Being Aboriginal single work   poetry   "You have no idea what it's like to be identified as primitive, savage, native"
Issue Details: First known date: 1998... 1998 Being Aboriginal
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

All Publication Details

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Token Koori Anita Heiss , Sydney : Curringa Communications , 1998 Z37591 1998 selected work poetry

    'Following her satirical look at Ozzie Kulture in Sacred Cows, Anita Heiss ventured into the world of poetry with some hard-hitting realities about contemporary Aboriginality. Her journey as an urban blackfella is touch by politics, passion and personal growth.' (Source: Anita Heiss website)

    Sydney : Curringa Communications , 1998
    pg. 8
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Politics, Power and Poetry : An Intercultural Perspective on Aboriginal Identity in Black Australian Poetry Eleonore Wildburger , Tubingen : Stauffenburg Verlag , 2003 Z1064142 2003 single work criticism

    Author's/publisher's abstract: 'This book investigates a wide range of representations of Australian Indigenous identity formations and elaborates an interculturally appropriate research model, viewed from an anti-colonial perspective. Attention is focussed on (anti-)colonial power strategies within these formation processes, as well as on the socio-political relevance of reception processes in reply to these representations. The concepts of "difference" as to their relevance within intercultural transformations are explored.

    In this context, the tensions between essentialist and non-essentialist perspectives on identity discourse are pointed out.

    The broad spectrum of Aboriginality is investigated within the discourse analysis of a selection of contemporary Black Australian poetry ... The syncretic reading method interrogates the reader's experience as effects rather than methodologically determined acts of reception. The analysis does not dismiss the relevance of literary aesthetics for text interpretations, yet it exemplifies that the assessment criteria need to be grounded in the Aboriginality of the poems. The quintessence of this book lies in the author's firm conviction that the anti-colonial perspective on Indigenous identity constructions is metonymic in its visions of universal mental constructs, while at the same time advancing the visions of contemporary Aboriginality.

    Tubingen : Stauffenburg Verlag , 2003
    pg. 190
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon I'm Not Racist, But... : A Collection of Social Observations Anita Heiss , Cambridge : Salt Publishing , 2007 Z1387344 2007 selected work poetry (taught in 4 units) I'm Not Racist, but ... is a collection of social observations, thoughts and conversations that will challenge the reader to consider issues of imposed and real Aboriginal identity, the process of reconciliation and issues around saying 'sorry', notions of 'truth' and integrity, biculturalism and invisible whiteness, entrenched racism and political correctness.' Source: Publisher's blurb. Cambridge : Salt Publishing , 2007 pg. 76
    Note: Author note: Gold Coast, 1998
X