Cirrus@Austlit

'This chapter is concerned with an analysis of narrative structure in the endangered non-Pama-Nyungan language Jaminjung and Australian Kriol. Previous analyses of Aboriginal narratives and story-telling techniques focused on the significance of place in plot and content (McGregor, 2005; Klapproth, 2004; Bavin, 2004). This study aims to extend these observations to include expressions of motion as a major structuring device in narratives. Furthermore, spatial may take precedence over temporal ordering of events in narrative. I argue that spatial narrative structuring is deeply rooted in cultural and environmental features creating a connection of unique identity for every ‘owner’ and audience of a story.' (Publication summary)

'This chapter examines how the narrative of ASSI identity has developed, as an Australian ethnic group, as Pacific Islanders who have reconnected with their islands of origin aver the last fifty years, and as part of a larger diaspora of indigenous peoples dislodged from their homes as part of labour migration related to nineteenth capitalism and forced labour migration. ASSI by-and-large interpret their history through a narrative of kidnapping and slavery which is at odds with Pacific historians who for the last fifty years have stressed Islander agency and voluntary participation in labour migration, albeit with an early phase of illegal and often violent recruitment. The specific points addressed in this chapter relate to origins, the difference of opinion with academic historians, semantic differences in the use of words, identity as both Australian and Pacific peoples, and contemporary political agendas.' (Publication summary)

'Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia constitute plural, heterogeneous and hybrid spaces, in which a multiplicity of Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures live together but are not treated equally. How can indigenous novels contribute to ensuing transcultural negotiations of competitive and synergetic processes of re/membering in “post”-colonial contexts? What roles do the texts play in the construction processes of different versions of the past and of cultural identities? Proposed answers rely on a cultural contextualization of “classic” categories of narratology: Indigenized methods of a “post”-colonial narratology are used to interpret culture-specific representations of cultural re/membering and to outline transcultural functional potentials of a contemporary Māori novel, Patricia Grace’s Potiki (1986), complemented by references to a First Australian text, Bruce Pascoe’s Earth (2001).' (Publication abstract)