Before Tyson Yunkaporta writes, he carves. The Aboriginal scholar, a member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland, first shapes his ideas in wood, then draws them, the way his people have long drawn in the sand to share what they know.
In Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, Yunkaporta looks at history, money, power, education and the environment through Indigenous eyes. He asks how modern life has moved away from the patterns of nature, what that does to us and what we could do differently.
The book grew out of his "yarns" with Indigenous knowledge holders. Yarning, he explains, is the traditional way knowledge is passed on: a conversation with a clear shape, full of stories, humor, gestures and imitation. Lines, symbols and shapes help people understand the world and remember what they learn.
For Yunkaporta, learning means talking with everyone and listening closely, and linking pictures and stories to places and people. Sand Talk includes 22 of his own drawings.
Yunkaporta founded the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne. Sand Talk won the Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards.
Sources
Yunkaporta, T. (2019). Sand talk: How Indigenous thinking can save the world. Text Publishing.
Syme, T., & Gebhardt, T. (2021). [Review of the book Sand talk, by T. Yunkaporta]. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 25(1), 155. https://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/jheoe/article/download/2511/2640