TODAY WE'RE ALIVE Stories from the Memorial to the Myall Creek Massacre Nov. 27

309 Pages·2014·3.1 MB·English

Faculty of Education and Social Work
The University of Sydney

Today We’re Alive – generating performance
in a cross-cultural context,
an Australian experience.

By Linden Wilkinson

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of
the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

2014
Faculty of Education and Social Work
Office of Doctoral Studies

AUTHOR’S DECLARATION

This is to certify that:
l. this thesis comprises only my original work towards the Doctorate of
Philosophy.
ll. due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material
used.
lll. the thesis does not exceed the word length for this degree.
lV. no part of this work has been used for the award of another degree.
V. this thesis meets the University of Sydney’s Human Research Ethics
Committee (HREC) requirements for the conduct of this research.

Signature:

Name: Linden Wilkinson

Date: 17th September, 2014
Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge my supervisors, Associate Professor Dr Michael
Anderson and Dr Paul Dwyer, for their support, rigour and
encouragement in relation to this project. I would also like to thank my
family for their patience.
And I would like to express my profound gratitude to everyone, who
shared their time, their wisdom and their memories so willingly to this
undertaking. The Myall Creek story goes on…
Finally to the actors – to Fred, Anna, Lily, Genevieve, Aunty Rhonda &
Terry in 2011, to Bjorn, Rosie, Frankie & Russell in 2013 – thanks for
your skill, your trust, your imagination and your humour. And thanks for
saying, “Yes.”

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Today We’re Alive
generating performance in a cross-cultural context,
an Australian experience

Abstract

Using a mixed methods approach this thesis explores the construction and
dissemination of a cross-cultural play within the Australian context. The experience
of developing and performing this play confirms, I believe, the valuable contribution
performance could make to the contentious domain of competing epistemologies
within decolonizing research methodology.
Performance is able to interrogate the encrypted language buried within the
emotionally complex terrain of decolonizing intent. By celebrating through story a
shared humanity, performance can demonstrate both the on-going pain and shame
of shared history and the possibility of moving beyond the negative towards a more
positive collective future. Although this study did not find a reconciliation narrative, it
did locate the beginning of one. Through an exploration of the Myall Creek massacre
of 1838 and the Memorial erected to commemorate it 162 years after the event, this
study found a narrative about the power of acknowledgement. This study also
suggests that the cultural impediments to reconciliation lie within five persistent
narratives intrinsic to the Australian colonization process.
Predominantly reliant on performance ethnography as the principle research
methodology, the play at the heart of this research endeavour, Today We’re Alive, is
verbatim theatre, where only the words that were spoken in the field and extracts of
documents in the public domain contribute to the performance text. The voices that
tell this story include Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members of the Myall Creek
Memorial Committee, descendants of massacre survivors, descendants of the
massacre perpetrators and informed others recommended to me in the field.
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The first draft of the play was taken back to the primary research field to a
community hall near the massacre site over 600 kilometres from Sydney for a
performed reading. The six actor/co-researchers, three Aboriginal and three non-
Aboriginal performers, delivered a performance that exceeded all expectations.
Several factors, I believe, influenced this outcome. Therefore this draft of the play is
embedded in the body of this thesis, as the script and the performance of it are
critical to the analysis of the research findings.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements i
Abstract ii
Table of Contents iv

Prologue 1
i.) A little white history 1
ii.) The lure of arts practice 1
iii.) In the cross-cultural classroom 2
iv.) Culture shock 4

1. The Road to Myall Creek 6

1. Introduction 6

1.1 Investigating decolonization through multiple perspectives 6

1.2 Research question 8

1.3 Research expectation 9
1.4 Purpose of this study 10
1.5 The research challenge 10
1.6 The research plan 12
1.6.1 Locating the content 13
1.6.2 Definitions of significant terms used 14
1.7 The ordinary world 16

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1.8 First steps 19
1.8.1 Parallel learning 20
1.8.2 Based in Redfern 20
1.8.3 Fate and funding intervene 21
1.9 The Memorial at Myall Creek 24
1.9.1 Not set in stone –deconstructing memorials 24
1.10 The research framework 27
1.11 Overview of this dissertation 29
1.12 Conclusion 30

2 CONFRONTING THE SAVAGE 32
- the colonial legacy in a changing state

2 Introduction 32
2.1 The colonial legacy 33
2.2 In the beginning… 35
2.2.1 Cook’s first great voyage 36
2.2.2 An enlightened mind 39
2.2.3 Settlement in era of Enlightenment 40
2.2.4 Real destruction begins 41
2.2.5 Genocide 44
2.2.6 Governor Gipps’ parting gift 45
2.2.7 The ‘savage’ at the end of the century 48
2.3 Protection and segregation 49
2.3.1 Five persistent narratives 51
2.4 The constraint to legitimacy 54
2.4.1 Conversations of the research frontier 56
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2.5 From fixed to fluid worlds 57
2.5.1 Hybridity 57
2.5.2 Uncertainty 59
2.5.3 Performativity 60
2.6 A very useful model 60
2.6.1 The emergence of traditional knowledge 62
2.6.2 A sense of The Dreaming 63
2.7 Conclusion 65

3 A BRUTAL BUSINESS 66

- contests, memory and accommodations on the colonial frontier

3 Introduction 66
3.1 A colonial past? 67
3.1.1 Surviving first contact 69
3.1.2 The convict lot 71
3.2 A contested space 73
3.2.1 Beyond the Limits 75
3.2.2 Nunn’s campaign 77
3.3 A shaft of light 78
3.3.1 The outcome 81
3.3.2 The backlash 83

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3.4 Len Payne’s long shadow 85
3.4.1 Fifty years of Aboriginal activism 87
3.4.2 The first freedom ride 89
3.4.3 The 1967 referendum 90
3.5 Bringing on the understudy – convicts and national identity 91
3.5.1 Only holding the fort 94
3.6 Conclusion 95

4 LIVING IN HISTORY 96

4 Introduction 96
4.1 Gaining consensus 97
4.1.1 Wave Hill 97
4.1.2 Generational change 101
4.1.3 From sightless to seeing – understanding exclusion 102
4.2 The end of Assimilation 104
4.2.1 The tent embassy 106
4.3 Self-determination – the rhetoric and the reality 107
4.3.1 Reconciliation – symbols over substance 109
4.3.2 Balancing acts 111
4.3.3 A meagre estate 113
4.3.4 The History Wars 114
4.3.5 Sorry – reconciliation revisited 116
4.4 Closing the Gap 118
4.4.1 Unfinished business 119

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