The inter-Indigenous encounter

Abstract

There exists an extensive amount of research in the fields of anthropology, literary studies, and philosophy driven by settler-oriented comparisons between Indigenous nations that verified the representation of Indigenous peoples as Other. Meanwhile, the amount of scholarly works on comparative Indigenous literary encounters in the last decade is worthy of note as indicative of the emergence of a planetary decolonial consciousness. To present an argument as to the need to think of the planetary agency of Indigenous writers, I will closely examine the variety of poetic strategies utilized by Yankunytjatjara poet Ali Cobby Eckermann of South Australia, and Yoogum and Kudjela poet Lionel Fogarty of Southern Queensland, in their writing towards other Indigenous peoples from Gaelic Ireland, and the Pacific. This serves two crucial interventions, puncturing through the deficit discourse that essentializes the poethical contribution of Aboriginal writers, and developing comparative strategies for future Indigenous-to-Indigenous encounters.