What’s in a name? Indigenist Standpoint Pedagogy shakes up our settler-colonial academic identities

We examine our positionalities and standpoint in relation to the gift of 'Gulbali ngurambang', a Wiradjuri name for an Australian University research institute, collaboratively exploring how to honour the name's ethics and philosophy in our individual research practices. Through Wakka Wakka Professor Jay Phillips' Indigenist Standpoint Pedagogical Framework (ISP), we reflexively critiqued our positionality, agency and individual responsibility for anticolonial practice. We argue that gift giving and receiving provides settler-colonial universities deep challenges and opportunities to enact meaningful change against harmful power and research practices centred on Western Colonial norms. ISP supported us to deconstruct social, cultural, historical, and institutional forces aiding reproduction of colonial knowledges and values, reinforcing cultural dominance and risking tokenism and 'blakwashing' when there is an ontological rift in accepting First Nations names that hold philosophical significance. We write from a position of individual vulnerability, critical self-reflection and as a theorised case study to expose the process of 'doing the work' of decolonisation as an imperfect, collaborative, open learning process. We hope that other academics are inspired to practice ISP.