Making and Doing TopEndSTS – on country… and online?

The TopEndSTS collective are a diverse group of knowledge practitioners working in northern Australia. Our research arises at the intersection of Indigenous and other academic traditions, is carried out under the authority of Indigenous elders, involves complex arrangements of local politics and economy, and seeks to collaboratively generate research products that work in-place. We invite participants to journey through a series of online nodes (or ‘negotiations’) where we show the collaborative work of bringing new research objects to life – making digital infrastructures for Indigenous language leaning, designing toolkits for monitoring and evaluating Indigenous land management, writing novels of/from country, developing an Yolŋu ‘bodiness and languageness’ dictionary and producing dual academy credentials for Indigenous learners. Each of these nodes embed an STS concern for difference in knowledge practices, and make visible the ramifying material-semiotic assemblages which emerge out of our collaborative engagements. Inviting others to explore these assemblages with us, problematises what it means to extend these networks online as conference participants become part of this new experiment in inquiry.