The politics of memory: autobiographical narratives of Indigenous child separation

This paper is interested in autobiographical narratives that document and represent experiences of Indigenous child separation from their families. Reconstructing the memories of the Stolen Generations in the form of autobiography is inevitably subject to mechanisms of selection, verification, and commodification within the dominant discourse. However, it is necessary to recognise the agency of Aboriginal people who tactically unsettle the racial ideology and bring into consciousness what has been forgotten by Australian historiography. By examining how memories of child removal have been shaped in public discourse, and exploring Aboriginal authorial agency in recollecting an archive of separation stories, the paper argues that the multi-faceted memories of the stolen children open up a critical space to expose racial injustices and to articulate Indigenous visions of history, plights and rights.