Abstract
This article proposes a re-reading of Aboriginal author Sally Morgan’s Stolen Generations narrative My Place (1987) in post-Apology Australia (2008–present). The novel tells the story of Morgan’s discovery of her maternal Aboriginal origins through the life-stories of her mother and grandmother; the object of a quest for the past that is both relational and matrilineal; incorporating elements of autobiography and as-told-to memoirs to create a form of choral autoethnography. Morgan’s text explores the intergenerational consequences of child removal in the Aboriginal context and is representative of Indigenous-authored narratives in its suggestion that the children and grand-children of victims of colonial policies and practices can work through the trauma of their ancestors. I examine the literary processes of decolonization of the Indigenous writing/written self and community; as well as strategies for individual survival and cultural survivance in the Australian settler colonial context; especially visible through the interactions between traumatic memories and literary memoirs, a genre neglected by trauma theory’s concern with narrative fragmentation and the proliferation of “themed” life-writing centered on a traumatic event. This article calls for a revision of trauma theory’s Eurocentrism through scholarly engagement with Indigenous experiences such as Morgan’s and her family in order to broaden definitions and take into account collective, historical, and inherited trauma.
Highlights
This article explores how the reflexive practice of autobiographical writing contributes to the decolonization of the Indigenous self and forms the root of individual survival and cultural survivance.In the Australian context, Stolen Generations testimonies exemplify the fundamental link between life-writing and trauma
Published in 1987, My Place is the life-story of Australian Aboriginal painter Sally Morgan, including the stories of her great-uncle Arthur, her mother Gladys and father Bill
Faced with the inadequacy of Western trauma theory to account for and provide healing to Indigenous victims and to give satisfactory results according to Indigenous, as opposed to Western, criteria, we may look towards new developments in postcolonial literary criticism to complement trauma theory and adapt it to Indigenous contexts
Summary
This article explores how the reflexive practice of autobiographical writing contributes to the decolonization of the Indigenous self and forms the root of individual survival and cultural survivance. This article argues that reading My Place as a literary text straddling the generic boundaries between fact and fiction can help scholars of trauma studies to decolonize the discipline through an engagement with hybrid textual forms, alternative conceptions of the self, and marginalized histories. I will explore the literary genres associated with Stolen Generations narratives, including autobiography, memoir, and testimony, I will examine the issues of trauma and witnessing present in My Place, before turning to an exploration of trauma and postcolonial theory in relation to the novel drawing on recent developments in criticism, and I will turn to the implications of collective family testimonies of Aboriginal “we-dentity” such as Morgan’s for the discipline of trauma studies
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
