AustLit

'This paper explores issues around the representation of Indigenous cultural property, voices and images in two books of Warlpiri women's yawulyu song traditions that form part of a series published by Batchelor Press (Gallagher, C.N., et al., 2014. Jardiwanpa Yawulyu: Warlpiri Women’s Songs from Yuendumu. Batchelor: Batchelor Press and Warlpiri Women from Yuendumu. 2017. Yurntumu-wardingki juju-ngaliya-kurlangu yawulyu: Warlpiri Women’s Songs from Yuendumu [with Accompanying DVD]. Batchelor: Batchelor Press). These publications stem from collaborations between Indigenous knowledge holders and non-Indigenous researchers and involve long-term relationships between the team members. We draw out discussion of the motivations for making these books, and the agency within these intercultural teams, considering the colonising impact of academic research, the intercultural dimensions to Indigenous identities and the role of publications such as these in repatriation and reparation efforts. We demonstrate how Warlpiri women have directed the production processes and surrounding events so that these books not only represent forms of Warlpiri cultural knowledge but also contribute to the dynamic forms of cultural reproduction that ensure continued engagement with these song traditions into the future.'  (Publication abstract)

'The experience of art, artistry and narrative in research is a key methodological concern of both the artist and the researcher, whose work together occurs in and beyond an intersection of educational, intercultural and cultural narratives. Arts-based research and educational pedagogy intersect with the multimodal expression of a sophisticated Eastern Arrernte homelands knowledge system, prompting rich learning and teaching outcomes. Considered as one body of work and of Eastern Arrernte homelands knowledge, Wallace uses her paintings and stories to engage intercultural and cultural intersections in research and in education. The proposition for research based on the multimodal work of one artist challenged Lovell’s audacity and the academy’s conceptualisation of intercultural and arts-based research and data. This paper examines how interrelationships within Wallace’s contemporary artworks (2003-2010) intersected with the researcher’s developing insight of the Eastern Arrernte homelands, and the relationship of the homelands as a system of knowledge which Wallace seeks to communicate. This process led to a formative research framework that was informed by literature, the researcher’s experience of the homelands knowledge system, and the characteristics of Wallace’s multimodal expressions of her knowledge and culture.'  (Publication abstract)

'Central Australia is widely characterised as a frontier, a familiar trope in literary constructions of Australian identity that divides black from white, ancient from modern. However, recent anthropological and literary evidence from the Red Centre defies such a clear-cut representation, suggesting more nuanced ‘lifeworlds’ than a frontier binary can afford may better represent the region. Using walking narratives to mark a meeting point between Aboriginal and settler Australian practices of placemaking, this paper summarises and updates literary research by the author (2011–2015), which reads six recounted walks of the region for representations of frontier and home. Methods of textual analyses are described and results appraised for changes to the storied representation of Central Australia from the precolonial era onward. The research speaks to a ‘porosity’ of intercultural boundaries, explores literary instances of intercultural exchange; nuances settler Australian terms for place, including home, Nature and wilderness; and argues for new place metaphors to supersede ‘frontier’. Further, it suggests a recent surge in the recognition of Aboriginal songlines may be reshaping the nation’s key stories.' (Publication abstract)