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Sonja Kurtzer
Gender Studies, University of Adelaide
'Identity, Place and Belonging in Kim Mahood's Craft for a Dry Lake'
The publication of Sally Morgan's My Place in 1987 ignited a debate surrounding the legitimacy of her identity as an Aboriginal subject. Crucial to this debate were hegemonic notions of what constituted an authentic Aboriginal identity as well as touching on ideas of place and belonging. These debates have been described as “rancorous, angry, passionate and bitter” (1998, 3). Since this time the fields of cultural and feminist studies (amongst others) have developed new theories regarding these issues of identity, place and belonging. These ideas such as theories of hybridity and the field of study known as whiteness studies seek to deal with these issues in situations where two or more cultural/racial groups have been forced to live together alongside each other. Australian writers such as Peter Read, for example, are also seeking to understand how one becomes tied to a particular place and how concepts of belonging are being expressed. These ideas connect with and are sometimes confronted by on-going claims for indigenous rights which insist that the position of indigenous subjects is unique from that of settler, migrant or diasporic groups. This paper will explore some of these ideas of identity, place and belonging in relation to Kim Mahood's Memoir, Craft for a Dry Lake. I will argue that Mahood seeks to construct a story which acknowledges her place as an outsider in relation to Indigenous Australia while simultaneously insisting that she also feels a sense of belonging. The ambiguities of this sense of belonging will be explored in this paper.
Bio: Sonja is an Indigenous woman of Kokatha/Mirning heritage from the Far West Coast of SA. She is a postgraduate student undertaking part-time study in Gender Studies at Adelaide University. She is also a mother to four children.