Testimonial Textures: Examining the Poetics of Non-Indigenous Stories about Reconciliation

Abstract

This paper arises from a collaborative project of research, exploring non-indigenous attitudes towards national agendas of reconciliation with Aboriginal peoples (Clark et al.; de Costa and Clark). To date the research has focused on Australia and Canada, two countries where Aboriginal reconciliation is posited as a central organizing principle for national policy frameworks aimed at redressing entrenched indigenous disadvantage. Australia and Canada are also two countries whose federal parliaments endorsed resolutions of apology during 2008, apologizing to their indigenous populations for large-scale policies of forcible family separation. The purpose of this project is to gauge the strategic prospects for the national reconciliation projects in both countries, by exploring actual and potential ways in which non-indigenous settler populations — what we might call ‘second peoples’ or ‘subsequent peoples’ — identify with, against, or even without reference to the reconciliation agendas pursued by their respective governments and on their respective behalves. Here we argue that such identifications are highly amenable to a research approach that focuses on the stylistic ways that people share the stories that underpin their experiences and beliefs.