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y separately published work icon Living on Stolen Land selected work   poetry   prose  
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Living on Stolen Land
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Living on Stolen Land is a prose-styled look at our colonial-settler 'present'. This book is the first of its kind to address and educate a broad audience about the colonial contextual history of Australia, in a highly original way. It pulls apart the myths at the heart of our nationhood, and challenges Australia to come to terms with its own past and its place within and on 'Indigenous Countries'. 

'This title speaks to many First Nations' truths - stolen lands, sovereignties, time, decolonisation, First Nations perspectives, systemic bias and other constructs that inform our present discussions and ever-expanding understanding. This title is a timely, thought-provoking and accessible read.' (Publication summary)

Exhibitions

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Teaching Resources

Teaching Resources

This work has teaching resources.

Teachers' notes via publisher's website.

Notes

  •  Author's note:

    This story begins

    with the tree on the cover

    which shows futures


    The roots go deep

    down into the ground

    because just futures

    must be grounded in respectful relationships

    with Indigenous peoples

    Indigenous homelands

    Indigenous sovereignties


    The trunk

    is the structures needed

    for change

    these include external structures

    like just laws

    policies

    decision-making processes

    but also 

    internal structures of

    minds and hearts

    patterns of thought and behaviour

    towards Indigenous peoples


    The leaves and flowers

    are all the ideas

    growth

    possibilities

    that will come

    out of respectful relationships

    and respectful structures

    which will endure 

    for as long as the tree endures

    for as long as it is cared for.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

The Temporality of Community Sentiment on the Australian Continent: Mineral Extraction, Waste Storage and Indigenous Protest Writing James Gourley , 2024 single work criticism
— Appears in: Continuum : Journal of Media and Cultural Studies , vol. 38 no. 1 2024; (p. 49-67)
Longing and Belonging in the Green Worlds of Jeannie Baker Penni Russon , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Storying Plants in Australian Children's and Young Adult Literature : Roots and Winged Seeds 2023; (p. 75-87)

'Jeannie Baker uses mixed materials, including real plants, to illustrate relationships between nature, humans and suburban and urban development in her textless collage picturebooks Window (1991) and Belonging (2004). These popular texts are read and studied in the classroom to raise environmental awareness and explore themes of sustainable development and community action. How can a reading of these two books through the lens of Indigenous writer and academic Ambelin Kwaymullina’s verse manifesto, Living on Stolen Land, reveal and disturb the mechanisms of settler-colonialism as they appear in Baker’s work? Placing these texts in juxtaposition with each other generates new understandings and new narrative possibilities.' (Publication abstract)

Presencing : Writing in the Decolonial Space Jeanine Leane , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge Companion to the Australian Novel 2023; (p. 25-38)

'First Nations Australian literature has often been the object of incomprehension and derogation by settler critics – something a deeper perspective of “presencing” can overcome. This chapter takes a decolonial perspective and highlights the self-assertion of First Nations writers against invidious characterization, such as that received by the poetic work of Oodgeroo Noonuccal in the 1960s. It demonstrates how nonIndigenous readers can approach texts by First Nations authors not as “tourists” but as “invited guests.”' (Publication abstract)

Disrupting the Colonial Narrative : Reading, Reckoning and Reimagining Merinda Dutton , 2022 single work essay
— Appears in: Griffith Review , no. 76 2022; (p. 312-323)

'ONE OF THE central tenets of the colonial project is the way control is used to maintain a narrative of dominance, white superiority and so-called truth. This control over narrative manifests in various ways, each of them as violent as the other, but it is purposeful in its effect and reach. The misrepresentation of Aboriginal people within colonial narratives enabled the justification of the myth that Australia was terra nullius – unoccupied land – and the subsequent violent dispossession of the continent’s First Nations. Within this colonial mythscape (a term coined by author Jeanine Leane) resides the fallacy of the ‘Aboriginal problem’ and the characterisation of Aboriginal people as ‘savages’ and ‘uncivilised’. As one example, this colonial mythology propagated (and continues to propagate) the notion of the Aboriginal parent as unfit – the consequence of which is the widespread and inter­generational removal of Aboriginal children from Aboriginal families, an act of genocide ­co-ordinated under the guise of protection and benevolence. The uncanny settler presumption is that settlers know the Aborigine more than the Aborigine knows themselves.' (Introduction)

Review of ‘Living on Stolen Land’ by Ambelin Kwaymullina Nadia Rhook , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Editor's Desk - 2021 2021;

— Review of Living on Stolen Land Ambelin Kwaymullina , 2020 selected work poetry prose
Books Roundup Ellen Cregan , Chloe Cooper , Fernanda Dahlstrom , Sam van Zweden , Amy Walters , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , July 2020;

— Review of A Lonely Girl Is a Dangerous Thing Jessie Tu , 2020 single work novel ; Living on Stolen Land Ambelin Kwaymullina , 2020 selected work poetry prose ; Metal Fish, Falling Snow Cath Moore , 2020 single work novel ; After Australia 2020 anthology short story
August in Nonfiction Sarah Burnside , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , August 2020;

— Review of Living on Stolen Land Ambelin Kwaymullina , 2020 selected work poetry prose
'Living on Stolen Land' : Deconstructing the Settler Mythscape Jeanine Leane , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , November 2020;

— Review of Living on Stolen Land Ambelin Kwaymullina , 2020 selected work poetry prose
Teen Summer Reads : 5 Books to Help Young People Understand Racism Jessica Gannaway , Melitta Hogarth , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 4 January 2021;

— Review of Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia 2018 anthology life story autobiography ; Living on Stolen Land Ambelin Kwaymullina , 2020 selected work poetry prose
Review of ‘Living on Stolen Land’ by Ambelin Kwaymullina Nadia Rhook , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Editor's Desk - 2021 2021;

— Review of Living on Stolen Land Ambelin Kwaymullina , 2020 selected work poetry prose
Quarantine Q&A : Ambelin Kwyamullina 2020 2020 single work interview
— Appears in: Feminist Writers Festival 2016-;
Yarningup Aboriginal Women’s Storytelling Elfie Shiosaki (interviewer), 2020 single work interview
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 65 no. 2 2020; (p. 120-129)
What I’m Reading Yves Rees , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2020;
Calling For Action Kirk Page (interviewer), 2020 single work interview
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 15 July no. 730 2020; (p. 22)
'Koori Mail feature writer Kirk Page talks with Ambelin Kwaymullina about some of the ideas raised in her new book.
READing & VIEWing Deborah McPherson , 2021 single work column
— Appears in: English in Australia , vol. 56 no. 2 2021; (p. 60-66)
Last amended 22 Aug 2024 14:25:38
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