Dr Lauren Tynan (IAG Award for Dissertation Excellence) Citation

The IAG Award for Dissertation Excellence is made at Honours, Masters, or PhD level, and acknowledges the disciplinary contribution that the candidate has made to geography. 

Awardee: Dr Lauren Tynan

For dissertation entitled: Kin and Country: Relational research, Cultural Fire and Indigenous Futurities

The dissertation was completed as a series of 8 publications and 5 thesis chapters - a significant achievement for a doctoral candidate in the discipline of human geography and the social sciences. The thesis included 2 single authored journal articles, 1 single author book chapter, 2 co-authored journal articles, 3 co-authored book chapters and 3 co-authored thesis chapters pushing the boundaries of academic thesis production by ensuring co-researchers’ own Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) contributions are retained through co-authorship. This commitment to collaborative authorship reflects Dr Tynan’s deep dedication to ethical and decolonial research. Through this substantial body of work, Dr Tynan is already making significant contributions to knowledge, especially in the areas of Indigenous research methodologies and decolonial scholarship.

Following on from her PhD completion, Dr Tynan was awarded an Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) Fellowship to ensure her research is actively shaping higher education teaching and learning, with her research driving the integration of key Indigenous and decolonial methodologies and frameworks into curricula across multiple institutions.

A dissertation examiner writes: It has been a privilege and a relational experience to read this thesis which exemplifies Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing through its critical scholarship. The thesis as ‘Kin’ demonstrates that the candidate has significant ability and the knowledge and experience to contribute to both academic and non-academic understandings of Cultural Fire and its relationality ... The candidate is to be congratulated for co-creating an outstanding contribution that has transcendental qualities beyond the fixed materiality of the thesis itself ... [there is] a distinct contribution to understandings of Cultural Fire and its relations with multiple ‘Entities’, and requirement for respectful engagement by centring Kin and Country. This contribution is helpful for considerations of land management, policy and research regarding Indigenous knowledges and relational perspectives of Cultural Fire. The thesis contributes to sovereign perspectives of Indigenous Futurites and Stories of tebrakunna Country and their Kin; Dharug Country and their Kin; and Darkinjung Country.” ... The conceptualisation and operationalisation of ‘Thesis as Kin’ evidenced originality and has contributed to ways in which a thesis can be conceptualised and valued as an entity with agency–able to collaborate with multiple co-authors including non-humans and Country. The candidate has developed distinct methodological tools and ethical protocols allowing for relational co-authorship and high standards for protection of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property and Copyright.”