We can spend a lot of time thinking at the systems-level, about how the systems that run our world could be better, fairer and more ecologically sustainable. It’s big and exciting but can also feel huge and daunting. How do we recreate a new system while still working within the current one? How do we break something and build something in its place seamlessly, without an awkward void in between?
Gudjingburra brothers, Josh and Kyle Slabb, think and live within another system—the cultural system they’ve grown up in. For them, the health and success of any system comes back to whether people are in, what they call, “right relationship” with each other and with the land. Through their consulting business, Banaam, they share the cultural knowledge and framework of their upbringing with businesses, organisations and individuals, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
Speaking with them earlier on in the pandemic, I was reminded of our tendency to overcomplicate things. Maybe we don’t need to redesign the system, rather we need to redesign our relationships. And from there, the systems we need and want will emerge.
Natalie Woods: The interesting thing is that everyone's using this time to think about how we want to live and work and how we want the world to be when we get beyond this. I think so much of what you guys talk about are new ways that we could all recreate the world.
Josh Slabb: Yeah, that's right. I'm fingers crossed at this point. I'm hoping that people learn from what's going on in the world and realise that, okay, the system is pretty broken and we might need to think differently into the future and use some of these alternative wisdom bases to tap into. I think it's going to be beneficial for all of us.
What could we be learning right now?
Kyle Slabb: It's only been the last probably decade or so that we've really focused on thinking about how we transfer cultural systems and apply systems in modern applications. Most of our time, when we were growing up, was spent applying the systems in our cultural context. So lots of those practices have really come back again— if I can't get food from a shop, then we would go catch a fish or go crabbing. We’ve been spending time hunting and with the younger fellas, they’re going to see the relevance of those practices. So not just transferring the application of the systems to modern things, but also really getting back to the basics of how you survive in a time when other systems are breaking down.
I heard one person say yesterday that it could be that up to 50 per cent of people might work from home going into the future, and for us, we start to look at how we can have an impact and share knowledge that's relevant. A lot of what we teach comes from how people connect to people and what's their relationship to other entities—we start with the land, but also the social structure. So how does that come into it now we're talking online, how does that work in this space?
Totally! I mean, so many people are starting their own veggie gardens now and growing their own food and it feels like it's that turning away from a globalised system where we don't know who we're buying from or who we're working with.
J: That's a critical point with the relationships. I've been out catching a bit of seafood and a few fish and a few mud crabs while this has been on, just because I didn't want to go to town and didn't want to go to the shops. I had one bucket for about a week and because I was using it so much the handle fell off, so I had a few little bits of rope holding it together and I took some mud crabs out to one of our neighbours just ‘cause I thought he might appreciate a feed. And I said, “You can have the mudcrabs but you can’t have the bucket. I'm running on short supply.” And he's like, “Oh, I have heaps of buckets.” So he gives me five buckets. And so it's relationships and how we can really benefit off each other. I think that in an event like this in the world we realise we really need each other to survive.
Tell me about where you guys live and where you grew up.
J: This place where we were born and raised, and where our people come from, is called Booningbah, or the township of Fingal Head, on the far north coast of New South Wales, Australia. It's a little peninsula that sticks out between the ocean and the Tweed river. And this specific part of the community called Letitia Road is where a lot of the Aboriginal or the older community come from around this area. They've been here since day one. This is a traditional camping spot right through to modern day and a lot of the Indigenous families that live around this Country, this is where we all come from.
K: There are 26 houses in this community and every house when we were growing up had grandparents in it, you know, uncles and older uncles and aunties and extended family. So we really grew up with that kind of social structure. It's important because the elders in our community are the knowledge holders and coming from a culture that didn't have a written language, the passing of knowledge happened through social activity. So the times that we spent with our parents and their uncles and aunties and with our grandparents, they passed on that knowledge to that next generation. And it's just the same as we’re doing with our young people today. It still continues, that transfer of knowledge happens through everyday life.
Why was it important to then share that knowledge with the business community and the non-indigenous community?
J: Initially when we started, we'd seen a bit of a generational gap within our own community just because life wasn't what it used to be. It was changing and we realised that some of the next generation in our own community needed to set some time away for cultural learning and cultural practice. So we really began with our own community first and then it stemmed from there – it might've been the local school who asked if we could do this more broadly at their workplace or for other families. They asked if they could invite non-indigenous people into some of the sessions that we were running with our own community. That's one thing that the old people instilled in us is to actually to take our knowledge and what we've learned and not only share with our own community, but share with the broader community as well, because they’re gonna play a part in how our culture is viewed and how our culture is brought forward into the future in this country. So I think it's their wisdom and foresight that really set us on the pathway to what we are today—to broaden that spectrum of where we share knowledge. And the rest is history, it stemmed from that and, yeah, we started working with business and different clients all over the place.
It seems quite generous and gracious of the old people to be so willing to share, given the history there could have easily been resentment and wanting to further separate.
K: The relationship to land is the central reference point of a cultural framework. And the reality of our communities and the broader community is that we're all living on the same land now. And so, what we call ‘right relationship’, and how we live on and with the land is the foundation that the other systems and structures, even the social structures, come out of. So, I don't think it was a question of not resenting what's happened—I think there's still some social issues and relationships between communities that probably need a bit more work even today, but you know, the relationship to land, and that right relationship to land, is the beginning of it. It started there. The systems that we talk about as far as culturally, the alignment of those isn't just beneficial to our communities, our businesses, our families—it's of benefit to the land. It's of benefit to the place that we are and who we are.
And I think in non-indigenous thinking, we often think that the land comes last—you make your money and you look after yourself first, and only then do you give back to the land.
K: It’s what we were talking about before, what do we see coming out of this? A lot of people have been forced to change their ways of doing things, as far as work commitments and how you make money. Even as far as, why are you making money and where’s that money going in the future? Because you might not be able to do what you wanted to do before, with that money, so why were we on the track that we were on before? And so starting to think about, what do I really need? A lot of our cultural practices, people will look at it and say it's a survival thing and people are liking this term that “we're not just surviving but thriving”, but thriving is really just surviving easy [laughs]. And so it does come back to survival.
When you start to ask that question, who am I and what do I want and what do I really need? You have to come back to the land. Like you said, a lot of people are planting veggie gardens and starting to be more conscious of ‘where’s my food coming from?’ and ‘what do I need to sustain my physical life?’. But then also, relationally, what do those connections mean for me and how am I going to do that? A lot of that peripheral fluff of life is stripped away and you get back to reality. And the constant in all our lives is that we need the land. It doesn't matter where we are, who we are, where we come from, our food, our water, the things that are essential to sustain life come from the land.
We’ve definitely been thrown into that reality of all that peripheral stuff being stripped right away now. Did you both go on that journey in your previous careers of asking yourselves who you are and what do you want and what do you need?
K: Our old people have always encouraged us to not only look for the answers, but also ask the right questions on who we are and where we're heading, that’s always been something that for Aboriginal people are really the philosophies, and culture forced us to ask those questions. And as Aboriginal people in community, the last 200 years has been an interrogation of who we are and where we fit now, our relationship to land and that our old people were Gogaun on this Country and still have a lot of knowledge of land. But that relationship is now with broader society —who's Gogaun and who's Banaam for what in that?
Can you explain the concept of Gogaun and Banaam?
J: When we refer to Banaam in community, it's a younger brother, or nowadays, it's a good friend or a mate, but it comes from a cultural framework of Banaam and Gogaun. Gogaun, in our community, is a knowledge holder and somebody who carries responsibility with that knowledge as well. And a Gogaun’s job is in relationship with a Banaam—a Gogaun has to look after a Banaam and provide their needs in whatever facet of life. And then a Banaam has a responsibility and a role in community as well, and that's to support the Gogaun to do their job. It's a really relational social structure and principle that's carried throughout a lot of communities around the country. It's a reciprocal relationship that looks after one another. It's very, very simple, but when you work that out in practical life, it's very powerful. No matter who you are or where you fit in that circle, it gives people a place, it gives people an identity and belonging within the community and within the social structure. So we all know who we are and what we're doing.
K: Growing up in community and in family you're always encouraged to think of the collective. How you respect each other and also what you are contributing to the collective. So those two principles are very powerful—the respect and contribution. There's an old blessing that old people used to say over the young ones, “Grow up, be strong, be useful to your people”. So even from that small age, you have a collective identity.
And how do you see that playing out with your kids growing up in a society where the majority of what we’re taught is that it's all about your personal achievement and what you can do and what you can be, rather than how you can be of service?
K: We see that demonstrated in our kids. I've got four boys, Josh’s got two boys and around this community, within about four houses, there's 26 of them, that generation, and every day if they're not doing recreational activities or fishing or surfing together, they play music or some of them, most of them, work together in different capacities, too. So we see that demonstrated in that generation, that really they've been brought up in that same way.
J: As far as that individual pursuit, that is encouraged within the collective because that comes out through Banaam and Gogaun—people are Banaam and Gogaun for specific things. If a child or teenager or someone shows a talent, so to speak, or achievement in specific areas of knowledge, well then they're always encouraged to continue to pursue that area of knowledge, but also with that encouragement to pursue that knowledge and be the best you can be in that area, there’s always the understanding that you be the best you can be in that area to benefit not only yourself, but benefit your people as well. So that giving back to community and giving back to your elders for the wisdom they’ve passed on, giving back to the people that helped you along the way. That's all kind of built into that social structure as well. The encouragement for individualism is there in the sense within the social structure, but it's not as full on as what I see in out in the general public.
K: The value is in the individual, but your belonging is in the collective.
It feels like a real humbling—you’re not out to succeed for yourself or for your own ego, you’re out to succeed for the collective.
K: That's true success. We all need belonging, but we also need to be valued. And we value the individual, but their contribution and activation in life is within the collective, not as an individual. In a cultural context, because of the system that we have, isolation is the most difficult situation to be in and it was actually the worst punishment that could happen to an Aboriginal person, even in the times of physical consequences for doing the wrong thing and breaking laws—back in the old days, there were very real physical consequences—but they'd rather take that punishment than to be isolated or exiled from their people.
I imagine because it goes back to that survival thing because you wouldn't be able to survive on the land as an individual without the collective?
K: Yeah. Well, you know, a lot of people have the skills to survive on their own, so I think it could be connected to that to a degree, but it's more the psychology of not thinking as an individual and always thinking as a collective. So when you lose that connection, for an Aboriginal person, that's a devastating thing. When you think of the things that have had the most impact on Aboriginal community in recent history, you know, the removal of kids from those family structures and social structures through that stolen generation time, even incarceration or separating people, it's had a devastating impact on our community as far as deaths in custody and other social issues that we still face today in community as far as kids being removed and that.
What are some of the examples beyond your community of the concept of Banaam and Gogaun being put into practice?
J: There’s been a few really good examples that people put in place within the workplace, but it's really simple and that's the benefit of it—to take something which can be quite complex, but we've been able to make it extremely simple so it takes two people within the workplace to understand the concept of Banaam and Gogaun—the reciprocal relationship, and the roles and responsibilities of that relationship. It only takes two people to start to implement that. There are many organisations across the country now that have been able to implement the concept of Banaam and Gogaun in various ways. One CEO said to us, not too long ago, that he wishes somebody taught him this 40 years ago because it's really revolutionised the way he runs his business. And so to hear things like that, it's pretty encouraging to know that our knowledge, and the knowledge of our old people and what they've passed down has a place in that broader community, as well.
But in saying that, what we were talking about before and why we open the doors to the broader community is because people have the ability to implement Banaam and Gogaun and we see people do it very well within their family structures, within their social structures. And sometimes it was only lacking in the workplace because it was such a rigid hierarchy that people were forced to work within in the workplace. And so people really wanted to challenge that hierarchy and enable a more relational, more fun and happier place to work since people are spending so much time at work.
And I remember you told me an example of why it's so important for people wanting to engage with Indigenous communities to understand the cultural context. You gave that example of people wanting to go in and paint a mural in a community.
K: Yeah. It happens a lot. When people want to come into communities and consultants come in and the typical question is “What's the traditional story of this place?” You know, and they’ll say, “Oh, you better go talk to Alice. She’s the oldest person here and she knows that story. She’s traditionally from here.” And they'll all go across to her and ask her, “Aunty Alice, do you know the traditional story?”. She'll tell them, “Yeah I know the traditional story. What do you want to know that for?”. “Oh, we want to paint a big mural of the traditional story.” “Oh well you better go talk to Uncle Albert, because his family, they're the artists.” So they go and ask Uncle Albert if they can paint the traditional story. He'll say, “Did you talk to Aunty Alice?”. “Oh yeah, we talked to her, but she sent us to you.” And then, he'll say, “Oh yeah, where do you want to paint it?”. “Oh, we want to paint on the new big medical center that we built for you.” And he’ll say, “Oh, well you better go talk to Aunty Joyce, she looks after the health side of things. That mob look after that part of the community.” And so it goes on and on [laughs].
People do have respected roles in community and people understand who's Gogaun for what part. And often, consultants will get sick of the process or maybe they haven't budgeted for that many cups of tea and they just want to sign off on the project. It’s about respecting that other people have knowledge where you don't have knowledge and everybody's not required to have all the knowledge all the time. In fact, that's one of the things that our old people taught us—nobody has all of the knowledge and so you do need that collective to have the full picture.
I can see that it plays out also in how you run your business—the fact that when I reached out, Josh said that it would be best if you were both in the interview, because you both hold different knowledge.
K: Yeah, definitely. It comes from our cultural context. As far as how does it all fit together in the big picture in our community? We've been every day sitting around a fire with some of the old people and different ones discussing what's the next step forward for our community.
I think Josh you said to me once that you try not to take on too much work with Banaam because you both still need to have that time on Country and to be sitting with elders. And that could be seen as sacrificing part of your income, but actually that's part of how you run your business, that's almost the foundation of how you can do this work.
J: That's right. It's just like in anything that people do—people build competency and our competency comes from living an authentic cultural life. We don't want to spend all of our time in boardrooms and talking about it, we want to actually get out and live it as well. So we've always maintained space for that within this, as a company. And also our cultural responsibilities within community as well, there’s still the next generation coming through and we have responsibility to other community members—so fulfilling our cultural roles, that doesn't just get all put on the backburner, it's always at the forefront of what we're doing. And even Banaam itself as a company and a business, in a short time it's been quite successful, so hopefully we won’t do this forever. Hopefully we can get someone else to come and continue this journey on as well. That's really how that knowledge transfer and thinking as a collective, that's how it works. We use our knowledge to benefit those that are coming through.
K: The break right now has really highlighted to me how much time we were spending in boardrooms and having the time to be a lot more on Country and with community has been really good for us. And I'm really hoping that I can just strap a camera to myself and not go back to the boardrooms, but you know, take that audience along on the journey with us. You know, ‘cause it's one thing to tell the story in a boardroom and talk about their systems and applications and I think that's always going to be important to share that people have alternatives to the current systems that, I think we've all seen in this time, maybe aren't as robust as everybody would hope.
I just want everyone in Australia and every business and every organisation and every community to start using this framework and thinking this way, but maybe it comes back to the idea of global versus local—maybe you just need to focus it really locally and go, ‘okay, well I'm going to implement that in my work, and what I do and how I live’. And it spreads out from there.
J: That's right. You gotta get it sorted within your own self and your own community and then it'll branch out. I keep using the word, but the authenticity of it, I think it speaks volumes when you're actually living it yourself, not only talking about it.
K: The main thing is that you have alignment with the right relationship with the Country or the context that you're in. If you have the right relationship with the land, wherever you are, and then align your personal and community systems with that Country that you're in, that land that you're on, that's the essential kind of foundation for developing those principles in community,
What you're saying is you just have to start where you are.
K: Well, you know, I think people's eyes are open a little bit and people kind of live one step removed from the reality of a relationship with land. Like we all laugh, but it was probably a serious thing happening underneath when everybody went and bought all the toilet paper, you know, people's resistance to change, but to think like, what did people do before toilet paper? And buying up things in supermarkets in case supermarkets didn't have anything. Why people actually thought that that's what they need and that's what shouldn't change. And that the reality of something as simple as an invisible enemy—a virus—could cause the breakdown of some of those systems. And that's because your reality of things come from the land and how do you find those things within the land that you're living in and the context that you’re living in? So you find that and then build your relationship or whatever resource from there—what resources do you actually have in the context where you are. Different Aboriginal groups or tribes all around this country, all those groups understood that first principal and then they built their lifestyles on those foundations, you know, and for me, that's where security comes from. You have freedom within the context that you have and then what else do you want in life?
I think the one constraint that we all have, and I think it becomes a reality in times like this, is time—how long do we keep going along a track before we realise where's this track going to and maybe I don't like where this is heading and I want to change that track. This time I think for a lot of people, especially communities, like what are we heading down this track for now? Maybe we need to take a few steps back and look at where we're coming from and ask where we want to be and that's what old people asked us a long time ago—it's important who we were 200 years ago, but who will we be in another 200 years?
I think that hoarding showed a complete breakdown of that collective consciousness, that everyone was just thinking for themselves rather than thinking what can I get and share, and what will others have to share with me.
K: And the blind spot that people have to their selfishness, that exactly what you said, people live in communities, people interact and we have social structures, but when it comes to those things really being tested and put under pressure, people acting as individuals and being selfish as far as commodities and resources, instead of saying, you know, how do we all get through this together? And I think as communities, I think it's been really beneficial for Aboriginal community to start to ask the question, ‘what are we doing and how are we doing it?’ And sitting down with old people and just listening to them, that's been a real benefit for us. But it takes a bit of interrogation, not only of our systems, but self-interrogation to say, what are those blind spots there in our own personal kind of philosophies and systems?
I think the power of the cup of tea is an important one, too. You know, they've blocked off access to our community and a lot of Aboriginal communities are cut off to the outside. So within the communities, those kinds of social practices are still existing and we've had more time to sit around the fire and boil a Billy and have a cuppa in the last month or so, than we’ve had in the last ... three or four years, I reckon. As communities we're still able to have those cuppa teas and those yarns, but also doing it online.
Josh, you said to me once that if you go and visit someone and they don't offer you a cuppa tea, you're like, ‘Oh, what's wrong with this person?’ I always make sure I offer anyone who comes over a cup of tea now! [Laughs].
J: [Laughs] I guess that hospitality goes a long way in community. It's community living. I guess it's expected, that hospitality, and it comes from that cultural framework, and Banaam and Gogaun, you know, you do have a cultural role and you're obligated to care for others. That's the beauty of Banaam and Gogaun is that in its full entirety you're always responsible for someone, but you're always responsible to someone as well. So you've got someone looking after you and you're doing your job to look out for someone else because it is that cyclical relationship. It all comes around. Everybody has a place and a belonging. There's a bit of identity and belonging and security all wrapped up in that. But yeah, always nice to get a cup of tea!
It seems like such a simple, small gesture, but I feel like it does exhibit a real feeling of abundance and I think that can start so small and flow out into everything else in life, how much we share and how much we take.
J: Yeah. Look, it's very, very simple at the end of the day, but pretty powerful when you put it into practice and I guess, the cultural element of that as well is that when you do receive that cup of tea, you do feel that you're cared for and you're looked after and that's why it's pretty powerful and you'll do the same for someone else because you're working together.
K: When you really break it down, you know, everybody has vision and a drive to see things realised, but you know, that human connection element really, when it all boils down, that's the essential thing when it comes to it—it’s who we are as people.
