Introduction

Too often, Australia's mainstream discourse continues to be written and crafted to endorse and valorise the actions of an often-violent past, whilst disregarding the effects of the brutal systems of colonisation upon Indigenous Australian peoples. The authors acknowledge the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities across Australia and use the term ‘Indigenous Australian’ in this chapter to refer to the First Peoples of Australia. Various forms of trauma continue to impact upon many Indigenous Australian people, families and communities, contributing to ongoing discrimination and disadvantage (Atkinson, 2002). Cultural trauma is where a collective group is affected by a horrendous event that irrevocably marks memory and changes identity forever (Alexander, 2004). It is impossible to be an Indigenous Australian today and not be connected in some way to individual and collective experiences of invasion and colonisation.

As is so often the case, recordkeeping and archiving play a crucial role in the progression of colonial and oppressive regimes. Australia's government and collecting archival institutions manage this legacy, evidencing colonisation, not just in their archival holdings, but also in how these holdings are appraised, described, managed and made accessible.

As Indigenous Australians in the second half of the 20th century have sought access to records in institutional archives that document their lives, they have re-confronted not just the trauma in the records, but in the edifices and apparatuses around them. Moreover, when Indigenous peoples interact with archival materials that tell stories through a colonial lens, the trauma is not just an individualised one: it has collective impact in the here and now on both people and on Country. The term Country encapsulates deep and timeless cultural connections to land, environment and community and the depth and breadth of its meaning is hard to define for Western audiences. ‘In Aboriginal English, a person's land, sea, sky, rivers, sites, seasons, plants and animals; place of heritage, belonging and spirituality; is called ‘Country’ (https://australianmuseum.net.au/glossary-indigenous-australia-terms).

Faced with the cultural genocide of colonisation, Indigenous Australians have utilised the strength and resilience of their oral traditions and other practices to retain connections to family, community and Country.