Reckonings with truth: Sovereign truths on Country

Abstract

This article analyses grassroots truth-telling in Australia, in the light of the 2017 Uluru Statement's call for a Makarrata Commission to oversee truth-telling and treaty. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have long called for truth-telling about the colonial past. Numerous community projects have emerged to engage with these historical truths. However, few of these initiatives have been documented. This article analyses a small sample of these projects, drawing on case study research. It argues that these activities, grounded in Indigenous onto-epistemology, offer unique opportunities to explore the decolonising potential of truth-telling. These truth practices defy the eliminatory logic of settler colonialism, creating spaces for pedagogic encounter that trouble the settler-colonial order by enacting multiple sovereignties on Country. Importantly, they provide insights for formal truth-telling, modelling resurgent, prefigurative praxis that incorporates Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in transformative processes that could help navigate the challenges of transitional justice in the settler-colonial context.