Attending to the Subaltern Through Oral Histories of the NSW Tablelands: Uralla, “Struggletown”, and Guyra, the “White Cockatoo”

Title
Attending to the Subaltern Through Oral Histories of the NSW Tablelands: Uralla, “Struggletown”, and Guyra, the “White Cockatoo”
Author(s)
McClelland, Gwyn
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6914-2387
Email: gmcclell@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:gmcclell
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Routledge
Place of publication
Australia
DOI
10.1080/14443058.2025.2603890
UNE publication id
une:1959.11/71978
Abstract

Keeping in mind how memory and history constitute power, this article advocates the use of existing oral histories of subalterns that make rich contributions to our understanding of regional towns such as Uralla and Guyra, in the New England Tablelands. By paying close attention to subaltern oral histories outside the written record, including Indigenous narratives, we can better understand our shared history in place. By drawing on past subjective oral histories while working collaboratively with community, this essay supports processes of heritagisation that first deconstruct and then describe meaningful histories, thus contributing to decolonisation. Oral history is not always easily accessed and its protagonists do not consistently explicate their intersubjectivity. Nonetheless, this article builds on Lynn Abrams’s view of oral history as advocacy while acknowledging the need for care in its use for heritagisation.

Link
Citation
Journal of Australian Studies, p. 1-17
ISSN
1835-6419
1444-3058
Start page
1
End page
17

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