Before Tyson Yunkaporta writes, he carves. The Aboriginal scholar, a member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland, shapes his ideas in wood first, then draws them — the way his people have long drawn in the sand to share knowledge.
In Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, Yunkaporta looks at history, money, power, education and sustainability through an Indigenous lens. He asks how contemporary life has drifted from the pattern of creation, what that does to us and how we might do things differently.
The book builds on his "yarns" with Indigenous knowledge holders. Yarning, he explains, is the traditional way knowledge is passed on — a structured cultural activity grounded in story, humor, gesture and mimicry. Lines, symbols and shapes help people make sense of the world and remember what they learn.
For Yunkaporta, learning means talking to everybody and listening carefully, connecting images and stories with place and relationship. Sand Talk includes 22 of his illustrations.
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
