Women and constructing re-membering: identity formation in the Stolen Generations

Aboriginal HistoryStolen Generations

This thesis results from the question often posed why claim Aboriginality as you identity if you were taken away from your family as raised as if you were not Aboriginal. This is my attempt to answer this question for myself.

This thesis is the examination of stories of women taken from their families of origin as part of an assimilation process carried out in Australia. What is unique about the women’s stories in this thesis is the identification of a process of disturbance deliberately enacted upon them with the goal of shifting their identity away from what it would have been if they had been able to stay within their family of origin. It is the main premise in this thesis that there was a deliberate process of disturbing the body, minds or psyche as well as the lived culture of these women. Hence, through body, mind as well as cultural dysphoria, Stolen Generations are challenged to construct an identity.

Women of the Stolen Generations

• Australia wide

Student researcher - PhD

Biographical Narrative Interpretive Method, Indigenous centralising procedures and theorising.

Completed