Resistance in rubrics

When I arrived in Kaurna Yerta, one of the first things I noticed was the earnestness around “Reconciliation.” Which is probably why I was taken aback by the assessment protocols here being curiously rigid. As an Assamese woman studying in contemporary Australia, I’ve noticed a tension; how can Indigenous knowledge thrive when our rubrics demand it conform to Western academic structures?

Take APA citations. They’re presented as neutral, yet they prioritize written evidence over oral tradition. The folk tales in the lilting nisukoni geet, passed down through generations as living resistance, don’t fit the template. Meanwhile, Ngarrindjeri colleagues are asked to compress millennia of kinship into bullet points; for rubrics that never asked if knowledge could be sung instead of cited.

The irony of submitting this to a magazine with a set of guidelines is not lost on me. Still, I believe this is an issue of institutional inertia, not malice. And inertia, unlike intent, can be disrupted. So here’s my submission: compliant yet combustible.

I cite Audre Lorde and my aunties’ gossip. I write in Australian English and in Assamese curiosity. I give you 200 words and the weight of all they exclude.

The sound of the dheki in my backyard made me come to these conclusions; now how do I cite that?

By Tannaz Mahreen