'Knowledge of Life is the first textbook to provide students with a comprehensive guide to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia. The result of extensive research and experience, it offers fresh insights into a range of topics and, most importantly, is written by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics. It addresses topics ranging from history and reconciliation, to literature and politics, to art, sport and health. It presents social, cultural and political perspectives on these areas in a manner that is accessible to undergraduate students from a range of backgrounds and academic disciplines. Each chapter opens with a précis of the author's journey to engage students and offer them an insight into the author's experiences. These authentic voices encourage students to think about the wider issues surrounding each chapter and their real-life implications. This timely publication emphasises the importance of relationships between non-Indigenous and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Contents indexed selectively. Also contains chapters on health, education, entrepreneurship, and other topics outside AustLit's scope.
'If resilience is a hallmark of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s survival beyond centuries of colonisation and oppression, brandishing the pen – or any its modern equivalents– can be understood as key resilience and survival strategy. Writing ourselves into contemporary and future existence is a complex act of cultural translation; it involves a speaking to others through a technology from a foreign culture. Subsequently, Indigenous writing is born into complexity.
Source: Abstract.
