Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are the oldest globally since they have existed for more than fifty thousand years in Australia. Australian students need to learn and understand the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories through standpoint theory. Learning about the Australian oldest histories and cultures is very important in equipping the young generations with skills, knowledge, and understanding of how things happened in the past and how they are right now. Therefore, the Australian curriculum contains national standards that aim to reduce the gap between aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners and their non-indigenous peers.
Indigenous studies refer to an interdisciplinary field that creates a rigorous and respectful understanding of native cultures. Therefore, indigenous viewpoint theory is a complex approach as it looks at native cultures across the world. The course focuses on how native groups navigate the difficulties of their rejected and suppressed experiences among areas that contest to their philosophy.
The feminist viewpoint theory is based on three claims. The first claim is that the feminist theory contributes to philosophy, such as philosophy debates on natural and social sciences, political policy, and sciences philosophy. The second claim is that knowledge is socially located. The claim holds that the difference between marginalized and non-marginalized groups is that marginalized groups are socially allocated in places that make them aware of many things and pose several inquiries based on their experiences. The last claim is that feminist theories place between social and political power. It holds that indigenous women’s knowledge and experiences were generated through an approach of being, knowing, and doing.
In the article, “A Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science?”, Sandra Harding talks on feminist theory and standpoint theory. She says that feminisms refer to different feminisms for different groups of men and women of various history across the world. These groups are different from one another but only share one thing in common: “the concern to provide women with various resources so that they can take the greater control of our lives.” On the other hand, Sandra says that standpoint theory has remained too controversial as people object to it. It is thought of in various ways. Firstly, it is viewed as epistemology; that is, who is capable of producing reliable knowledge and how the knowledge is approved. Secondly, it is considered as a philosophy of science on how to or what best practices and goals for scientific research should be. Lastly, it is thought of as a sociology of science that observes specific social conditions that create various kinds of knowledge.
Sandra Harding says that standpoint theory originated several years ago and has continued to change from time to time. The change has been caused by people or unions such as civil rights movements, poor peoples’ movements, post-colonial movements, and even politicians, who view things differently. Therefore, it is a methodology of organic or logic research. The article outlines three sites of controversies in the standpoint theory. The first one is that it extends the logic of the scientific research process; that is, it controls the discovery context. According to scientists or philosophers, the discovery context was supposed to be left free from regulatory controls. Secondly, the standpoint refers to the social groups as the agents of knowledge and political culture as opposed to the tradition of modernity for several years ago, where individuals were the agents of knowledge and political culture. Standpoint indicates that it is groups of poor people, women, Latinas, that form the subject of knowledge. Therefore, people should understand that knowledge is both a social project and something produced by an individual and is still located in specific historical moments, some geographical places, some cultures, and how those cultures and geographies and histories interacted. Thirdly, standpoint theory has a different kind of constructivism even though it holds that knowledge is socially constructed. It argues that the way people interact with social and natural environment provides them with an opportunity to think in ways they might not have otherwise considered.
In conclusion, the framework for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander indigenous records and cultures has been instrumental in the Australian curriculum. It has provided students with opportunities to deepen their knowledge and understanding of Australia’s past records and cultures. The conceptual framework for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander has enabled the learners to understand and connect to places where people of the above culture celebrated. They have also understood certain belief systems that physically or spiritually connect people to places.