BU’RA’NGA’MAN | Dadirri | Yimbali: Echoes of listening to country

Bu’ra’nga’man | Dadirri | Yimbali¹ The sounds of the words chosen to begin this chapter convey our collective goals and the key outcomes we seek. Each of these words were carefully chosen after consultations with others, to echo something about our individual and collective relationships with the places from where these words originated. They echo something slightly different in each context about listening, knowing, thinking, and understanding; and also our research questions. The focus of our collective project of inquiry, along with our associated research projects, can be expressed in many ways. In this context, in this chapter, our research focus can be expressed as the application of sound and sonic engagement, as research method, whereby attention is focussed on the process of listening as both an object and outcome of inquiry. Sonic engagement for our emerging, somewhat nascent research collaboration is that which listens for calls from the heart (like those expressed in the Uluru Statement of the Heart²) and to requests to listen (like those echoed in the voices of many First Nations Elders and most notably the voice of Australian Senior of the Year 2021, Aunty Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann³). The focus of our collective project of inquiry can also be said in different contexts, to be about the role of the sounds of those unique places, held in our memories, our bodies, and our hearts, that echo our collective and individual experiences of social emotional wellbeing. It can also be said to be about the different relationships we have with the Countries,⁴ the lands, and the places that centre many models of First Nations wellbeing and identity (Dudgeon et al., 2014).