The NSW Writers’ Centre’s ‘Newswrite’ Issue 230 had an interesting piece by Adeline Teoh on “the minefield of writing from a cultural viewpoint not your own”. As a white, heterosexual, middle-class woman, I’m only one step away from being the dominant narrative in Australia, but from a young age I remember feeling very passionate and personally invested in notions of social and cultural equality and diversity, though of course I didn’t label them that way until after doing Cultural Studies at university.
In particular, I remember being frustrated throughout high school and into university with the treatment of Aboriginal Australian history and culture. I remember taking history in Year 10 and being angry at students around me who would groan about learning Aboriginal history again – “it’s so boring, we’ve done it a million times” they’d complain, as we learnt about assimilation and segregation and all the other ‘tion’ policies that the white-Australian government thought up. But, perhaps they had a point – learning this over and over again didn’t exactly give us a deep or contemporary understanding of Aboriginal Australian culture, or the last 40,000 years of Australian history. It gave us a snapshot of injustice and invasion, but it didn’t teach us anything about what it was, and is, truly like to be an Aboriginal Australian. I also remember being dismayed at uni when people would say the same thing, even though finally we were starting to learn a little bit more about Aboriginal Australian culture, from a teacher who identified as an Aboriginal Australian, and could tell us first-hand some of the important educational practices, more on the diversity of Aboriginal culture and identity, and some horrific stories of racism that she had experienced while teaching. I remember my HSC English teacher telling me that I couldn’t write a creative writing piece from the perspective of an Aboriginal Australian woman, because I didn’t even know any Aboriginal Australians and wouldn’t be able to get the appropriate permission. While she wasn’t entirely correct, again, she had a point.
Now I’m writing a novel, and I want to set it in Australia, and I want my fantasy world to have a deep cultural history that is closely tied to nature, the environment, and the distinctly Australian landscape. To ignore Aboriginal Australian history, while doing that, would be absolutely absurd. But is it appropriate to incorporate a cultural viewpoint that is not my own? Teoh states that “not all [cultural] appropriation is equal and you don’t get a free pass just because you’re a writer.” I think it’s immensely important to remember this. While our desire might be to tell untold truths, to reveal important cultural ideas, to share knowledge of ancient cultures and societies who should be respected and valued… it’s not always our place.
One difficulty when it comes to a culture like that of Aboriginal Australia is the extent to which this culture has been made a minority, and the loss of heritage that has come with that. Teoh explains that cultural appropriation can cross a line when the imbalance between how the dominant narrative represents that culture, and how that culture understands themselves, is too significant. So, when writing culturally diverse characters, if you have a fairly large sample size of interactions with that community and their cultural artefacts, you are more likely to have a strong understanding of the diversity within the culture, and less likely to (accidentally or otherwise) fall back on stereotypes.
Teoh is not trying to discourage people from writing from other cultural viewpoints, and similarly, I believe that it’s important to make an attempt to represent our modern world as it truly stands – with a diverse and culturally interwoven community of people. In fact, in my novel, I guess that I take some liberties, because of the fantasy genre, and attempt to make cross-cultural connections stronger and more significant than they might be in the real world. I create a people who are united across all different cultures, because they are a kind of ‘race’ of their own. The country that they come from is far less important than the Elemental powers and responsibilities that they value.
“Reading and writing non-dominant cultures takes work,” Teoh states. “It’s deep research, from reading work by people of that culture, to engaging with representatives of that culture and asking pertinent questions.” This is the kind of legwork in writing that excites me. I did a dissertation on gothic literature, much of which was written by Mudrooroo, an author identifying as Aboriginal Australian. I’ve consumed plenty of texts, fiction and non-fiction, that discuss Aboriginal Australia and Aboriginal culture. About half of these have been written by Aboriginal Australians. I’ve spoken to colleagues who identify as Aboriginal Australian (though I’m one of the first to admit that I don’t think these people can be asked to represent a whole community). I’ve also written cultures other than my own, in my book, who are more broadly represented in my immediate friendship circles. I’ve asked a friend to help me translate text for my French characters. I interact daily with Brazilian friends and colleagues and have borrowed their mannerisms for some of my Brazilian characters. I’ve been to most of the countries that my non-Australian characters are from. Yet still, of all the cultures I want to represent in my novel, the culture that sits on my own doorstep is the most difficult, I’m finding, to include.
This is, in part, because I’m still working through the practical research process – I haven’t yet asked for permission from local elders to write anything at all about Dreaming. I don’t have a clue whether it is appropriate or not to include elements of the Dreaming in an invented, fantasy-world, cultural and historical background. But in my effort to discover more, I recently learnt that the Guringai people, who are, to my knowledge, the local countrymen and women in my area, are a people whose name was invented by a European white man in the 1800s. So is Guringai not even the appropriate term? Are all of the ‘Acknowledgement of Country’ speeches fraudulent? It seems that the more research I do, the more I open up a Pandora’s box – or a minefield, as Teoh states – of issues surrounding cultural appropriation.
I don’t think this is reason enough to decide not to include any reference to Aboriginal Australians. I think it is a strong reminder, as Teoh’s article was, that this writing is tricky business. I strongly believe that with an open mind and decent, specific and sincere intentions, we should make an effort to be more inclusive of diverse cultures in literary spaces. But the decision about what is and is not appropriate cannot always be left to the author, good intentions or not. Consultation, compassion and cultural competence can never be valued enough.
Samantha Todd 