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14 Counter-Storytelling as Critical Praxis

  • Nicole Watson
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Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies
This chapter is in the book Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies

Abstract

Since the beginning of colonization, the law has been weaponized against Indigenous peoples. The belief that Indigenous peoples were so uncivilized that we lacked any laws of our own precluded the recognition of pre-existing rights to the land. Although Indigenous peoples were entitled to the protection of the law, our ancestors were killed with impunity by the Native Police, a paramilitary force whose sole purpose was to eradicate the Indigenous presence from the land. Indigenous people are nothing if not resourceful, and in the closing decades of the 20th century, some blazed a trail by enrolling in Australia’s law schools. The first Aboriginal person to graduate from an Australian law school was the Kuku Yalanji woman Pat O’Shane, who would go on to become the first Aboriginal magistrate in Australia. Others used the law as a tool to protect their Country from the impacts of development. In 1982, the Gunditjmara women Lorraine Onus and Christina Frankland made history when they used the law to protect their Country from the construction of an aluminium smelter. This chapter will consider how the critical contributions of Indigenous women have been rendered invisible in Australian legal history. It will be argued that much can be learnt from the stories of such women who, through their actions, made the law accessible to some of the most marginalized people in Australia.

Abstract

Since the beginning of colonization, the law has been weaponized against Indigenous peoples. The belief that Indigenous peoples were so uncivilized that we lacked any laws of our own precluded the recognition of pre-existing rights to the land. Although Indigenous peoples were entitled to the protection of the law, our ancestors were killed with impunity by the Native Police, a paramilitary force whose sole purpose was to eradicate the Indigenous presence from the land. Indigenous people are nothing if not resourceful, and in the closing decades of the 20th century, some blazed a trail by enrolling in Australia’s law schools. The first Aboriginal person to graduate from an Australian law school was the Kuku Yalanji woman Pat O’Shane, who would go on to become the first Aboriginal magistrate in Australia. Others used the law as a tool to protect their Country from the impacts of development. In 1982, the Gunditjmara women Lorraine Onus and Christina Frankland made history when they used the law to protect their Country from the construction of an aluminium smelter. This chapter will consider how the critical contributions of Indigenous women have been rendered invisible in Australian legal history. It will be argued that much can be learnt from the stories of such women who, through their actions, made the law accessible to some of the most marginalized people in Australia.

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Series Editors’ Preface vii
  4. List of Figures and Tables ix
  5. Notes on Contributors x
  6. Foreword xvii
  7. Acknowledgements xxi
  8. Introduction: Articulating a Critical Racial and Decolonial Liberatory Imperative for Our Times 1
  9. Going beyond ‘Decolonize the Curriculum’
  10. Being Woke to Anti-Intellectualism: Indigenous Resistance and Futures 13
  11. Decolonizing Australian Universities: Why Embedding Indigenous Content in the Curriculum Fails That Task 32
  12. Let’s Get Critical: Thinking with and beyond the ‘Dead White Men’ of Social Theory 49
  13. (De)constituting Settler Subjects: A Retrospective Critical Race-Decolonizing Account 62
  14. Being in the Classroom
  15. Shedding the Colonial Skin and Digging Deep as Decolonial Praxis 79
  16. Racially Literate Teacher Education: (Im)possibilities for Disrupting the Racial Silence 93
  17. In Conversation with Helena Liu: Redeeming Leadership – a Project of Critical Hope 111
  18. The Provocateur as Decolonial Praxis 123
  19. Doing Race in the Disciplines
  20. Decolonizing the Curriculum in the Colonial Debtscape 137
  21. Race-ing the Law 152
  22. Assembling Decolonial Anti-Racist Praxis from the Margins: Reflections from Critical Community Psychology 164
  23. Unravelling the Model Minority Myth and Breaking the Racial Silence: A Collaborative Critical Auto-Ethnography 178
  24. Counter-Storytelling as Critical Praxis 190
  25. Building Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies beyond the Academy
  26. Incantation: Insurgent Texts as Decolonial Feminist Praxis 205
  27. Race at Work within Social Policy 227
  28. ‘The Sole Source of Truth’: Harnessing the Power of the Spoken Word through Indigenous Community Radio 246
  29. Resistance, Solidarity, Survival
  30. Death Can Be Clarifying: Considering the Forces That Move Us 261
  31. In Conversation with Yassir Morsi: Slow Ontology as Resistance 276
  32. Teaching Race, Conceptualizing Solidarity 290
  33. In Conversation with Alana Lentin: Racial Literacy – an Act of Solidarity 305
  34. Teacher/Decolonizer 317
  35. Index 322
https://doi.org/10.56687/9781529234442-019

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Series Editors’ Preface vii
  4. List of Figures and Tables ix
  5. Notes on Contributors x
  6. Foreword xvii
  7. Acknowledgements xxi
  8. Introduction: Articulating a Critical Racial and Decolonial Liberatory Imperative for Our Times 1
  9. Going beyond ‘Decolonize the Curriculum’
  10. Being Woke to Anti-Intellectualism: Indigenous Resistance and Futures 13
  11. Decolonizing Australian Universities: Why Embedding Indigenous Content in the Curriculum Fails That Task 32
  12. Let’s Get Critical: Thinking with and beyond the ‘Dead White Men’ of Social Theory 49
  13. (De)constituting Settler Subjects: A Retrospective Critical Race-Decolonizing Account 62
  14. Being in the Classroom
  15. Shedding the Colonial Skin and Digging Deep as Decolonial Praxis 79
  16. Racially Literate Teacher Education: (Im)possibilities for Disrupting the Racial Silence 93
  17. In Conversation with Helena Liu: Redeeming Leadership – a Project of Critical Hope 111
  18. The Provocateur as Decolonial Praxis 123
  19. Doing Race in the Disciplines
  20. Decolonizing the Curriculum in the Colonial Debtscape 137
  21. Race-ing the Law 152
  22. Assembling Decolonial Anti-Racist Praxis from the Margins: Reflections from Critical Community Psychology 164
  23. Unravelling the Model Minority Myth and Breaking the Racial Silence: A Collaborative Critical Auto-Ethnography 178
  24. Counter-Storytelling as Critical Praxis 190
  25. Building Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies beyond the Academy
  26. Incantation: Insurgent Texts as Decolonial Feminist Praxis 205
  27. Race at Work within Social Policy 227
  28. ‘The Sole Source of Truth’: Harnessing the Power of the Spoken Word through Indigenous Community Radio 246
  29. Resistance, Solidarity, Survival
  30. Death Can Be Clarifying: Considering the Forces That Move Us 261
  31. In Conversation with Yassir Morsi: Slow Ontology as Resistance 276
  32. Teaching Race, Conceptualizing Solidarity 290
  33. In Conversation with Alana Lentin: Racial Literacy – an Act of Solidarity 305
  34. Teacher/Decolonizer 317
  35. Index 322
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