On the Birds and the Bees and the Metaphysics of Hegemonic Science

Abstract

This seminar engages Indigenous-led environmental work through sugarbag (stingless bee) relations, alongside the formation of an international Indigenous collective grounded in kinship across migratory bird flyways. Bringing these sites into conversation, I use kincentric ecology to name plural expressions of Indigenous law and the relational custodial ethics enacted with more than human kin. I argue that what is often presented as “neutral” or purely technical research is always already positioned within particular ontological and ethical commitments. For Indigenous scientists, the challenge is not simply how to add Indigenous knowledge into existing frameworks, but how to engage the onto-epistemic and political positioning of hegemonic science that renders obligations, refusal, and jurisdiction as external to research. I close from my position as a pakana STEM teacher working within and against tertiary science curricula, arguing that Indigenous environmental futures require a shift from inclusion to accountability and a refusal of institutional containment that reasserts Indigenous jurisdiction over how knowledge is made, taught, and authorised.

About the Presenters

Dr. Coen Hird 

Dr Coen Hird is a trawlwoolway pakana accountable to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. Coen is a scientist and educator whose research interests sits broadly across ant intersecting biological sciences, science education, and Indigenous studies. Coen trained in evolutionary and behavioural ecology and completed a PhD in amphibian ecophysiology, with research spanning genetics, thermal biology and molecular biology. He is interested in Indigenous environmental futurities and the ethics of knowledge-making, including how responsibilities to more-than-human kin challenge contemporary research paradigms in science and re-centre Indigenous law, jurisdiction, and accountability.