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Margaret McDonell
PhD candidate, School of EMSAH, The University of Queensland
'Protocols, Political Correctness and Discomfort Zones: Indigenous Life Writing and Non-Indigenous editing'
A book is the end result of a complex industrial process; both a cultural item and an item of commerce it is a site of tension between its cultural and economic manifestations. It is also a product of the time and the particular milieu in which the manuscript was created and the book itself was manufactured (because a manuscript in not a book, it is merely the raw material for the process that produces books). Not only is the book itself a product of time and place, so too are its readership and the way it is read and critiqued. Between the writer and the reader the manuscript passes through a number of hands and processes: the most important of these (because of the power involved) is the editor. This nexus between editor and writer is where the manuscript is manipulated into a book: it is developed, changed, appropriated and/or censored.
In contemporary Australia it is almost always the case that a non-Indigenous editor will work on an Indigenous writer's manuscript, so the cross-cultural nature of the relationship must be addressed in the editorial process. In any editorial relationship issues of class, gender, age and educational background are involved in a multitude of possible configurations. When the writer-editor nexus is cross-cultural the issue of race is added so that the potential for misunderstanding, appropriation, paternalism or censorship is magnified a hundred-fold. The different subject positions of writer and editor can tilt the power balance so that a writer from a traditionally marginalised group may be further disempowered.
Part of the context within which the editing of Indigenous life writing takes place in Australia today is the climate generated by attitudes to the Stolen Generation: many of these life writings directly address the removal of children and the multiple exploitation of the adults they became. All of them address the impact of paternalistic government practices and the effects of entrenched racism. A non-Indigenous editor may well represent yet another manifestation of this oppression, and the editor herself may see how the privilege conferred by whiteness implicates her in that oppression. That many collaborations gain the white collaborator not only financial reward in terms of salary but academic kudos, improved promotional prospects, and access to grants can increase her sense of discomfort.
The collaborator concerned about her involvement in writing about, or working with the writing of, Indigenous people can end up writing about herself, the process or the relationship (see, for example, Memmott and Horsman in Labumore's An Aboriginal Mother Tells of the Old and The New, Muecke in Paddy Roe's Gularabulu, Ravenscroft's article 'Strange and Sanguine Relations' in Meridian 16(2), and Somerville's 'Life (Hi)Story writing' in Hecate 17(1), amongst others). Although there is a real danger that this meta-writing may become an end in itself, it can reflect on and illuminate the process, offering guidance to future editors. However, while it is important to unmask the process of collaboration and editing, the 'editing-in' of the collaborator as an actor in the writer's story is not satisfactory, nor is it a step towards greater autonomy and respect for Indigenous writer, displaying as it does the collaborator's personal angst rather than the writer's purpose.
One way forward is via protocols: they offer a formalised way of dealing with many of the issues that arise during cross-cultural editing. There are several reasons for setting up and following protocols - moral: showing respect for another culture and giving every author an equal opportunity to express themselves; legal: because copyright and Intellectual Property laws are inadequate in protecting Indigenous creativity due to radically different attitudes to ownership and/or custodianship; practical: if writers outside the mainstream are prevented from speaking in the voice and genre they choose, then writers within the mainstream who wish to transgress boundaries will also be restrained; professional: the editor's responsibility to accord each writer the opportunity to achieve the potential of, and develop, their work; historical: much history of Indigenous people has not been acknowledged, recorded or given the status of history written by the dominant culture, and that imbalance needs to be redressed; educative: as readers are influenced by the way in which characters and situations are described and portrayed, more thoughtful representations of Indigenous people and the issues that influence their lives will serve as an antidote to less informed writing; accuracy and truthfulness: much that is and has been written about Indigenous people is simply wrong, and more accurate renderings of history need to be recorded and circulated.
But protocols are a process, not an end in themselves; they can only ever be guidelines because every editorial relationship is different. Editing itself is a process of ongoing negotiation where there are no firm rules. The setting up and maintenance of protocols are important but ongoing, a process of continuous negotiation. There is no comforting 'right way' for an editor or collaborator, but there are many discomfort zones through which they must work.
Bio: Margaret McDonell is a freelance editor and indexer. Her interest in the issues surrounding her editing of Indigenous life writing led her to undertake a Master of Philosophy at Griffith University (later transferring to the School of English, Media Studies and Art History, University of Queensland). Her thesis, working title 'Cross-Cultural Considerations: the Editing of Indigenous Women's Life Writing by Non-Indigenous Editors', considers the impact of cultural difference on editorial practice in Australia at the end of the twentieth century. Her research seeks a working space in the nexus between practice and theory: as a working editor the balancing of responsibilities to both writer and employing publisher are an every-day issue. She has presented papers on aspects of her research at various conferences, and has published two articles, the first in conjunction with her supervisor, Gillian Whitlock: 'Editing Ruthie: The Work in Theory and in Practice' (JAS No. 64, 2000, pp. 135-141), and the second: 'The Colour of Copyright', in M/C Reviews (M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.3 (2002). <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/copyright.html>).
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