Thesis as kin: living relationality with research

Introduction

Come, I’d like to introduce you to someone. She ¹ is a relation of mine who holds and translates knowledge. She is committed to increasing relatedness. She started as a thesis, and now, through our processes of co-becoming (Bawaka Country including Suchet-Pearson et al., 2013), she is my sister; kin to be cared for who, in turn, will nurture me.

Increasing relatedness is a core concern for many Indigenous Peoples, ² as the way we know the world, ourselves and each other is through relationships (Martin, 2008; Wilson, 2008). Relatedness enfolds people, as researchers (thinkers, kin and sisters) into a world brimming with relationships of knowledge to places, lands, Peoples and entities. Shawn Wilson (2016) notes that “relationships are reality, and reality is relationships. As Indigenous people, we ‘are’ our relationships with other people” (p. 313). Through relatedness, we know research too is relation (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). Building upon the work of scholars who encourage research to be undertaken as ceremony, relation, kinship and story (Martin, 2008; Tuck & McKenzie, 2015; Wilson, 2008), this article focuses on thesis as kin, specifically as sister; the sis. Thesis as kin acts as a relational device that communes with research in intimate and relationally valid ways (Shotton et al., 2018; Wilson, 2008). I invite scholars to embrace research and writing as kin to be cared for, nourished and become together (Bawaka Country including Suchet-Pearson et al., 2013). I invite you to live relationality with research by conceptualising research and thesis as kin.

My name is Lauren and I was brought into existence by a vast line of grandmothers and grandfathers who stretch back in many directions. As a trawlwulwuy ³ woman of tebrakunna country, I belong to my ancestors of northeast Tasmania, Australia; mannalargenna, woretemoeteyenner, Dolly Dalrymple and the Hearps family. I also come from my ancestors of Western Europe, my Irish, Scottish and English relations, some of whom travelled to the lands now known as Australia, even settling in a Tasmanian place which came to be “named” for their occupation as an extended family, as kin, this place is known today as Kindred. In tilting my gaze from the surface of Australia to focus on the deep belly of the continent, I also write from a context that honours the veins of songlines and stories that carry kinship beyond the current socio-political reality, towards futurities that were whispered in the dreams of our ancestors. What stories did your ancestors whisper into the land? Do you remember how they dreamt you into existence?

The stories my ancestors whisper into the land speak of kinship and relatedness, to Country ⁴ and all entities around us. I decided to undertake doctoral studies to increase relatedness. It was a practical step in deepening my understanding of theory and scholarship and, as a funded programme, having the time to extend these ideas to my (and others) relationships with Country. It also funds fieldwork which, as a study of relationships to Country, enables me to be on Country with family ⁵ and knowledge holders, strengthening relationships as we care for and/or as Country (Bawaka Country including Suchet-Pearson et al., 2013). Undertaking a PhD is also an exercise in coming to know and navigate the dominance of colonial knowledge production. Reminded of the storied and relational approaches practised by Indigenous knowledge-keepers, family and scholars, thesis as kin has emerged as a way to apply the relationality of Indigenous ways of knowing to the context of doctoral research, specifically a thesis. While it begins as a way of contending with the academic conventions of thesis production, it extends to many aspects of research as it draws from Indigenous models of kinship and reciprocity. In their paper on sisterhood practices, Shotton et al (2018) note that “relationality is at the core of how we conceptualize and shepherd the act of Indigenous scholarship, which then informs how we engage in the research” (p. 637).

Resisting consumerist research practices

The citational practices in this article are deliberately relational. The article focuses on relationality as research praxis, however, I also engage with Euro-Western knowledges, although somewhat at the margins. At times, I have made conscious decisions to privilege the work of Indigenous scholars (be they academics, knowledge holders or community members), rather than cite scholars who are seen as pioneers in the fields of humanities, human geography and social sciences. Mott and Cockayne (2017, p. 956) argue for “conscientious engagement” with citational practices which “can be tools for either the reification of, or resistance to, unethical hierarchies of knowledge”. For example, this article introduces a more-than-human relationality to research, specifically to the thesis as kin or sister; emerging from my own relational and knowledge practices as an Aboriginal woman. The more-than-human is not a new idea within many social science fields, however, I deliberately situate the more-than-human within an Indigenous paradigm as narrated by Indigenous writers. As Zoe Todd (2016) asserts, “when we cite European thinkers who discuss the ‘more-than-human’ but do not discuss their Indigenous contemporaries who are writing on the exact same topics, we perpetuate the white supremacy of the academy” (p. 18).

As a publication, I intend to broaden the audience, and disrupt the author-ity (Bawaka Country including Wright et al., 2015) of a doctoral thesis by introducing a more-than-human collaborator, the thesis as kin. A doctoral thesis is often structured as an individual pursuit, creating a hierarchy of audiences that focuses on examiners. Conscientious engagement with citation helps challenge the hierarchy of knowledge implicit in research as I attempt to promote Indigenous-led scholarship and increase relatedness across many Indigenous knowledge communities. This article focuses on Indigenous knowledges as they relate to methodology.

Over the years, I have undertaken a range of research methods courses and seminars and tried to keep pace with the new and on trend methods and theories. However, in preparing for my doctoral research, experiences of flicking through thick methods textbooks have come to resemble catalogue shopping. As I move through the pages outlining quasi-experiments, questionnaires and non-participant observation, I start to feel research methods as a “supermarket of ideas” (Tomaselli et al., 2008, p. 362). Enabled by an increasingly neoliberal university system (Connell, 2016), research design resembles a commodified process whereby researchers become consumers of methods as products along the conveyer belt of degree and research production. Indigenous methodologies are also implicated within this neoliberal pursuit, what Foley (2018, p. 22) describes as the “McDonaldisation of Indigenous methodology,” based on “standardisation and over simplification,” or, as Ahenakew (2016) offers, Indigenous methodologies being instrumentalised as “quick-fix solutions to . . . ongoing (neo)colonial thinking” (p. 323).

As part of a consumerist research methodology, researchers are tasked with producing “new” knowledge ⁶ which can be processed, packaged and marketed alongside other research methods lining the aisles of research design, bolstered by the market-oriented discourse of individual “methodological ‘choice’” (Tynan & Bishop, 2019, p. 222). As Graham (1999) laments, “creativity itself now seems to be inextricably tied to consumerism” (p. 109), novelty for the sake of profit. However, I really question if there is such a thing as “new” knowledge. Often, new knowledge productions come from listening to Country, learning from Elders, or, they are simply bouts of ancestral remembrance. As a sovereign woman, I aim to consume less and remember that knowledge is not new, it comes from place, Country and ancestors. Thesis as kin is borne from this understanding. So, with the textbooks remaining stacked high, I choose to exit the supermarket of methods and sit by the estuary, watch Country and listen to the messages of the Old People. ⁷ Here, I am reminded of “research as relation” (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015, p. 22) and find my research and thesis emerging as kin:

The estuary cycles through time like all living things. Water travels down from the mountain, fills her swollen belly and releases into the ocean. The ocean reciprocates the gift, pushing water back into the estuary, salty brine, antiseptic. Saltwater heals, freshwater nourishes. The Old People sitting around, learning from this exchange and making sure we don’t forget either. Estuary woman, estuary classroom, estuary methodology textbook. Knowledge is embedded in Country.

Thesis as kin

“Thesis as kin” derives from my own trawlwulwuy ontological translation of the English (originally Latin) word “thesis.” From this understanding, “thesis” is broken into two parts, “the” “sis,” revealing the short form for sister, “sis,” as the primary entity:

Thesis

The sis

Sis

From here, thesis is reframed as relational, as sister or kin to be conceptualised, grown and become (Bawaka Country including Suchet-Pearson et al., 2013). Subsequently, other metaphors for a research thesis such as “body of work” take on a more corporeal form as they refer to the embodiment of the thesis as a sister, an entity of its own, with whom I hold a deep relatedness. If research, too, is relation (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015), then my thesis is kin. For my current PhD research, she is my sister, and I hers.

Thesis as kin is a relational device, it makes visible the relationship between me and the thesis; embracing the potential to co-become with the research. Bawaka Country including Suchet-Pearson et al. (2013, p. 188, emphasis in original) note that “human and more-than-human beings never are—not isolated, not static, not known—but only become as they constantly emerge together.” The notion of co-becoming also attends to the changing nature of relationships, especially over the long term—they are dynamic, open-ended, resistant to predetermination. In the context of a PhD, understanding my thesis as kin, as a sister, enables me to map the long view, relationally (Smith et al., 2019). While the thesis itself is fixed in time and materiality (it is published and examined), the ideas and relationships are unfolding. Seeing the thesis as relation helps “map the long view,” not simply towards an inevitable future, but as the creation of futurities, “a word that imbibes the future with what we are doing now to bring about different futures” (Smith et al., 2019, p. 23). Co-becoming with the thesis challenges academic conventions that emphasise the thesis as product or output, and recognises that the relationships formed with and from the thesis contribute to futurities based upon relationality.

Naming my thesis as sister could be interpreted as me assigning colossal importance to my PhD thesis, or in other words, the thesis becoming “my baby.” While this may be an accurate description in many people’s experience, I conceptualise kin (sister) as process more than product. It is difficult to neatly separate process from product, the two are intimately linked. Within the university setting, the tension between process and product is particularly nuanced. I am undertaking the PhD in an institution that values pragmatism and outputs, values that have historically been pursued through colonialism under the guise of research (Smith, 2012). Academia is often structured in ways that create barriers to Indigenous ways of doing, which are seen to slow and impede progress (Green et al., 2018). However, following an Indigenous ontological understanding, how we do things (process) is considered much more important than what we do (product); the integrity of the product is ensured by the integrity of the process (Yunkaporta, 2019). Imagining thesis as kin is about embodying a process of relational accountability (Wilson, 2008) towards kin, towards my sister and the research. It is a process of nurturing and caretaking relations, the same I aspire to in my human relations.

In Indigenous community contexts in Australia (and many other communities worldwide), the word sister (or sista) is often used to symbolise unity and respect. It can refer to known or unknown close relations, it can refer to good friends, allies or be used to form commonality with people, especially when you do not know their name. Sister is not an object, it is a way of describing a relationship (Wilson, 2008). From an Indigenist paradigm or worldview, the relationship between things is more important than the things themselves (Martin, 2008). As Martin (2008) explains, “relatedness, therefore can achieve a depth where it is difficult and unnecessary to separate one Entity from another” (p. 70). Thesis as kin is a way of naming this ethic. It acknowledges the in-between space of research practice, that which lies between the researcher and the research itself. This is not empty space, nor easily separated. As Wilson (2008, 2019) explains, in an Indigenous ontology, there is no such thing as empty space; the world is constructed out of relationships and objects are particular bundles of these relationships. Thesis as kin understands the world as relational and therefore recognises that processes of relationality underlie all research practice, opening avenues for responsibility and reciprocity. A relational approach means the research methodology is iterative and led by phenomena often beyond my control:

Going for a walk on Country today—follow the concrete path, trees cut down and resurrected as powerlines. Did you see that emu in the tree? Nah, not a real emu, but it is emu symbol for sure. Illawarra flame tree with leaves like emu print . Strolling through the suburbs of Dharawal/Yuin Country. Beautiful Country! Sky erupts with white noise. Sulphur crested cockatoos swoop on the currents, mountain meets the sea. Modern day pterodactyl I reckon, that screech sounds like dinosaurs are descending. I stop and listen. They are talking. Not to me, but I happen to be listening. Thesis. The sis. I think of how Olman Juma teaches us to breakdown the words and apply the alphabet of Country and Dreaming ⁸ to each letter. Find the story that way he says. The sis. Huh?! I had never thought of that, thesis is literally the sis, it’s real simple, see? Cockatoos fly up the mountain, over the trucks. I keep walking to the shops, on Country. Cockatoos in the suburbs, philosophers with wings, somebody helping form my body of work.

Imagining my current research, the thesis, as sister situates the research away from objective and separated ontologies and epistemologies. I feel stronger to imagine working with my sister, family, for 4 years rather than working with the research as “other,” static, separate and non-living. In this process, I wait for signs from Country and ancestors to guide the research; I listen, I follow tracks and patterns. In this case, thesis as kin was shared by sulphur-crested cockatoo ancestors. Not new knowledge produced by me, but knowledge shared by Country. As Watts (2013) reminds us, “our ability to speak to the land is not just an echo of a mythic tale or part of a moral code, but a reality” (p. 32) and one that can be accessed not as a return to some pre-historic Indigenous utopia, but as everyday practices as Peoples in relation with land. ⁹ Thesis as kin is therefore about power—dismantling the human and non-human separation that creates “a hierarchy of beings” (Watts, 2013, p. 24) and recognises Country as knowledge holder.

Re “turning” to relationality

Nothing exists on its own, something only exists in relation with something else (Yunkaporta & Shillingsworth, 2020). Descartes’ famous philosophical statement “cognito ergo sum”, “I think therefore I am” binds the mind to the individual in a way that has come to define much of Western epistemological traditions. Importantly, this 1637 pronouncement represents a Western epistemological turn away from ontological relationships to land; cleaving mind from body, individual from society, community from place and asserting the reign of humans over nature (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). For Indigenous Peoples, we are reminded by Elders and scholars that one of the most urgent strategies of decolonisation is to re-connect the mind with the body, the body with spirit and our spirit with the land, our Mother (Waziyatawin & Yellow Bird, 2012).

Research paradigms have undergone various “turns” over the past century to challenge dominant notions such as Descartes’ which sought to divide and classify the known world. Of the ontological turns in the social sciences and humanities, the spatial, materialist and post-humanist turns have focused on landscape, space, movement and agentic matter in the research agenda (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). However, it is important to note that often these “turns” are “actually a turn to where Indigenous people have always been” (Smith et al., 2019, p. 15). As Todd (2016) extends, these “‘aha’ ontological moments” (p. 8) are often created through the re-casting of Indigenous cosmologies by White intermediaries, those who hold the academic clout and power to create such disciplinary turns. While the more-than-human has added much-needed depth to the ontological question in social science, anthropology and geography fields, such “turns” often treat Indigenous thinking as “a well of ideas to draw from” (Todd, 2016, p. 17) but not reference. Similarly, as Sundberg’s (2014) critique recognises, post-humanist turns still tend to pivot around Euro-Western dualist frameworks which make universally referent claims without recognition that this is “but one approach in a world of inclusive or non-dualist frameworks, such as those articulated by Indigenous scholars” (p. 36).

While these ontological turns have been significant in re-asserting the role of space and place in research, I hope that these concepts do not remain in the abstract. Western research paradigms have a tendency to universalise experiences, representing another way of consuming and colonising Indigenous Peoples’ knowledges (Smith, 2012; Sundberg, 2014). Therefore, I ponder how such research agendas can remain grounded, literally. One such way is resisting the temptation to cleave ourselves from the research, and from the lands upon which we write and live, to unveil “who, when, why is constructing knowledges,” our “loci of enunciation” (Mignolo, 2009, pp. 160–161). Knowledge comes from place, and as researchers, we live on and/or with place. Even when research contexts are located away from our home places, I wonder how we can be attendant to the material, political and spiritual aspects of land, in the places where we live and write (de Leeuw & Hunt, 2018); how we can be living relationality with research.

Hey sis, am I conveying the message ok? I can feel myself getting caught in those dualist frameworks—Indigenous/Euro-Western, local/universal.

Hey sis, stop getting entangled in the assemblages of post-humanism! Post-positivism, post-modernism, post-humanism, you just need to re-turn to always-everything! Re-turn to relationality.

Tuck and McKenzie (2015) pose the question, what defines Indigenous research from other paradigms? They deduce that Indigenous research understands, “knowledge is holistic, cyclic, relational; knowledge is not just mental, but physical, emotional and spiritual; reality is relational; and, knowledge and values are one and the same” (pp. 76–77). Tuck and McKenzie (2015) also assert that Indigenous research uses methodologies based on cosmological phenomena; what I understand as the spirit-worlds of place, Country, sky-camp and Peoples. In this sense, Indigenous methodologies shift the focus of study from objects (as in Western scientific inquiries) to relationships, primarily relationships to land, place and Country (Tuck and McKenzie, 2015; Wilson, 2008).

Hey sis, good re-turn. Keep that relatedness flowing!

Decolonising methodologies guide us, as Indigenous Peoples, in “centering our concerns and world views and then coming to know and understand theory and research from our own perspectives and for our own purposes” (Smith, 2012, p. 41). Decolonising and Indigenous methodologies, then, begin with land, place, Mother as the starting point from which to research. However, land does not exist on its own, as with everything, land only exists in relationship, for many Aboriginal Peoples, she is our Mother. Therefore, to begin with land is, in fact, to begin with relationships, a slow and patient process through which we are invited into relationships of knowledge with land. By following this relational, patterned and patient process of research (Blair, 2015), decolonising and Indigenous methodologies do not, in fact, begin with or centre “methodology.” Importantly, Indigenous and decolonising methodologies begin with axiology, ontology and epistemology first (Yunkaporta & Shillingsworth, 2020). Imagining my thesis as a sister, kin, creates an embodied context for these processes. She or they expand(s) my relationships and responsibilities and remind(s) me that ontology (relationality) is methodology.

Ontology is methodology

Methodology is often described as the way in which research is undertaken, processes of decision-making, questioning and designing research. Methodology also encompasses sets of methods, the specific products of data collection. While methodology guides how to do research, it is certainly not the first step in the process. This section will posit that ontology is methodology; there cannot be methodology without first understanding relationships and responsibilities to the research and each other. Responsibilities within research practice are being partially addressed through the uptake of positionality; orienting researchers towards standpoint and subjectivities (Moreton-Robinson, 2013; Nakata, 2007). However, as one of the least considered aspects of the research process, responsibilities to the research and each other can certainly be extended more thoroughly to our more-than-human kin.

The social sciences often refer to methodology (Bryman, 2008; Hall, 2008) in ways that are still vastly human-centric. Place is not incidental to research and place is not static (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). Models and methods of research can encompass place as well as notions of time and movement. From an Aboriginal standpoint, time and movement are simultaneously situated in the past, present and future. Creation is not limited to an origin story. Creation is now, it is 60,000 years ago and 600 years from this moment. Creation is ongoing and, therefore, so are our stories, Lore or Law ¹⁰ and Dreaming. An infinite cycle of time and place can be hard to capture in research (if we even believe it should), however, it is an important aspect in moving methodologies beyond the static and into the complexities of Aboriginal axiologies, ontologies and epistemologies (Yunkaporta, 2019). Not for the purpose of “pushing the frontiers” of research methodology, but to move closer to processes of knowledge that have survived eternity.

Doing research is an explicit focus for many academics and researchers. This may seem an obvious statement to make, however, by focusing on “doing,” the deeper processes of research are often obscured. This was well-described to me through a Relationally Responsive Standpoint, shared with me by my kin, Murruwarri Elder Aunty Doris Shillingsworth and Bama researcher Tyson Yunkaporta (Yunkaporta & Shillingsworth, 2020). They explain that methodology is the “directing” or “doing” of research, which represents the last stage of a relationally responsive process. Before we do research, we must first “connect” through a relational process of ontology and “reflect” through our intellectual processes of epistemology. Critically, Aunty Doris highlights that before we even “connect” and “reflect,” we must first be attentive to ethical processes of respecting—an axiological imperative that speaks to the values, spirit and Lore or Law that we bring to the research process. Here, methodology becomes more than a crafted selection of methods and models; methodology is the outward manifestation of our axiology, ontology and epistemology, how we understand the world, who we belong to and how we think.

I understand the world as a living, agentic and relational force, where “these patterns of kinship include everyone and everything in a bounded relationship to each other in, through and as a part of place/space/Country” (Bawaka Country including Wright et al., 2016, p. 460, emphasis in original). I understand my thesis (and research more broadly) is not exempt from this system of relatedness. She or they are kin. She or they are an explicit, outward manifestation of the processes of axiology, ontology, epistemology and then methodology. Understanding my thesis as kin is more than a metaphor, it is an ethic of caretaking relations in a world that is not neatly separated into “research” and “family.”

Tuck and McKenzie (2015) echo that “by methodology we mean the epistemological, ontological, and axiological assumptions guiding the research” (p. 76). Sometimes, these assumptions are not made explicit and ontology is not clearly positioned. Attempting to identify ontological positions, Escobar (2012) describes a “modern ontology” as one of discontinuity between human and non-human domains. Bawaka Country including Suchet-Pearson et al. (2013) describe a human to human ontology as an “Enlightenment ontological understanding” (p. 188), one that forecloses relationships to land, Country and the processes of co-becoming together. Ontology, then, has the ability to stretch to the farthest (or limited) reaches of our relational worlds. For Martin (2008), ontology is relatedness, and Hunt (2014) describes Indigenous ontology as story, as “place-specific practices” (p. 27); a storied and relational approach. Wilson (2008) uses an Indigenous ontological standpoint to explain that “methodology is simply the building of more relations” (p. 79). So, if ontology describes the importance of relationships and connections, particularly connections to Peoples and Country, then methodology is simply the “doing” of this. A relational methodology is not so much about methodology but centres relationality as the process and value of being. It is about living relationality with research.

Thesis as kin expands relatedness. It recognises that my research process creates more relationships between myself and the world around me, of which one is my thesis. Understanding my thesis as sister or kin is one layer of recognition. However, now that I can identify the formation of a new relationship, I also need to hold myself accountable to that relationship and know that my new-found sister is holding me to account too. In these moments, I also have to recognise that my sister (thesis) might turn into my BIG sister or Aunty thesis; moving into relationships that uphold accountability and recognise the agency of the thesis.

Thesis askin’ what?

Hey bub, you better be careful here. Doing your PhD, getting some praise along the way. Thesis as kin—it’s clever, but you gotta make sure you walk that talk with family and community, give time to Country. This PhD is good, but don’t forget you are only at the beginning of bush university.

Hey Aunty, I hear you.

Thesis as kin is a relational approach to research. Indigenous scholars such as Wilson (2008), Martin (2008), Graham (1999) and Moreton-Robinson (2017) respectfully craft and outline Indigenous research paradigms that adhere to the centrality of relatedness. Their contributions to research methodology remind scholars, such as myself, of the importance of relationships, connections, collective practices and Lore or Law to research practice. Thesis as kin respectfully and humbly responds to these scholars’ calls that Indigenous research paradigms centre relationality. As Moreton-Robinson (2017) explains,

relationality is a historically enduring discursive formation that gives rise to distinct forms of thought, often unconscious, which inform the intellectual work and research of Indigenous scholars . . . Relationality forms the conditions of possibility for coming to know and producing knowledge through research in a given time, place and land. (p. 71)

As a trawlwulwuy woman and researcher, I understand intellectual work as a relational process, one that often takes place at unconscious levels. Thesis as kin came into being through relational intellectual processes occurring between myself; ancestors and Elders who share knowledge with me; Dharawal/Yuin Country where I reside and sulphur-crested cockatoos. Thesis as kin is a formation born of relationality, and one which acts as a relational device throughout my research. It (she or they) embodies the protocols of relationality that will continue to guide and account for my commitment to respectful research. Central to this commitment is the understanding that research should not be an individual pursuit, but a practice that expands relationality and the responsibilities that accompany.

Thesis as kin decentres the human-centric notion of academic scholarship by revealing and acknowledging the powerful role of more-than-human entities in the processes and outcomes of academic knowledge production. “Thesis as kin” can similarly be translated or re-imagined as “thesis askin,” an agentic provocation that situates knowledge production with the thesis itself and suggests that the thesis is askin’ (asking) questions. As researchers and readers, our relationship with research grows and the research (sister and/or thesis) can ask us different questions at different times. This agency reflects how knowledge is relational and reciprocal and acknowledges that you, the reader, bring your unique knowledges with you to the reading with this research too.

The idea of agency as primarily the remit of humans (Bawaka Country including Suchet-Pearson et al., 2013) is a relatively recent interpretation, brought about by the dominance of knowledge systems that have been dislocated from land and story. However, working through the premise that nothing exists on its own and all beings are related through the fabric of creation, agency extends well beyond the ocular-centric lens of humans. Watts (2013) explains, “if we think of agency as being tied to spirit, and spirit exists in all things, then all things possess agency” (p. 30), including sulphur-crested cockatoos and a thesis. Therefore, to suggest that a thesis can ask questions of a reader is also to reinstate the importance of listening as a social value. Sometimes, these questions are not made explicit in our reading of texts, or our relationships with Country, but require of us an ability to listen for messages and be attentive.

Relational accountability, with kin

Bringing research, specifically my thesis, into relationship also strengthens the accountability and validity of the research study. Wilson (2008) refers to this as relational accountability and Shotton et al. (2018) note that “an Indigenous form of validity is relational” (p. 637). For Wilson (2008), relational accountability recasts the “success” of academic work within a values framework based on relationality (an Indigenist research paradigm). Wilson (2008) notes,

Right or wrong; validity; statistically significant; worthy or unworthy: value judgements loose their meaning. What is more important and meaningful is fulfilling a role and obligations in the research relationship—that is, being accountable to your relations. (p. 77)

Accountability is a value-laden structure that is often disembodied from the matrices of Country, community and relations (Tynan & Bishop, 2019). Tuck and McKenzie (2015, p. 105) extend this notion further, adding that “embodiment” itself is limited to the mind and body, proposing that the notion of “emplacement” better combines mind, body and environment, centring an Indigenous notion of place. Thesis as kin pivots around a form of relational accountability that is emplaced; moving towards different modes of accountability dependent on where I write, who I am researching with, and how I listen to and am able to translate the messages of Country. Sarah Hunt (2019, n.p.), in asking what we can learn from our grounded bodies in place, suggests we focus on “maintaining integrity of the emplaced interscalar relations by which we understand ourselves and continue our ways of being over time.” As we move through different places (home, work, research, ancestral), maintaining integrity is about emplacement; reconnecting the mind with body, land, story and research. These practices open relations with many places, in varied ways.

Relatedness brings validity to research when it is considered through each aspect of the research process, not just grafted on as an after-thought (Ahenakew, 2016). As Aluli-Meyer (as cited in Martin, 2008) notes, relatedness “serves to strengthen the internal validity of the document because it is both process and product, and woven in the beginning/middle/end of the research” (p. 6). Shotton et al. (2018) talk about validity in research as a way of being, “we assert that centering relationality in validity practices are necessary toward our efforts to refine models that serve and empower Indigenous communities and scholarship” (p. 638). In advocating for loving relationships with research, they see validity checking with family and community, as a continuation of relatedness, a sentiment also shared by Bawaka Country including Wright et al. (2018). Trawlwulwuy countrywoman, ¹¹ Emma Lee, also advocates for love as a core element of our self-determining futures as First Peoples (tebrakunna country & Lee, 2019). Writing from the authorship of tebrakunna country and Lee (2019), she or they demonstrate an emplaced validity that recognises “how reciprocity and kinship work” (p. 14). Reflecting on the decolonising strategy of “love-bombing” the Tasmanian government, tebrakunna country and Lee (2019, p. 14) articulate a process where culture, family and relationships are prioritised over politics, organisations and agreements. Reflecting on and incorporating the work of tebrakunna country and Lee (2019) is also a way in which thesis as kin or research as relation is practised. Not only am I able to honour the work of my country and countrywoman, but it enfolds a relational accountability and validity that stretches beyond my own work to strengthen relationships with Country and kin; to caretake all relations.

Conclusion

Thesis as kin is not limited to the doctoral journey of thesis writing. It is a way of caretaking all our relations and living the processes of relationality with research. While conceptualised here as a research practice, thesis as kin mimics a mode of relational accountability that extends to all our relationships; Country, sisters, family, story, love. More than a metaphor, it is an ethic of care that I hope can be stretched, buoyed and recast through your own research and kinship contexts; a way of bringing those elements into relationship with one another. Underpinning this research methodology is the recognition of Country as knowledge holder and place of our relations. I invite you to draw on the creativity of Country to extend research methodologies beyond a practice of consumerist reproduction and towards a process of kinship.