Rupturing the Western concept of wilderness: Restoring human relationships with place and nature

Abstract

The clouded lens of 'the colonial gaze' deemed the Australian landscape an empty wilderness needing to be broken and subdued, to civilise it. The Australian Bushfire season of 2019–2020 has reignited interest in cultural burning practices but otherwise the colonisers continue to ignore the millennia-long knowledge system of Aboriginal people that connects us with Country, through kinship. This chapter ruptures the Western concept of wilderness to restore the symbiotic human relationships with place and nature, reframing and recontextualising colonial imagery and language. In particular it recognises place agency and sentience, and acknowledges the legacy and trauma of removal from Country, not least because of the immediate global catastrophe of COVID-19.