Education Commons^™

Different languages, knowledge systems and ways of knowing impact upon shared understandings of place across and within landscapes. In this article we illustrate ways in which Noongar and English language-based understandings of groundwater and wetland interactions can inform a third space. Noongar knowledges recognise deep interdependences across social, linguistic, ecological, physical and spiritual domains, while English ways of knowing highlight separations and abstractions such as those between people and nature, and spirit and matter. The English language assumes a linear sense of time in which the past is always behind the present, where going forward is associated with progress. Noongar …

It is early summer in the south-west of Western Australia, one of the most biodiverse eco-regions on earth. It is quiet now, late in the evening, while outside the wind stirs a gentle rustle in the tops of the tuart, jarrah, peppermint and banksia trees. In the scrubby undergrowth, the shy quenda is scurrying about, busily conducting her affairs in such a way that most of the humans are unaware of her presence. In the peppermint trees, the western ringtail possum will be similarly busy, along with the brush tail possum, the tawny frogmouth bird, the boobook owl and the …