This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in [IDENTITIES:

GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER] on [OCTOBER 2014], available

online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2014.902376

Negotiating Belonging in Australia through Storytelling and Encounter

Christopher S. Sonn

Amy F. Quayle

Cynthia Mackezie

Siew Fang Law

Victoria University

Footscray. Australia

Negotiating Belonging 2

Abstract

From 2010-2012 a diverse group of young people participated in an oral history

theatre project, Chronicles, which aimed to support them to claim a personally

meaningful Australian identity. Oral history theatre was used to facilitate a process

whereby the young people were able to reconnect with their personal family histories,

encounter Aboriginal young people and stories, and together interview Aboriginal

Elders. Through this process, they could develop new understandings of their own

social identities, and meanings of and possibilities for belonging. ‘Centreing diverse

lives, decentering whiteness’ and ‘a different starting point: Aboriginal ways of

knowing’, were the two key outcomes that we report on. Bringing people from

diverse cultural and social backgrounds together to share stories of history, culture

and identity, offers a unique vantage point from which to rupture dominant narratives

about belonging/non-belonging and show up whiteness, and together forge a new

Australian identity reflective of everyday multiculturalism.

Keywords: whiteness, oral history, theatre, belonging, social identity,

multicultural, racism

Introduction

Identity debates have been central to the construction of the nation and national

belonging in Australia since colonisation, and continue to be central in the context of

Multiculturalism (Hollinsworth 2006). Importantly, constructions of the nation, of

who belongs and who does not, which are understood as always in process and

contested (Anderson and Taylor 2005), must be understood in the context of

Australia’s history of colonisation and migration which has been decidedly shaped by

an ideology of white superiority. In recent times there has been increasing political

recognition of Indigenous people and rights as well as public recognition of the

suppressed history of the oppressive practices associated with colonialism and their

enduring impacts. Moreover, recent immigration intakes are reflective of the policy

shift toward multiculturalism, which has fundamentally changed the cultural make up

of Australia since the 1970s (Hollinsworth 2006). However, as expressed by

Anderson and Taylor, “white assimilation … imprinted itself upon the ‘national

Negotiating Belonging 3

imagination’ in ways that multicultural Australia has subsequently failed to do” (p.

466).

Given this history and its continuing legacy, there is a need to understand

multiculturalism in postcolonising Australia1 (Moreton-Robinson 2003) as situated,

and thus for critical multiculturalism (Gunew 2004, Nesbitt-Larking 2008), which

“names historical oppressions, recognizes the structural causes of injustice and

inequality, and is profoundly open to cultural critique, challenge and change”

(Nesbitt-Larking, p. 351). This critical multiculturalism necessarily engages with the

production of valued and devalued social categories and identities and how these

shape possibilities for belonging, that is, the politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis

2006). As argued by Randell-Moon (2011), “narratives of history, politics and

national belonging are deeply inscribed with racialised knowledges and assumptions

that both reflect and efface white race privilege and power” (p. 6). These narratives

continue to shape social representations and understandings of self, other, national

identity and belonging, with differing implications for Indigenous, settler and migrant

groups, who are differently positioned in a racialised social hierarchy. At the same

time, these narratives are contested so that “popular representations of Australia

nationhood as racially and culturally homogenous” (Anderson and Taylor 2005, p.

469), can and are disrupted in everyday spaces and places (Harris 2012; Pardy and Lee

2011). By working within and between cultural communities, racialised categories and

identities, and limiting constructions of national identity and belonging can be

disrupted and potentially transformed.

For Tappan (2005) identity construction is a process that “occurs in shared

social context, mediated by many different words, voices and forms of discourse” (p.

35); it is a process of ideological becoming. However as Thomas and Rappaport

(1996) have emphasised, because not all stories are equally valued and some stories in

fact actively devalue people and are disempowering, “the power to create, select and

tell stories (that are positively valued) about one’s self and ones community” can be

understood as an individual and community resource (p. 805). Therefore, defining and

renewing the cultural representations of individuals and communities has important

implications for the formation of social identity and the possibilities of self and

community transformation.

In this article we draw on data gathered with a diverse group of young people

who participated in oral history theatre productions Chronicles: Searching for

Negotiating Belonging 4

Songlines (WEYA 2013a) and Beagle Bay Chronicles (WEYA 2013b) (Collectively,

the Chronicles project). Initiated by Western Edge Youth Arts (WEYA), the

Songlines project sought to foster intercultural and intergenerational dialogue, thereby

facilitating understanding and connection across cultural and generational divides.

The second stage of the Chronicles project involved taking this diverse group of

people from the Western suburbs of Melbourne to Beagle Bay, an Aboriginal

community located in Northern Western Australia. We conceptualised this cultural

exchange as a way of disrupting the supposed homogeneity of a white Australia;

homogeneity that is itself disrupted through these young people’s experiences of

everyday multiculturalism (Harris 2009, 2012), and fostering “alternative and more

complex imaginings of the nation” (Elder et al. 2004, p. 208), with Aboriginal ways

of knowing and being centred. This was conceived as a means of supporting a

culturally diverse group of young people develop a sense of being Australian that was

meaningful to them, and connected with their own lived experience and history.

Using the methodology of oral history theatre as the medium for exploring

identity, histories, and belonging, a space of encounter, a contact zone in Pratt’s

(1991) conception, was created for the young people to speak about their experiences

of belonging (or non-belonging), and through this dialogue forge new understandings

of what it is to be ‘Australian’. Contact zones are the “social spaces where cultures

meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical

relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived

out in many parts of the world today” (p. 33).

Belonging and whiteness in Australia

Whiteness studies (Frankenberg 1993, Green et al. 2007), examines whiteness as a

key feature of racism. Whiteness is:

The structurally privileged positionality (un)informed by

ignorance/blindness- taking for granted unearned entitlements that come at

the expense of racialised others and generally lack insight into the normalised

racial order that shapes life opportunities and conditions imperceptibly

around the comfort, convenience and advancement of whites. (Steyn 2012, p.

4)

Negotiating Belonging 5

Whiteness is contingent, socially produced and varies across context. In the

Australian context, scholars have examined whiteness in relation to Indigenous

belonging and sovereignty (Moreton- Robinson 2003, Read 2000), as well as ethnic

identity construction and belonging (Hage 1998, Harris 2012, Sonn and Lewis 2009).

Moreton- Robinson has argued that: “Who belongs and the degree of that belonging,

is inextricably tied to white possession. The right to be here and the sense of

belonging it creates are reinforced institutionally and socially; personal profound

sentiment is enabled by structural conditions” (p. 37). Similarly Hage (1998) has

asserted that Australia continues to hold on to a white nation fantasy; a socially

constructed and reconstructed set of assumptions about the nation, played out in the

symbolic/cultural sphere of everyday life, which continues to structure relations

between different people in the nation, with implications for recognition and

belonging. Nicolacopoulos and Vassilacopoulos (2004) have highlighted the way in

which whiteness works to construct Indigenous Australians as non-Australians and

designated migrants groups as ‘perpetual foreigners’.

In recent times, the white nation fantasy has manifested in debates over

citizenship and belonging and what it means to be ‘Australian’ and who can be

considered ‘Australian’. In particular, individuals of Middle Eastern and African

origin have been constructed as an incompatible and criminal Other (Poynting et al.

2004). Much has been written about the rise of Islamaphobia since September 11,

exemplified by the Cronulla Riots of 2005 (Noble 2009, Poynting and Mason 2006)

as well as the racialisation of African communities and especially young Sudanese

men (Nolan et al. 2011, Windle 2008). Others have discussed how the demonisation

of asylum seekers reflects and reproduces the white nation fantasy (Tascón 2004).

Constructions of Indigenous Australians as ‘failed and ungovernable’ (Lawrence and

Gibson 2007), ‘a theatre of pathology’ (Nicoll 2008), welfare sinks and land grabbers

(Anderson and Taylor 2005), have also been interpreted through a lens of whiteness.

Such constructions, in combination with myths of special privilege and forgetting of

Indigenous history (Heabich 2011), operate to further marginalise Indigenous people

and issues of race and racism, thus further enshrining white race privilege.

Within Australian public and intellectual debate then, there are two distinct

conversations about racialised identity. One conversation is about migration; the other

conversation is about Indigenous policy and indigeneity. In each instance, these

conversations are premised on the degree to which the racialised category of migrant

Negotiating Belonging 6

or Indigenous relates to, or does not relate to ‘Australia’ (Curthoys 2000). That these

conversations have been siloed reproduces the construction of Australia as a white

nation space (Hage 1998). Indeed, Elder et al. (2004) have argued that, ‘white’

Australia narrows the space available for non-white people “by compartmentalising

and prioritising the attention given to them and by silencing and/or ignoring

conversations about the nation that it is unable to mediate” (p. 220), as a means of

maintaining the white nation fantasy.

Rather than understanding these conversations about racialised identity as

separate, we consider them as different points in the same story, both showing up the

intransigence of whiteness in postcolonising Australia. Given that young people of

both migrant and Indigenous background (or perhaps a combination of migrant,

Indigenous and ‘Anglo’) experience their sense of identity and belonging against

practices that constitute and reinforce whiteness, and given that whiteness is itself

always in process and a ‘fantasy’ maintained through symbolic practices and

processes, it is important to consider how differently racialised young people,

particularly those of migrant and/or Indigenous background, relate to each other, and

relate to the limitations that these identities impose upon them, and also how they

might construct alternative resources for identification.

Engaging with diverse voices

Within the social sciences, as well as everyday discourse, there has been a tendency to

construct “bounded homogenous ethnic cultures differentiated from a homogenous

national culture and society” (Glick Schiller 2012, p. 525). In order to disrupt such

binaries and create solidarities around “commonalities of experience and aspirations

for equality, justice and respect” (Glick Schiller, p. 520), there is a need to theorise

what happens in the contact zones (Pratt 1991), the spaces of encounter (Leitner

2012) where power relations play out and are contested, remade, or unmade. It is

through such shared meaning making that individuals’ and communities can define

and renew cultural representations that serve identity and community making

purposes (Thomas and Rappaport 1996). Indeed, Hopkins et al. (2006) have

suggested that: “Both the reproduction of inequitable social relations and the

realization of alternative social relations are social accomplishments, achieved in and

through, social processes of identity construction” (p. 56). Howarth and Hook (2005)

have similarly articulated the need to look “beyond the limiting discourses and subject

Negotiating Belonging 7

positions of racism… imagining the possibilities in spaces and relationships that de-

racialise practices and identities, while acknowledging the practical impossibility of

moving beyond race as part of our current ideological realities” (p. 429). Engaging

with the stories of young people from diverse cultural backgrounds in spaces of

encounter (Leitner 2012), the contact zone (Pratt 1991) is conceptualised as a way of

doing just this.

Harris (2012) argues that because of the processes of hyper-diversity, “the

current generation constitutes those most likely to have and embrace multiple cultural

identifications that defy easy classification. They are also those most deeply engaged

in intercultural mixing” (p. 139). Harris also argues that it is particularly useful to

look at young people’s experience of multiculturalism, because young Australians are

“the first generation to have grown up entirely amid the backlash against

multiculturalism, having lived all their post-childhood lives in the shadow of the

widespread anti-diversity, pro-integration agenda” (p. 138). They are therefore in a

primary position to navigate and contest perceptions around such issues as national

race/racism, identity and belonging.

Another reason to focus on the promotion of dialogue between Indigenous and

refugee/migrant background young people is because of the extent to which

Indigenous issues and migrant issues might overlap (Gunew 2004), and the potential

solidarities that can be formed between different racialised communities. The parallels

between Indigenous and migrant issues unite in that both have been kept out of white

Australian society, either physically in fringe, isolated communities, or by restrictive

immigration policy where people are literally excluded (Curthoys 2000), or more

banally, by not being represented in dominant conceptions of what it is to be

‘Australian’.

Community arts and social change: bringing people together

Community arts practice has been advocated as an effective means for engaging

young people in matters of identity, belonging and social change. Smith et al. (2011)

have argued that participation in the arts is “one of the most effective ways by which

groups negotiate their identities” (p.186). Community arts provide a space for

individuals and communities to contest, perform and reconstruct their understandings

of their own social and community narratives.

Negotiating Belonging 8

Playback theatre, created in the 1970’s in the United States by Jonathon Fox

and Jo Salas, is one example of community arts practice. Influenced by the American

experimental theatre movement, indigenous storytelling and psychodrama, the

playback framework provides individuals with the opportunity to engage with issues

of identity through storytelling and performance (Fox 2007). C. Buhler, the artistic

director of the Chronicles project, commented that while this project was not strictly

playback, her:

history of working with Playback was very influential in conceiving this project. The

use of oral history was in a sense an extension of Playback. However, rather than

playing stories out on the spot improvisationally, we took time to prepare our

performance (personal communication, 22 Oct 2013)

In the next section, we describe the processes and outcomes of the Chronicles

project. According to C. Buhler:

The strongest unifying factor across the whole project in terms of method was

interviewing the elders for their oral histories; then having the young people identify

the elements of those stories that were most fascinating to them, and theatricalising

those, then building the productions out from those starting points (personal

communication, 22 Oct 2013).

We argue that the opportunities for people from diverse cultural and social

backgrounds to come together and share stories through performance can rupture

taken for granted narratives, thereby providing turning points for individuals to begin

to reimagine belonging and social identities.

Western Edge Youth Arts: Searching for Songlines and Beagle Bay Chronicles

Working in collaborative partnerships with communities, schools and young

people (mostly under 26 years), not-for-profit organisation, WEYA “creates unique,

socially engaged performances” (WEYA 2013c) to empower young people, foster

belonging, and improve intercultural relations and understanding. The Chronicles

project, as an oral history theatre project, used intergenerational storytelling as the

medium to explore identity, histories and belonging.

The broader project included two oral history theatre projects, Chronicles:

Searching for Songlines (2010) and Beagle Bay Chronicles (2012) and was conceived

Negotiating Belonging 9

and developed by WEYA Artistic Director (Cymbeline Buhler), and an Indigenous

singer/songwriter, Kerrianne Cox, over a number of years (WEYA 2013a). The first

part of the longer three year project, Songlines, sought to connect refugee, migrant

and Indigenous young people with their own and each other's cultural histories.

As part of the process of developing the production young people from suburbs

in Melbourne’s West, (i.e., Footscray, Deer Park and Sunshine) collected oral

histories from parents and grandparents. These were then turned into scripts for

performances that introduced audiences to the diverse experiences of people in

the Western suburbs of Melbourne. Several scripts were written including a story

depicting everyday life in an African community, the journey of a refugee, life in

French-occupied Vietnam, and memories of arriving in Australia for the first

time. These stories were then enacted using multiple forms of story-telling such

as singing, individual narration, dialogue, and recorded music, such as the song

‘Roots’ produced through the collaboration (WEYA 2013a). The stories showed

up both unique and shared stories of displacement and how people from diverse

backgrounds were negotiating belonging in the city. It also highlighted the

complex oral histories that constitute the rich diversity of Melbourne’s Western

suburbs and multicultural Australia. This process of story gathering helped the

young people to understand their own and each other’s backgrounds. This prepared

the young people to reflect upon and claim personally meaningful Australian

identities as well as provide skills so that they could support the young people in

Beagle Bay to interview their Elders.

In 2012 the Western Edge group built on Songlines to create a production

based on the oral histories of the elders of Beagle Bay in the Kimberley region of

Western Australia (WEYA 2013b). Kerrianne Cox emphasised that as a leader in

the community she recognised the need, and consulted with Elders about the

need, to tell the stories of the Elders after meeting with Cymbeline who

originally conceived the project. She commented that the community needed

something creative, which included: “tapping into our oral history and recognising

our real stories and what happened gives a really good healing and empowerment for

the people” (Smale and Manning 2012). She stressed that it is not about dwelling on

the past, but about what we do about the past and how we do reconciliation. She

points out the links that exist between the Australia’s east and west in terms of policy

making as well as that the young people from Melbourne and their parents share

Negotiating Belonging 10

similar histories, to Aboriginal people- stories of displacement and oppression, and

that it this opportunity allowed the young people to come and learn about the “roots of

the country” (Smale and Manning). In her view the young people are the foundation

for building the nation, and by bringing them together in an encounter space,

pathways for a better, joint future can be imagined.

Beagle Bay is the land of the Nyul Nyul people, but it is often written

about in relation to missionary activity of Church and State. Beagle Bay has a

famous church that features a pearl shell alter. In the late 1800s and early1900s

the church was central to the missionary activities of the different religious

orders that sought to convert Aboriginal people. The French Trappist monks

established the Beagle Bay mission in 1890. They focussed on attracting as many

Aboriginal people as possible by alerting the authorities about the impact of the

pearling industry, and were especially concerned about the sexual abuse and

exploitation of women by masters and crew (Choo, 1997). German Pallotines

took over in 1901 after the French left, and their method of evangalisation

included settling people into a certain way of life and removing their children

(Choo). Both these missionaries were also concerned about the mixing of

Aboriginal people and those who came because of the pearling industry, and

influenced the development of protectionist policies by the State (e.g., the

Aborigines Act 1905 in Western Australia), including those that justified the

removal of ‘half-caste’ and part Aboriginal children from their families and

sending them to missions.

The missionaries prohibited the children from speaking their own

language and learning of traditional ways from their elders, instead instilling in

them catholic values and the European way of life. While elders and mission

children did attempt to maintain their cultural knowledge, “few mission children

were initiated into the deeper aspects of their cultural practice” (p. 28).

Therefore, as Choo (1997) highlights:

generations of Aboriginal women who lived on Beagle Bay mission

have spoken about the sense of loss of culture, and their attempts as

children to maintain contact with the older people in order to obtain

information about the old ways, which the missionaries frustrated (p.

27).

Negotiating Belonging 11

Over time, as has happened with many missions in Australia, the mission became

home to Aboriginal people from diverse areas across the Kimberley- thus their

attitude towards the mission is often one of ambivalence (Choo).

For Beagle Bay Chronicles, young people from Melbourne and Beagle

Bay collected oral histories from Aboriginal Elders based on memories of the

pre-colonial and mission periods, as well as dreamtime stories (Western Edge,

2013b). The production of Beagle Bay Chronicles followed a similar process of

collaboration with schools, artists, and local community groups to develop the various

parts of the performance. Songs were written and performed by Kerrianne Cox and

the young people, and showcased some of the oral traditions of the area. The

performance was set on the lawns in front of the church that once used to be a mission

and holds different memories for different people.

The church was also the sacred ground of Felix before the missionaries arrived. They

chose that as the place to build their church. The main reason for performing in that

place was the ancient historical context rather than the church (C. Buhler, personal

communication, 22 Oct, 2013).

Stories were told and enacted by performers, and some recorded stories were

played back. Ushan Boyd (2012) summarised part of the performance in this way:

Great Grandfather King Felix, who lived before the white settlers or nuns

appeared, and who thwarted death when he was cast aside from a boat that

stole the able bodied men from Beagle Bay as it returned to Fremantle. King

Felix and Queen Madeline were great old keepers of the community, and it

had been his decision to give up the Law of his people when requested by the

white Minister. It was he, too, that asked the Peninsula communities to come

to Beagle Bay and witness this new thing called religion. Other stories were

equally powerful. Grandfather Amie and the Lepar Colony, and the nun who

sacrificed her own medicine and herself to medicate the children. …. And

stories of white man, and good people lost, and Law and country, lost.

All the stories were performed by the 25 actors- children and young

adults from Beagle Bay and members of Playback West (the playback theatre

group from Melbourne). The storytelling moved back on forth across past and

Negotiating Belonging 12

present, pre-colonial to mission days. All the Elders and community members

were in the audience watching their stories being performed.

In our role in providing research support for the Chronicles project, we used

ethnographic data collection methods including participant observation in the initial

phase of the project at the Youth Arts Centre in Melbourne, with one of the research

team spending time getting to know those engaged in the project, and observing and

participating in playback performances. These performances were recorded and blogs

written by members of Playback West, who constitute the core group of performers.

Reflecting the diversity of Melbourne’s West, these participants made up a culturally

diverse team, and included young people from newly arrived communities, second

generation Australians from migrant backgrounds, young people from fifth generation

‘Anglo’ (i.e., ‘White’) backgrounds, and young people with Aboriginal ancestry.

Because of financial constraints we did not travel to Beagle Bay, but we were able to

use secondary sources to describe the project. In addition to these data sources, semi-

structured interviews were conducted with nine of the 10 participants upon their

return from Beagle Bay (demographics provided in Table 1).

(Table 1)

Disrupting dominant scripts through storytelling

The need to renegotiate what it means to be ‘Australian’ arises within a

context characterised on the one hand by Anglo privilege and cultural dominance (i.e.,

whiteness), and on the other, by indigeneity and increasing cultural diversity.

Storytelling and encounter through oral history theatre creates spaces within which

participants are able to deconstruct imputed racial identities, thereby opening up

opportunities to reimagine belonging in Australia. Through the medium of oral

history theatre, participants claimed diverse social identities and communicated deep

knowledge stemming from their own lived experiences and personal biographies.

They shared stories about who they are, where they come from, their fears and

personal aspirations. This deeper knowledge included the shared social reality of

being Othered within the broader context of Australian race relations, and the

complex ways in which people navigate these realities. But, it is also a deeper

knowledge beyond categories and dominant discourse about ethnic and Indigenous

Negotiating Belonging 13

Others. For the participants this was about sharing and forming new friendships and

opportunities for connection beyond fixed categories.

The web based archive and interview data that we collected from those

(Melbourne based young people) who participated in this project shows the

personal development outcomes, but mostly, it shows the deeper and richer

insights that participants developed about their own lives and the shared stories.

For some it meant gaining new insights into other’s lives, and moving beyond

assumptions and normative understandings of self. For a participant who self-

identified as white, it meant gaining knowledge about privilege and how

Indigenous and minority ethnic groups’ stories are excluded neglected and/or

distorted. For some Indigenous participants who live in the urban city it meant

learning about the history beneath the city, the memory of Indigenous lives prior

to colonisation, and the ongoing ignorance about Australia’s first people. For

other participants, it initiated a process of cultural reclamation.

Centreing diverse lives, decentering whiteness

Songlines was an opportunity for people to share stories that are constitutive of their

identities growing up in Melbourne’s multicultural suburbs. While a pervasive

narrative of what it might mean to be ‘Australian’, may dominate the public sphere, in

instances such as these where diverse young people, and importantly, older

generations, come together to share stories, spaces where different histories,

perspectives and stories are valued and centred, the young people are able to reflect

upon (and potentially disrupt), different understandings about what it means to belong

in Australia (Pardy and Lee 2011; Harris, 2012). Moreover, they may come to

recognise some of the challenges that incoming communities face, and in doing so

recognise the broader societal processes that might undermine multicultural identities

and belonging. The following excerpts are illustrative of the different ways in which

the differently positioned young people reflected upon the significance of experiences

for them. For Andrew learning about racial privilege and the diverse histories and

journeys; for Levi it was about being able to assert being a ‘multicultural dude’; while

Judy and Chloe both unpacked Eurocentrism and how it shaped their identities.

Andrew emphasises the wealth of stories held by the diverse people around

him. He centres his understanding on how others connect to ‘their culture’ and the

extent to which they keep their culture alive.

Negotiating Belonging 14

I found out about the Vietnamese culture, the African culture … the Samoans

and because the mothers came along too, they like, the traditional stuff and

you know it was great. …. you learn more deeply, I guess because I do come

from you know [a] rural community, that when I came here it was just like

the further and further I got into hearing about the stories about the bombs

and the weddings and that was, just amazing, and the war in Africa, …. story

about trying to get through the African jungle to try and get passports to

come, that was in depth stuff and that's today's society just from these young

people.…yeah learning all of that and learning how much they've, some of

them forgot about their culture, moving to here, and how much some still

hold the culture.

Andrew’s reflections about the diversity of experiences just within this small

group of young people reflect the notion of everyday multiculturalism

discussed by Harris (2012).

Levi’s background is Samoan and German. He describes himself as a

‘multicultural dude’ and for him this is not about race or colour, but

recognising common humanity. Yet, he expresses cynicism about the

possibilities of a “peaceful world”, because he recognises that others may not

view the world in this way.

I'm already a multicultural dude you know (laugh)... I don't care like what

colour skin you are or you know, or like what blood you have, you know,

cause we are all the same people....all I want in the world, all I want, if I had

a wish you know, I'd just wish for a peaceful world,…but I know that's

probably never going to happen.

James, recognising racism as ingrained, and aware of his position as a

White Australian and the privilege that this affords him, wanted to demonstrate

“what white Australia can be” to participants in the group, especially those who

had recently migrated, by being the ‘role model’ for white Australia.

I was very aware, that in a way I was the minority ...I'm very much just a

straight Caucasian Anglo-Saxon white person in Australia and was really

only one of a few people in the project like that.... it really made me more

Negotiating Belonging 15

keen to kind of to sort of extend this sort of feeling of welcoming I guess, of,

especially people from our group who were recently arrived and that kind of

stuff, because they were seeing a whole side of Australia they had never seen

before and try to be, I guess a good role model…what white Australia can be,

which is not always present... [it is a] decision you have to make I think,

when you are faced with the fact that there is such a racist culture in our

country, and there is such an endemic sense of you know, xenophobia in

some ways, you have to kind of make the decision, I'm not going to be like

that, I'm going to actively be welcoming of people from around the world ...

you know, it can be really simple things, just being respectful and being

polite and being interested in peoples and where they come from.

Judy spoke of disrupting ideals of what it means to be Australian. She noted

that her journey started with from a position of holding “Australian ideals that were

very Western, very Eurocentric”, but because of the Chronicles project, her

understandings were disrupted and she could recognise multiple histories, including

Indigenous history. She also spoke of de-essentialising understandings of others

stating: “my beliefs in others were so concrete, but now everything started to open

up”, and it made her “feel me feel a much more open Australian”

A different starting point: Aboriginal ways of knowing

Beagle Bay Chronicles focussed on bringing Aboriginal and non-Indigenous young

people together to collect and share oral histories of Aboriginal elders. While the

stories told in Melbourne revealed the multiple resources that constitute identities in

that context, the stories told in Beagle Bay provided a different starting point for

negotiating identity, history, and belonging – Aboriginal stories. The stories

privileged Aboriginal memories of pre-colonial and mission times, and Aboriginal

worldviews, which influenced the young people’s own connection to, and

understanding of, Indigenous Australia, and their own sense of belonging. Most of the

reflections pointed to pedagogical functions of hearing and retelling the stories, as

well as the encounters in place, which included experiencing welcoming ceremonies

and cultural rituals that honour ancestors. The decentring of whiteness was evident in

the new learning about history, colonisation and its effects, and Indigenous ways of

being and knowing, which emphasise belonging and identity as anchored in place and

country.

Negotiating Belonging 16

The participants recognised how settler arrival and colonialism (which

continues today) has fragmented Aboriginal communities and culture, and thus the

important role of re-kindling Aboriginal stories as a means of healing.

Going to Beagle Bay, definitely opens the eyes of all Australians about

Aboriginal culture, especially, even the young people, the young Aboriginal

children. It opens their eyes about how life was like before settlers arrived

and how much respect their elders had for their elders and how society had

changed now and how it's so different to back then.

This reflection also highlights the value of encountering Aboriginal

stories as a means of disrupting problematic constructions of Aboriginal

people and culture, which stem from whiteness and disconnect the history of

colonisation and racism from issues of community dysfunction arising in

circumstances of oppression. Implicit in the reflection about the need to ‘open

the eyes’ of all Australians about Aboriginal culture, history and perspectives,

is the noticeable absence of Aboriginal stories in the cultural landscape – a

fact the work sought to challenge.

This absence is also highlighted in the reflections of James, who has a

long lineage of ‘White’ ancestors. His description about the experience of

participating in the Chronicles project reveals the importance of creating

physical spaces for contact between differently positioned groups of people.

He identifies the lack of contact with Aboriginal people in Canberra (a ‘white

bread’ town) as isolating him from knowledge and the opportunity to work

with Aboriginal young people. Upon reflecting on his experience in Beagle

Bay, he is struck by the physical separation, the limiting of contact (physical

and representational) he has had with Indigenous Australia.

… Canberra's a very white bread town, it's, there's so few… Aboriginals (sic)

in Canberra that I just never really had any experience with them. …so I

really didn't know what to think and it was really eye opening in terms of, in

lots of ways, trying to get bit more of an understanding of how that culture is

and how it works in those sort of communities.

Aboriginal stories enabled participants to learn about Aboriginal people and

Negotiating Belonging 17

culture, how Aboriginal culture has been eroded as a consequence of

colonisation, but at the same time, how it continues to be maintained.

We would argue that a foundational aspect of the encounter experience

is the extent to which Aboriginal understandings of the world disrupted the

seemingly individualistic and mechanistic understanding of people and the

social world. Aboriginal stories, which are anchored in a different ontology

and epistemology, challenge Eurocentric conceptions, and offer alternative

frames for understanding self, others and the world (Smith, 2012). The

Elders stories communicated in the play illustrated this decentring, as well as

the stories of the young people from Melbourne. For instance, in the

following reflection, Amelia who migrated to Australia from Portugal

explains how all the young people “became one”. In her telling, Amelia

identifies herself as the ‘only white person’ in the room, and how she felt a

sense of relief and joy when her Portuguese identity is celebrated and

connected to others.

[The Chronicles group] really took us on as like their family and it's like,

when we were driving there, one of the project managers got out of the car

and she lifted up the earth and she welcomed us to country and there was like

bushfires and it was like a smoke ceremony for the arrival … [Another

project manager] … made like bloodlines between 15 kids there, bloodlines

she's connected to you, she's got a bit of you, you know, I've got a bit of

Portuguese, that means she is connected to you, sister here is connected to

you and like, they come from Africa they connect, you know just connecting

everyone, so it's like we all became One. ….. I just felt so welcomed, I felt

like I wasn't the White person in the room, which I was, I didn't feel like that.

She didn't, it's like I felt like I'm actually related to her, she's got Portuguese

in her...then doing a smoke ceremony and the grandpa, the grandpas became

like, the kids were like our little brothers, little cousins.

This decentring of whiteness did not mean making ‘white people’ feel bad, but

was instead experienced as very welcoming. This was important, and intentional. In

conceiving the project, the artistic director wanted to do more than disrupt whiteness,

stating that:

Negotiating Belonging 18

we were reaching for something beyond that disruption…so many experiences of

disrupting whiteness lead to white guilt or strengthening reverse racism. I was trying

to do something different - aiming for that positive experience and feeling of being

enriched to be common across white, migrant and Aboriginal participants…So often

white people feel a sense of having no right to be here, which also makes them less

able to engage with Aboriginal communities and issues. (C. Buhler, personal

communication, 22 Oct 2013)

It is clear in Amelia’s reflection that the disruption did not lead to paralysing white

guilt, but rather a sense of connection across difference.

Andrew who has Aboriginal and Anglo ancestry noted the possibility for

solidarity between Aboriginal and migrant youth, and that these groups can help each

other to ‘step forward’:

... respecting and learning [about] the indigenous people of this land,

respecting their traditions. It will be great to help them to take a step forward,

for the migrants and that, to be able to connect with more Aboriginal people

and take [a] step forward with them and not necessarily the ‘European’

culture that they have come to.

This solidarity stems not only from the shared experience of displacement

but also because of similarities in terms of ways of being and knowing. A

number of young refugee-background participants spoke about the connection

they felt with land, and with a strong connection to the Beagle Bay community.

For example, when asked about their experiences of being part of this

storytelling, Dawit, who arrived with refugee status from Eritrea, spoke not

about the performance aspect, but of his sense of feeling ‘home’ on the land:

I didn't know Australia has the same place like [I did in my home]. I didn't

know they have home in [Beagle Bay]. It's like similar in my country, that's

like how we used to live - but we don't have like a house, your land is your

home. The same way in [Beagle Bay], you can go outside. But in Melbourne

(laugh) you don't just go outside, like, just go outside and talk with peoples.

In [Beagle Bay], you just go and everywhere they had kids play outside.

Negotiating Belonging 19

Zula, also of Eritrean background, made a similar observation, noting

the connection to how people behaved and her sense of connection to the Beagle

Bay community:

The community in Beagle Bay look like my country, yeah, is look like my

country. The people, how they play, like that stuff, it is similar my country.

Yeah, that's nice. I feel like, you know, I find like people like in my country.

For these two participants the ways of doing and being experienced in Beagle Bay

triggered strong memories of their home communities, and also opened up

possibilities for constructing their belonging in Australia based on the perceived

similarities in ways of being and doing.

Andrew observed that all the young people had the same feelings of longing

for their country or home, to ‘our roots’, as he described, and of connection to culture.

He spoke of tradition and of country as a point of solidarity and connection.

Just the similarities with all of us and the connection we have. We all miss

our country and our home you know and we all want to learn our traditional

ways and everything and going to Beagle Bay was definitely inspiring all of

us to find our roots even more than we had had before you know.

Conclusion

The storytelling in place, that is, in Melbourne’s West and on country in Beagle Bay,

involved explicating silenced and often ignored stories, and it meant encounter with

Aboriginal people, histories and culture. In the different contexts the sharing took on

different meanings anchored in the different life worlds of participants. In Melbourne

it revealed the rich diversity of everyday multiculturalism in the city, and in Beagle

Bay it centred Aboriginal history, culture and perspectives, which provided a different

starting point from which to negotiate belonging and identity. Travelling to Beagle

Bay involved movement from a familiar social, cultural and physical context to a new

and different context where Aboriginal ways of knowing and being were privileged.

Collecting, performing and sharing the stories of the Elders in Beagle Bay involved

learning about and encountering new ways of knowing that value connectedness.

Negotiating Belonging 20

By inverting the discussion about belonging through starting with the stories

of migrant youth, their parents and grandparents, and through encounter with

Aboriginal people, history and culture, there is a shift away from the normative

discourse about nation and identity that constructs belonging in relation to ‘white’

Australia. As articulated by Schech and Haggis (2001), “Only with this de-centring of

whiteness does it seem possible to imagine a situational politics within which the

‘core’, including whitenesses, becomes as negotiable as other ways of imagining self

within contemporary Australian society” (Schech and Haggis, 2001, p.157).

Inserting the experiences and stories of diverse groups into the broader

discourse helps to make visible continuing dynamics of exclusion, in particular

experiences of racialisation, which are often silenced in the narrative of

multiculturalism (Sonn and Lewis, 2009). Through arts praxis, oral histories and

everyday stories provided a vehicle for retrieving cultural memories that constitute the

identities of people in different places. Together, in shared spaces, arts praxis

provided an opportunity for people to engage in the deconstruction of normative

scripts, and gain access to and create new stories that become symbolic resources for

negotiating belonging in postcolonising settings. It is by telling the stories of others

that whiteness can be decentered and racialisation and exclusion challenged, and new

more personally meaningful Australian identities constructed through dialogue.

Acknowledgements

Data gathering for this research was supported with funding from the Victoria University

Researcher Development Scheme (RDGS 28/12). We want to thank Cymbeline Buhler, the

artistic director of the Chronicles project, for her generous input that helped sharpen our

understanding and reflections on the project. We would like to acknowledge Lesley Pruitt’s

role in the data gathering, Karina Smith for comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and

Linda Chiodo for her research assistance. We also want to acknowledge the reviewers and

associate editor for their feedback on an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. Following Moreton-Robinson (2003) we, “conceptualise the current condition not as

postcolonial but as postcolonizing with the association of ongoing process, which that

implies” (p. 30).

Negotiating Belonging 21

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