Our Stories Are Our Survival

Abstract

Our stories are our survival Lawrence Bamblett 2013 Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 206pp, ISBN 9781922059222 (pbk) Our stories are our survival is fascinating, enlightening and extremely well written. I thought I was culturally sensitive, relatively aware and extremely interested in Indigenous ways of knowing. This book showed me how naive I am. I was left convinced that I am the product of a white version of a black story. In this book, Bamblett describes how Indigenous speakers often place a hand on a young listener as they speak, 'as if certain topics require more than just listening to be really understood' (p. 173). Our stories are our survival places a hand gently on the shoulders of all readers and calls us to hear more than the messages of the media, to question interpretations constructed throughout history and to rectify misinterpretations tainted by limited experiences. It is a story all Australians should read. This book presents snapshots over time taken from the perspectives of sport and growing up on the Erambie Mission in Cowra. The community speaks and its voices offer an interpretation that sheds light on what is valued. Undoubtedly, there is a deep commitment to community and cultural identity. It is difficult to know whether cultural identity is strengthened through the stories shared or whether the stories told are the cultural identity. Bamblett reveals through multiple stories (including interviews, newspaper articles and photographs) that the community's version of reality is often misunderstood and misinterpreted by those on the outside looking in. The view from the outside is coloured by media stereotypes, the choice of language and the perpetuation of voices with a vested interest in maintaining 'their' control. Bamblett reminds us that 'The problem is not that racism or social break-down are uncovered in research about minorities; rather, what is problematic is that they are too often the only stories told' (p.163). This book provides a conduit for increasing and intensifying the voices of a unique community. Throughout the book, Bamblett challenges the stereotypes of victimhood. To do so, he draws on many sports-related examples and states that the lens that looks in on Indigenous communities is often narrowly focused on deficit and disadvantage. For example, it was customary in the 1940s to settle disputes at the railway gates. Mavis, an Indigenous Elder, recalls that 'the gates used to be the boxing ring where they settled their differences. Off the mission away from the manager's house. Away from them so they wouldn't ring the gunyans [police]' (p.113). She explains that 'outsiders' did not understand that the fights were a means for resolving differences. Bamblett explains that the fights were a legitimate tool for social interaction (p.110). The fights at the gates brought disagreements to an immediate and proper end and the combatants became 'friends again'. While the Erambie community described the fights as 'settling disputes', 'restoring friendships' and 'sorting it out the right way' (p.120), managers assigned to the mission described the fights in provocative and negative terms--'riotous behaviour, lack of control, brawling and danger' (p.120). Bamblett highlights that 'Until researchers took an interest in contemporary mission culture and oral histories were collected, the accounts and representations of the managers were the only ones available outside of the community' (p. …