (1999), Nakata (2007) and Moreton-Robinson (2013), specifically:

⁃ Privileging Indigenous voices to enable self-determination.

⁃ Acting with political integrity by maintaining accountability to Indigenous communities.

⁃ Embracing resistance as an emancipatory imperative for Indigenous self-determination.

⁃ Acknowledging the shifting tensions that shape Indigenous agency, rights and identities.

⁃ Recognising the cultural interface between Indigenous and non-Indigenous research is a contested space, with complexities and tensions that Indigenous researchers challenge and navigate.

Authors’ Positionality and Indigenous Provenance and Governance of This Research

Sharing author positionality is best practice for Indigenous research. All four authors are women. The first two authors are Australian Aboriginal professors with senior Indigenous research roles and Indigenous research track records. The latter two authors are non-Indigenous academic allies with extensive scholarship in Indigenous and transcultural (migrant and refugee) topics.

This nationally funded research project was conducted in accordance with the AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research (AIATSIS, 2020), with particular attention to the principle of Indigenous self-determination. The research was guided from inception by a nation-wide Indigenous Elder Advisory Group and supported by several Indigenous partners in the project reference group. This advisory structure informed all stages of the research, ensuring Indigenous-led knowledge governance (Smith, 2021; Wilson, 2008). Reciprocal human ethics approval was granted at all partner universities.

The research team engaged in regular and ongoing reflexive practice to address positionality, power relations, and cultural accountability. This included explicit attention to the dynamics between Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, and iterative dialogue with Elders to maintain cultural safety and authenticity. Reflexivity was operationalised as an ethical responsibility rather than a procedural step (Moreton-Robinson, 2013).

Informed consent was obtained through relational processes, with participants advised about research purposes and the uses of their contributions. The data featured in this article were shared with the specific participants prior to submission, inviting feedback. Reciprocity was embedded through a commitment to accessible research outputs, including a site visit and presentation by the research team, an online masterclass to build capability and a project website to support Indigenous data sovereignty and community benefit. This comprehensive research co-production and governance structure ensured the provenance of Australian Indigenous knowledge, cultural integrity, and cultural authenticity, modelling best practice for marketing researchers.

Case Study Consumer Context and Sample

EveryWhen, as a knowledge system and as a methodology, is portable to any domain where market researchers seek to understand consumers’ lived experience. Fundamentally, EveryWhen attunes the marketing academy to how consumers experience time. The context of higher education services, namely doctoral education service consumers, was chosen as the case study for this article for several reasons. Doctoral education is a complex, high-involvement service and a critical site of knowledge production for all disciplines. Doctoral education is a ‘cultural interface’ (Nakata, 2007), where Indigenous doctoral students (service consumers) wrangle with colonial logics deeply embedded in their service experiences (Manathunga, 2019). Indigenous doctoral student consumers challenge and navigate this cultural interface in ways that are uncommon among non-Indigenous students, influencing their consumer journey.

The case study sample comprised eleven (11) Indigenous Australian doctoral student consumers from diverse disciplines enrolled in Australia’s only Indigenous tertiary institution who attended a research higher degree masterclass. Nine (9) female participants and two (2) male participants were at the campus in a remote, desert location in Australia’s sparsely populated Northern Territory. The group gathered in a dried sandy riverbed in the shade of trees near the campus. An Indigenous researcher conducted a yarning circle with all 11 participants present, asking each member, one at a time, to verbally and visually share their EveryWhen doctoral story synchronously—a traditional multimodal Indigenous Australian practice (Yunkaporta, 2019). The medium of earth allowed for the participant to tell their story and draw simultaneously, and also to change or adjust the artefact during or after with reflections. As such, there was the opportunity for multiple renditions of their EveryWhen artefact. The Indigenous researcher was not the supervisor of any of the participants. No non-Indigenous people were present, creating a safe, respectful, and trusting space where cultural protocols could be followed and respected, thereby fostering openness and authenticity, as well as control, ownership, and self-determination in the shared experiences (Smith, 2021).

The transdisciplinary perspectives of the Indigenous participants position doctoral education services as a consumption space where new tools and approaches emerge that market researchers can adopt. The mix of disciplinary backgrounds enriches consumer research by capturing temporality as a means of tracing different consumer journeys and capturing multisensory expressions that deepen understanding of consumer experiences.

As per Manathunga et al. (2019), the analysis involved continuous refinement, participant involvement, and reflective practice, with the opportunity for participants and researchers to revisit and revise their interpretations iteratively, encouraging continuous questioning and challenging their own assumptions and biases. This iterative analysis included ‘noticings’ taking place in-situ by the researcher present, followed by early analysis of data by other members of the research team before reengaging the in-situ researcher and participants to clarify and confirm the final interpretation.

Findings

For the purposes of in-depth analysis, the Everywhen data of three female participants were chosen for their thematic relevance, as their accounts illuminated key themes identified across the wider participant group. In this section, we present participants’ EveryWhen data being their story/yarn ⁴ and artefact, as well as our EveryWhen analysis.

Tidda #1’s EveryWhen

Principles of our Indigenous research design privilege Indigenous voices, agency and self-determination. As such, we let Tidda #1 tell her whole EveryWhen story/yarn in her own words. We do not interrupt by dissecting her story/yarn into indicative quotes as a means of respecting Indigenous knowledge holism, embodiment and layered temporalities and to avoid recolonising her data (Bishop & Tynan, 2025; Smith, 2021) ⁵ :

“I think my [research] question and what I'm looking at found me. When I came from the health space into the education space, my boss at the time said, ‘in 18 months you need to start doing a PhD’. I was like, ‘NO, I don’t think that's going to happen.’ Then at about 18 months, I saw a really interesting question that a Centre for Research Excellence was posing about experiences of cancer survivorship in the First Nations space and if that changes over time. I thought, ‘that's really interesting, but it closes tomorrow, so I have no time to put in for it.’

Then that time goes on a little bit, and one of my friends, a non-Indigenous friend, got cancer {downcast tone}. When she was in her treatment…I could see that they didn’t seem to see her as a full human person. They saw that bit of her that had cancer {annoyance tone}. She had her sister and her friend who were really strong and advocating for her, and they were called “the rottweilers” [aggressive dogs] by the health staff {indignation tone}. Her cancer had become terminal…it seemed that there was no urgency around her treatment. By the time they took out that thing, she'd got sepsis, and she passed pretty quickly after that {downcast tone}.

All of that made me think, “you know…what is it like for our mob ⁶ when we go to hospital?” Cancer is now the leading cause of death for First Nations people in Australia. I thought, from all of the things that I've learned to date, all of the education and experiences and everything that I've been blessed to have, maybe this is something that I can use to respect my friend but also for our mob. That's what brought me to the question {confident tone}.”

Tidda #1’s EveryWhen artefact (Figure 2) symbolises her doctoral consumer journey.

Figure 2.

Tidda #1’s EveryWhen artefact. Source: Research participant

Tidda #1’s EveryWhen artefact conveys her story/yarn with a central theme that ‘everything is connected’, emerging. The concentric spirals capture the cyclical and relational dimensions of her journey, while embedded objects mark pivotal disruptions and redirections. Read through an EveryWhen lens, this artefact illustrates how experiences unfold across interconnected pasts, presents, and futures. This is a contrast to the linear logic of conventional consumer journey maps. Instead, this representation makes visible how time, culture, and relationships intersect in ways that are dynamic, multidimensional, deeply contextual, and embodied.

Tidda #2’s EveryWhen

Here is Tidda #2’s story/yarn in her own words:

“I had the privilege of working in a Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Perth. We taught Aboriginal students from all over Australia about Indigenous community health, and I think that gave me…the grounding to learn…there were like-minded people who had aspirations of getting an education, taking it back to their [Indigenous] community, and working with their [Indigenous] community to make it better.

…My mum played a major role in her children’s education. She attended kindergarten, taught us to read and write, [and] worked in the canteen. This was at a time when Aboriginal people weren’t even accepted in schools {indignation tone}. They didn’t have a voice in parent and teacher [interviews] in the school. But when we had problems or issues in our learning, she would be the first parent up there…she wouldn’t speak to the teachers; she would speak straight to the principal, and she would make her voice heard {proud tone}. She always cared about what we were learning in class, what we were bringing home, [and] what we were reading and writing. So, she had a real presence in our education.

Today I work in the School of Medicine…it's a very difficult space to be in because there's nothing of our [Indigenous] knowledges…we have to challenge the system all the time. We take our medical students on-Country [Aboriginal country]. We introduce them to our community [and] bring Elders, but it's not the same {perplexed tone}. For some, it's not the same respect or responsibility or relationship. Sometimes, the students [see it as] a tick-box thing {disappointment tone}.

But I value my Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing. I'm going to write my experience of working in the Western academy, because our knowledges are 60,000 years old, and we've always had this way of knowing, and we need to ensure that we continue on this journey. That's what's important to me {confident tone}.”

Tidda #2’s EveryWhen artefact symbolises her consumer journey and is provided in Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Tidda #2’s EveryWhen artefact. Source: Research participant

Tidda #2’s EveryWhen story/yarn and artefact conveys the theme that ‘Indigenous knowledge is a gift’. Her artefact centres Country, quite literally held in hands, to emphasise the embodied and relational nature of knowing. The grains of sand evoke both individuality and collectivity, while the act of holding signifies responsibility, care and continuity. Reading through an EveryWhen lens, the artefact connects past teaching, present advocacy and responsibility for sustaining culture for future generations. For marketing research, it demonstrates how insights must be treated as place-based and relational, carried with respect and accountability.

Tidda #3’s EveryWhen

Here is Tidda #3’s EveryWhen story/yarn in her own words:

“The journey has brought me here. I was always a curious child…I've always wanted to know about things in my culture that didn’t quite align [with] historical accounts and what we practice today…It took me a while, but I got here. I'm finding that the journey, for me, has enlightened my path in what I'm doing, but it's also an emotional journey because I saw one side of my culture that was upfront, this is how we did it, but then there was another side in historical accounts where I've had to read between the lines to see that the atrocities that have happened here—nobody talks about them…

All the curiosities have brought me here…But I've always said this: ‘no matter how much people are working with us - whether it's 20 years, whether it's 40 years - they've spent time in the [Indigenous] community they were raised up, but it's not intrinsic to them’. Whereas for myself, it's my culture, [it] is very deep-seated in me.

Yes, they can understand, and they can see from that academic [perspective] but spiritually, for me - and this is just my opinion - unless you are from [Aboriginal] Country or island, and it's intrinsic, it's part of your DNA, then they can't understand… when you come on to [Aboriginal] Country, [there is] that connection straightaway, you feel it. They can't feel it because they read it in textbooks {matter-of-fact tone}.

Yes, they understand it through respect and protocols…[but] they can't identify with us, and that's what I've found. It's been an interesting and very emotional journey. I've had so many tears doing my PhD in this space because I'm getting to know the truth of the culture and the history behind our culture, which has really shifted my thinking. No one can understand unless you're on that journey. We've been conditioned for [236] years…I'm trying to get out of that conditioning to write [from] a decolonised point of view and worldview and perspective {confident tone}.

Through her EveryWhen artefact, Tidda #3 shares her consumer journey (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Tidda #3’s EveryWhen artefact. Source: Research participant

Tidda #3’s EveryWhen conveys the theme that ‘Aboriginal Country is an active teacher’. The handprints signal embodied presence and direct connection to place, while the surrounding bark suggests protection and continuity in the relationship between people and Country. Dotted impressions evoke ancestral traces held within the land, and the crossed sticks capture the tensions of decolonising knowledge. Read through an EveryWhen lens, the artefact illustrates how understanding is not abstract but emerges from Country as a living archive of past, present and future. For marketing research, this highlights the value of place-based approaches, reminding practitioners that genuine insight deepens when Country is recognised as an active teacher.

EveryWhen Analysis of Case Study Data for Market Research Insights

Participant narratives were analysed using the EveryWhen data analysis framework (Figure 1). Table 1 presents the analysis, translating insights into marketing research practice.

Table 1.

EveryWhen Analysis of Participant Data, Drawing Insights for Market Research Practice

Orientation	Data insight	Marketing research interpretation	Marketing research application
Tidda #1
EveryWhen (eternal present)	Research question arises from convergence and resonance of institutional demands, personal loss and collective responsibility.	Decisions are shaped by overlapping temporalities, not linear sequence.	Reimagine consumer journeys as co-present consumer experiences, where structural, personal and community timelines intersect.
Eagle (horizon gaze)	Institutional timelines, systemic neglect and epidemiological realities intersect.	Maco structures shape consumer experiences of time and choice.	Reframe consumer journey models to account for intersecting temporal arcs (e.g., institutional cycles, life events).
Ant (moment noticing)	Words like ‘rottweilers,’ tones of indignation, and fleeting deadlines highlight micro injustices.	Small temporal details carry deep meaning in consumer encounters.	Integrate micro-moments, particularly of injustice, recognising that these shape trust in consumer journeys.
Kinship past	Present inequities are linked to colonial legacies.	Consumer behaviour reflects historical and cultural continuities.	Embed understanding of the legacy of histories in consumer journey design.
Kinship future	Research positioned as tribute and offering for indigenous health futures.	Consumption often orients to intergenerational responsibility, not only individual utility.	Extend consumer journey models to include intergenerational responsibility, legacy and hopes for the future.
Tidda #2
EveryWhen (eternal present)	Story/yarn blends mother’s advocacy, professional practice and responsibility for sustaining indigenous knowledges.	Journeys are layered across personal, historical and professional time.	Map consumer journeys as multi-stranded EveryWhens that hold past, present and future together.
Eagle (horizon gaze)	Highlights systemic exclusion and marginalisation and the shared aspirations of indigenous students.	Macro structures constrain and shape movement through systems.	Show how systemic barriers or enablers shape consumer journeys.
Ant (moment noticing)	Specific moments such as her mother confronting the principal and students treating on country learning as a ‘tick-box’ exercise, reveal micro tensions.	Micro acts of respect or dismissal shape perceived legitimacy.	Capture micro-touchpoints in journey mapping to show shifts in respect, trust and meaning.
Kinship past	Recollection of mother’s advocacy during exclusionary schooling alongside valued grounding in early aboriginal studies teaching.	Consumer experiences are shaped not only by systemic inequities but also by family advocacy and collective resilience.	Incorporate family-based and community-driven advocacy into consumer journey design, recognising how kin shape engagement and outcomes.
Kinship future	Commitment to write about indigenous experiences to ensure indigenous knowledges continue.	Participation often looks forward to safeguarding the intergenerational knowledge continuity.	Include preservation and intergenerational transmission as key components of value in consumer journey models.
Tidda #3
EveryWhen (eternal present)	Journey blends curiosity, truth-seeking and emotional discovery, sharing how past atrocities and present practices co-exist.	Consumer journeys are shaped by cultural and historical co-presence.	Map consumer journeys as truth-seeking pathways that entwine memory, present experience and emotional transformation.
Eagle (horizon gaze)	Journey is positioned within colonial conditioning and silenced indigenous histories.	Macro structures of history and systemic silencing from consumer experiences	Incorporate long arcs of historical silencing into journey models, showing how systemic issues shape consumer knowledge and legacy.
Ant (moment noticing)	Moments of cultural dissonance, “reading between the lines,” highlight embodied tensions.	Micro experiences reveal how single encounters or discoveries shift meaning and identity.	Capture transformative touchpoints in journey maps that show emotional rupture, dissonance and reorientation.
Kinship past	Uncovered collective histories of atrocities and 236 years of colonial conditioning.	Consumer behaviour reflects intergenerational trauma and truth-seeking.	Embed historical rupture into consumer journey design, highlighting how past harms shape present expectations.
Kinship future	Framed research as a decolonised contribution to indigenous worldviews and sovereignty.	Consumer journeys can orient to epistemic survival and decolonial futures.	Position consumer journeys as acts of sovereignty, where shaping futures is part of the value created.

An EveryWhen analysis of Tidda #1’s data revealed that consumer journeys are shaped by overlapping temporalities, where institutional demands, personal loss, and community responsibility converge. The analysis underscores the need to reconceptualise consumer journeys as co-present, embedding historical awareness and intergenerational responsibilities alongside the recognition of system neglect and micro-moments of injustice. Tidda #2’s data highlighted the role of advocacy and community presence in navigating systems of exclusion. Consumer journeys here appear as multi-stranded EveryWhens, shaped by micro acts of respect or dismissal, family and community resilience. Tidda #3’s data emphasised the embodied and place-based dimensions of consumer journeys. Tidda #3 highlighted the need for marketing research to privilege insider interpretations and attend to the place-based aspects of consumer journeys. Cross-case synthesis demonstrates that consumer journeys are layered, with macro horizons and micro moments co-present, and with accountability to both the past and present. For market research practice, this means moving beyond linear, individualised models of consumer journeys to approaches that recognise relational and temporal complexity.

Discussion and Implications

This article responds to the growing interest of the marketing academy to learn more from Indigenous peoples (Hunt, 2020; Love & Hall, 2022). The decolonising and Indigenising approach taken here offers an alternative to Chan et al.’s (2023) non-Indigenous authored work and George et al.’s (2024) framing of Indigenous knowledge systems through a Northern/Western theoretical lens. In line with the work of Australian Indigenous scholars Jones et al. (2025), Bishop and Tynan (2025) and Yunkaporta (2019), this research was conducted by and with Indigenous Australians, modelling Indigenous knowledge provenance, intellectual sovereignty and adhering to the Australian Indigenous research design principles of Rigney (1999), Nakata (2007) and Moreton-Robinson (2013).

This article draws on Stanner’s (1979) anthropological use of the term EveryWhen to describe the nonlinear temporalities of Australian Indigenous peoples, as both a knowledge system (Moreton, 2006; Saunders, 2022) and a methodology (Bishop & Tynan, 2025; Manathunga et al., 2021; Yunkaporta, 2019). Rethinking temporality adds value to marketing research as nonlinear notions of time open new ways of theorising consumer journeys. While marketing scholars such as Scott and Uncles (2018) and Llewellyn (2021) have advanced understandings of multisensory and embodied knowledge making, this article extends that trajectory by capturing consumer journeys through an Indigenous multisensory method combining Manathunga et al. (2021) and Yunkaporta (2019) and analysing EveryWhen data through a five-way Indigenous lens adapted from Bishop and Tynan (2025) to reveal their dynamic layers across past, present, and future simultaneously.

There are several ways that marketing researchers can utilise or incorporate the EveryWhen temporality into their research design, theory building, and/or practice. Rather than treating time as a background variable, EveryWhen foregrounds time, bringing it to the centre of inquiry. Practically, marketing researchers can move beyond linear models of consumer journeys to capture cyclical, interactive, and layered experiences. This allows consumers to situate events across past, present, and future simultaneously while also recognising broad macro arcs and small micro moments that shape their experiences. Furthermore, this article provides an example of Indigenous multisensory data collection, combining verbal and visual techniques. Multisensory data collection, such as through the simultaneous storytelling/yarning and three-dimensional, earth-drawn artefacts, broadens the ways consumer journeys are accessed, captured, and represented in marketing research. EveryWhen, as both a knowledge system and a methodology, can help market researchers reveal both big (macro) and small (micro) entanglements between people, places, histories, and futures that shape consumers’ journeys and might not otherwise have come to the surface.

Nonlinear temporalities can be applied to a wide range of marketing research topics beyond the case study context. For example, multidimensional and layered insights into the origin of consumers financial behaviours (e.g., a kinship past perspective exploring how migrant grandparents financial hardships shape family savings behaviour), lifestyle choices (e.g., a kinship future perspective of how hereditary conditions influence parents dietary and exercise habits they instil in their children), technology adoption (e.g., an eagle perspective capturing beliefs about how technology is changing society), subscription services (e.g., an ant perspective of trialling, cancelling or re-subscribing behaviours), or transport choices (e.g., an EveryWhen perspective of how the co-presence of past experiences, present pressures and sustainability considerations shape decisions), may aid in improvements in consumer journey design, communications, and proactive support.

Conclusion

Encouraged by the growing disquiet among the marketing academy to recognise the knowledges of Others (e.g., Hunt, 2020), this article presents the nonlinear temporalities from the world’s oldest living culture, Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (Langton & Corn, 2023). Key novelties of this paper include EveryWhen as a knowledge system and methodology with broad application to consumer journeys in various marketing contexts. EveryWhen offers an approach for marketing researchers to capture new insights into the complex, dynamic, and interconnected nature of consumption, to produce marketing strategies that better resonate with audiences and enhance business outcomes.

The limitations of this research provide opportunities for future research. For example, future research that shares the temporality knowledge systems and methodologies of other Indigenous cultures and Others more broadly is encouraged. Investigating longitudinally how EveryWhen insights can inform adaptive marketing strategies, such as social media content scheduling, would be fruitful. As well, a comparison of EveryWhen-informed and conventional marketing research methodologies to elicit innovative insights that add value would be beneficial.