Shielding our Futures: Storytelling with Ancestral and Living Knowledges

Storytelling is an essential means of knowledge transmission and production that ensures the survival of diverse Indigenous Knowledges, assisting in the decolonisation of oppressive academic narratives targeting many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations. This project will reciprocally engage with the oral histories of D’harawal Elders that engage with Garuwanga Waduguda (Ancestral Laws) and Narinya Wadugua (Living Laws) to emancipate representations of D’harawal Knowledges from dominant colonial-storytelling narratives that largely
speak of assimilation, cultural loss, and our very extinction. In doing so this research will assist in revitalization and respect of Aboriginal identities and Knowledges within urban communities.