Dreaming Emu: Indigenous cultural empowerment through art as therapy - Men & healing from the violence of colonisation

Abstract

This study investigates an Aboriginal Australian Indigenous epistemology through narrative analysis by contextualising colonial history within a contemporary Aboriginal standpoint approach. This work seeks to understand the place of identity among Aboriginal people with an emphasis on the experience of Indigenous men. Aboriginal male identity is explored as a place of fracture, disintegration, healing and empowerment. The practice of Indigenous epistemology and knowing or research is facilitated by the use of post-colonial narrative analysis, (auto)-ethnography, and Aboriginal arts-speak through the sharing of analysis-as-story. The central metaphor of the study is the Dreaming Emu artwork that provides a visual and epistemic meeting place for the critical work of deconstructing colonial narratives while acknowledging how art-as-process assists in generating new forms of identity among Aboriginal men. Three Aboriginal male artists are discussed, and their experiences of confronting colonial narratives are explored. The work provides an example of pathways that Aboriginal men may follow while they are engaged in the revision of identity and place within the practice of art as culture and spirituality.