{"id":763461,"date":"2022-07-29T02:49:29","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T02:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.broadagenda.com.au\/?p=12190"},"modified":"2022-07-29T02:49:29","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T02:49:29","slug":"profile-wendy-somerville-on-storytelling-identity-and-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/07\/29\/profile-wendy-somerville-on-storytelling-identity-and-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"Profile: Wendy Somerville on storytelling, identity, and knowledge\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wendy virtually introduces me to her Country through a photo. \u201cThis is the Shoalhaven River, this is Jerrinja Country.\u201d She points to different spots and I begin to see more than just green and blue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the mountain, my mother grew up just down there. This is where the Shoalhaven River went out to the ocean at Shoalhaven Heads.\u201d With a dramatic flourish she points to a different location: \u201cThis is the course it now takes. Because a coloniser wanted a way for his ships to get in there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cSo this is my Country. It\u2019s very green, very lovely and full of saltwater and oysters and things like that\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An aerial view of the canal (centre left) connecting the Shoalhaven River (top) with the Crookhaven River (bottom). BroadAgenda is extremely grateful to Maree Clout for giving us permission to publish this beautiful photo. Picture: Maree Clout<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

And she continues to tease out her story for me.\u00a0I am introduced to her family through this story, too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was when I was quite old,\u201d Wendy smirks as she says this, \u201cwhen my niece had done law here at Canberra uni and her mother\u2013my sister\u2013was complaining about not ever having enough money. She had children, she\u2019s a single mother, of course she never had enough money.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd my niece said to her, ” Get off your ass and go to university, and take Aunty Wendy with you!\u201d and so I went.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On interrogating \u2018Proof of Aboriginality\u2019<\/span><\/h4>\n

Wendy shares a story with me from when she was doing the Honours year of her Bachelors degree. \u201cOne day, I went into my supervisor\u2019s office. I was pissed off because the Ngunnawal Centre\u2013it was my second home, my community at uni\u2013had started asking for proof of Aboriginality.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd she said to me, ‘W<\/span>hat is that? What is that<\/span>?’\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, because I\u2019ve lived with it, I didn\u2019t understand that someone who was not First Nations Australian would never have heard of it. And so I explained it to her.\u201d After many conversations and a lot of research for her Honours project, Wendy says she began to seriously interrogate the notion of <\/span>\u2018proof\u2019<\/span><\/a> of Aboriginality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a little piece of paper that non-Indigenous, non-First Nations Australians, don\u2019t have to carry. They don\u2019t have to have this,\u201d she emphasises. \u201cEveryone has all kinds of cards left, right and centre. But there was this other little piece of paper..\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Wendy tells me about how she got her confirmation of Aboriginality. \u201cIt was 1991, and there was a job going at ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission). I thought, ‘<\/span>I\u2019ll go for that!’<\/span>So, I phoned up and they asked, \u2018Have you got your certificate?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell no, I haven\u2019t!\u201d was her reply.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wendy was able to get one through her relationship to her mum, who was a member of a corporation at the time. \u201cShe went before the board and they said, \u2018Well, she\u2019s your daughter!\u2019 and sent it over for me.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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A post shared by Vickers & Hoad Auctioneers (@vickersandhoad)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n