Re-storying place, culture and belonging: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people making space and creating futures in Narrm
This PhD study examines how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in Narrm (Melbourne) practise and connect to their Indigeneity, as they come into relation with place, community, and their engagement with institutional regimes.
What is already known?
Constructs of Indigeneity have been the locus of settler colonial interest and control since colonisation in Australia. Through historical policies of displacement, and contemporary normative processes that question the authenticity and belonging of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, urban places continue to be sites of erasure and non-belonging.
Research shows that culture, belonging, identity and self-determining futures are protective factors for the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.
Internationally, a growing body of literature investigates experiences of First Nations young people in urban places, but in Australia this is lacking.
What this study adds
Through collaborative relationships across four partnering research sites, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people were engaged in discussions about Indigeneity, belonging and understanding place, in the context of living in an urban place.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in Narrm described how they engage in processes of re-storying place, cultural resurgence and presenting as assertions of belonging through this research.
This thesis shows the ways that participants are engaging and practising their identities in Narrm, enacting their responsibilities and navigating paths for desire-based futures.
This work resists deficit discourse and the problematisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people. It considers how young people can be engaged in discussions about their desires for the future.
What’s next?
This thesis has recently been submitted and is awaiting examination. In the future a community summary will be created in order to share the findings.
