Getting it Right: Safeguarding a Respected Space for Indigenous Oral Histories and Truth Telling

Abstract

Indigenous stories increasingly challenge the Australian understanding of the relationships between colonizers and Indigenous experiences and perceptions of the postcolonial past. Indigenous oral history is becoming an integral and powerful aspect of oral historiography that includes Indigenous oral histories and stories as important components of Australian history making. Given that Indigenous reclamation of history is essential to the process of decolonization, this paper poses the question of how we can safeguard a respected space for Indigenous oral histories so truth telling can take a rightful place in history making. The paper details examples of a non-Indigenous researcher working with and for Indigenous storytellers and in doing so, elaborates on an Indigenist approach to oral historiography. We provide examples from the Moola Bulla project, an Indigenist methodologically based study collaboratively designed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers around ethical research practices. The authors recommend that to ensure ethical practices and faithful re-storying, researchers engage in training with Indigenous people, thereby enabling the moral integrity and rigor of Indigenous history making in the field of oral history. This paper reiterates the fundamental prerogative for all those in the domain of history making in colonized contexts to work with Indigenous people in the rewriting of postcontact history informed by an understanding of Indigenist methodologies.