Polities and Poetics

This book explores the political and poetic paradigms of reconciliation represented in Australian writing from the 1990s to the present, as Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians entered a new conversation on race relations. Writing served as an outlet for understanding sovereignty, colonial history and the future of society.

A reconciliation movement spread across Australia during the 1990s, bringing significant marches, speeches, and policies across the country. Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians began imagining race relations in new ways and articulations of place, belonging, and being together began informing literature of a unique new genre. This book explores the political and poetic paradigms of reconciliation represented in Australian writing of this period. The author brings together textual evidence of themes and a vernacular contributing to the emergent genre of reconciliatory literature. The nexus between resistance and reconciliation is explored as a complex process to understanding sovereignty, colonial history, and the future of society. Moreover, this book argues it is creative writing that is most necessary for a deeper understanding of each other and of place, because it is writing that calls one to witness, to feel, and to imagine all at the same time.

Autorentext

Adelle Sefton-Rowston lives on Larrakia country and lectures at Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory. She is a Fulbright scholar and an award winning essayist. Adelle is president of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association.

Inhalt

Contents: Reconciliation has a history - A 'place' for reconciliation in Australian writing - It's not Black and White: Migrant Australians and reconciliation - Reconciliation as embodiment: Knowing the Other through touch and emotion - Reconciliation as a discourse on belief and one of belief itself: Exploring Alexis Wright's Carpentaria- Not a conclusion: An exploration of what continues to be reconciled.