Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Weaving the Colonial Archive : A Basket to Lighten the Load
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Archival-poetics is an active, embodied reckoning with history and the violence of the colonial archive, particularly South Australia’s Aboriginal records. Family records at the heart of this work trigger questions about surveillance, representation and agency, bearing witness to the state’s archivisation processes and the revelation of what is both absent and present on the record. Emotion and intuition compel such archival-intimacy, particularly when reckoning with traumatic, contested and buried episodes of history that inevitably return to haunt. As my research progressed, I unintentionally re-created and became stuck in the very thing I was interrogating: the archive box. The only way to unbind myself was to write poetry and weave my way out, which grounded this archival-poetics in unanticipated ways. This article will explore the process of weaving with my nanna’s and great-grandmother's handwritten letters, as both conceptual metaphor and as literal, cultural practice. As a creative arts praxis, it will also discuss the transformative effect and decolonising potential of weaving archives into something beautiful and honouring, to offer new narratives of history for the future record. A Ngarrindjeri basket can hold many stories. This is one of them.' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Journal of Australian Studies vol. 44 no. 2 2020 19490028 2020 periodical issue

    'Research that relates to Indigenous Australian history has changed considerably since Aboriginal history first emerged as a distinct field in the 1970s. Beginning as an interdisciplinary field, Aboriginal history has since been shaped by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists who have brought to light a diverse range of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ historical experiences. Such research has sought to answer eminent anthropologist W. E. H. Stanner’s call to shatter the “Great Australian Silence” that is said to have omitted Indigenous people from national narratives of Australia’s past. Since its inception, Aboriginal history has proved to be a dynamic field. Much early work focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ experiences of colonisation—from first encounters with Europeans, to histories of frontier conflict, governmental intervention through protection and assimilation policies, and Indigenous labour histories. The influence of anthropology and linguistics has also ensured that Aboriginal history explores Indigenous worlds, drawing on languages and ethnography to reveal insights into so-called traditional practices concerning caring for Country and land management, diplomacy and law, and ceremonial life.' (Shino Konishi, Introduction)

    2020
    pg. 154-166
Last amended 8 Jul 2020 16:06:51
154-166 Weaving the Colonial Archive : A Basket to Lighten the Loadsmall AustLit logo Journal of Australian Studies
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