An Exception to European Epistemological Rule: The Representation of Indigeneity in the Works of Mudrooroo and Alan Duff

Starting from Edward Said’s The World, the Text and the Critic, in which he theorizes the cultural movements of filiation and affiliation, this article questions the epistemological links Alan Duff’s and Mudrooroo’s novels weave with European constructs of the Indigenous subject. This theoretical framework can be helpful in understanding the relations between the individual and the collective, mostly concerning their drive toward self-definition and emancipation

Indigeneity as prism and knowledge : contemporary literature, museology and visual arts in the Pacific region

Le but de cette étude est de démontrer que dans le monde « globalisé » tel qu’il l’est aujourd’hui, le développement des savoirs et des écritures indigènes dans la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle a favorisé l’émergence d’une construction cognitive plus tant indigène qu’exogène non-ethnocentrée. Il convient davantage de rechercher une nouvelle approche fondée sur les études littéraires pour analyser ce corpus de récits d’exploration déjà largement étudié par les historiens. Cette nouvelle direction a pour but de faire émerger un prisme qui puisse faire dialoguer toutes ces disciplines et ces notions : il se trouve que c’est la textualité qui va permettre la mise en relation de ces thématiques de façon critique. En effet, dans les récits d’explorateurs, c’est le point de non-subjectivation et d’objectivation du monde qui a fait que l’Indigène y a été construit comme objet par cette textualité. Ainsi, faire le diagnostic de cet accès « marqué » à la subjectivation amène à en retracer la généalogie dans les œuvres littéraires et artistiques ‒ toutes en tant que « narratives » ‒ mais aussi les textes fondateurs afférents à ces contacts coloniaux. Le savoir sur l’Indigène construit à cette époque laisse entrevoir des savoir de l’Indigène, ou plutôt des savoirs créés à partir de la reconsidération de l’Indigénéité, non plus comme caractéristique intrinsèque de l’Indigène, mais comme lieu privilégié de la construction de sa subjectivité et de son identité. L’Indigénéité conçue désormais comme prisme et repensée par le biais de la textualité va servir à mettre en lumière les nouvelles relations qui se tissent au gré de mouvements culturels, qui sont eux-mêmes redéfinis selon leur endogénéité et exogénéité.The aim of this study is to demonstrate that in our current, globalised world, the development of indigenous knowledges and writings in the second half of the twentieth century prompted the emergence of a cognitive construction that was not so much indigenous as exogenous and non-ethnocentric. A new literary approach is therefore necessary to analyse this collection of exploration narratives, previously examined by historians. The goal of this new approach is to identify a prism or paradigm which will bring these disciplines and concepts into dialogue: it is textuality which will connect all of these themes, allowing for their critical analysis. In exploration narratives, it is the point of non-subjectification and objectification of the world which ensures that the Native is constructed as an object by this textuality. Thus, carrying out a diagnosis of this distinct access to subjectification impels one to retrace the genealogy of this phenomenon in literary and artistic works, which are analysed here as “narratives,” as are the founding texts related to these colonial contacts. The knowledge over the Native constructed at this time allows us to discern the knowledges of the Native, or rather the knowledges created through the reassessment of indigeneity, which is no longer seen as inherent characteristics of the Native, but rather as a privileged location for the construction of her/his subjectivity and identity. Indigeneity, henceforth understood as a prism, re-examined through textuality, will in turn bring to light the new relationships being woven as a result of cultural movements, which are themselves redefined according to their endo- or exogeneity

Des carnets de G. A. Robinson aux romans de Mudrooroo : la figure de l’indigène en marge de l’Histoire australienne

In the first half of the 19th century, George Augustus Robinson’s journals, which he had written after being officially appointed Protector of the Aborigines, show the growing interest in Indigenous populations, from the very first voyages of discovery to the beginning of the 18th century. Those first accounts were informed by Victorian attitudes and contributed to forging the stereotypes which can be found either in novels by early Australian (i.e. white) writers or, later, in those by Aboriginal writers. Wavering between the “noble savage,” who may benefit from education, and the “ignoble savage,” violent and dangerous, those stereotypes feed on these attitudes and fuel them with new anecdotes and experiences. This article explores how Aboriginal writer Mudrooroo engages with the relation between fiction and History in his novels, which are set at the time of the first contacts between settlers and Aborigines, Doctor Wooreddy’s Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World (1983) and the Master of the Ghost Dreaming tetralogy (1991). Indeed, this rewriting of historical events starts either a conversation or a confrontation with the depositaries of the first historical accounts about those encounters between whites and Aborigines—that is to say the whites themselves