Bulletin

Issue: June 2005

Books

Understanding Indigenous Writing

'Anyone wishing to understand the position and aspirations of Indigenous people would do well to study their literature.'

Dr Ravenscroft, left,
and Ms Wright.

How do white Australians read the writings of their Indigenous compatriots, and how might they read them differently? Is there a solution to the problem that white Australians often fail to comprehend the writings of Aboriginal authors?

How Aboriginals speak to white Australians through their writings - and how white Australians can understand these writings - is the subject of an unusual ARC-funded La Trobe University research project.

La Trobe Research Fellow, Indigenous novelist, editor and critic, Ms Alexis Wright, is working with English Program senior lecturer, Dr Alison Ravenscroft, to study ways to introduce non-Indigenous Australians to Indigenous literature and to help them to understand it.

Ms Wright is author of the novel, Plains of Promise, and was also responsible for Take Power, a collection of essays, personal reminiscences and fiction covering many aspects of Aboriginal life including the struggle for Land Rights. Dr Ravenscroft has received an $110,000 ARC Discovery grant over two years for research on reading, writing and racial practices in Australia. She has published in the area of reading practices and critical race theory, and also edited the award-winning Indigenous life story, Auntie Rita, by Jackie and Rita Huggins.

Together, Ms Wright and Dr Ravensworth will interview Indigenous writers around the country, both published and unpublished, and bring their work to the attention of the general public.

The result will be a non-fiction book about what Indigenous writers are currently writing and how white Australians can learn from this writing.

'While it is important to inform white Australians about the published work of Indigenous writers, the work of non-published writers is often of equal importance,' Ms Wright said.

'Many people in Aboriginal communities write about the things that affect their daily lives but most of this work is unavailable outside the communities. But it is extremely valuable material about Indigenous history, daily life and feelings.

'These Indigenous writers are concentrating their efforts on writing the life stories of elders and the history of local areas. They are doing important work by ensuring that this valuable historical information is not lost to their Indigenous nations or to Australia.

Dr Ravenscroft said white Australians inevitably read Indigenous writing in ways profoundly shaped by their ideas about whiteness and Indigeneity. 'While white readers might go to Indigenous-signed texts in search of truths about black-white relations in this country, we do not always hear what is being said to us by Indigenous writers.

'What is written by Indigenous writers, and what is found by their white readers, is one of the questions that Alexis and I are interested to explore. The written word is one of the important grounds on which white and Indigenous Australians now meet each other. Understanding reading and writing practices is therefore an imperative for understanding and changing modern race politics.'

Ms Wright said that colonisation and what it did to her people remained a 'terrible reality'. 'Carrying the burden of this tragedy continues to affect all facets of Indigenous life, including writing,' she said.

'However, Indigenous writers are finding much needed space that most Indigenous people never have to analyse how they might escape the crisis of colonialist thinking which is so invasive and relentless. Racist thinking keeps bombarding Indigenous lives.

'These Indigenous authors are developing more and more ways to describe Indigenous modernity and their work is groundbreaking and very exciting. Anyone wishing to understand the position and aspirations of Indigenous people would do well to study their literature.'