ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights how state policy discourses have positioned Aboriginal Australian mothers as ‘others’ who are ‘unfit’, dysfunctional and lacking in ability to mother. These imaginings of Aboriginal motherhood have been universalising, rendering invisible the complexities of Aboriginal mothering. This chapter draws on an ethnographic and participatory research project with Aboriginal mothers. It challenges how Aboriginal mothers and their practices have been socially constructed and responded to by the state, by offer alternative accounts of mothering beyond white Western hegemonic understandings. It highlights Aboriginal mother’s survival, relational mothering, and the complexities of mothering in Aboriginal Australian contexts. To challenge deficit notions of Aboriginal mothering and make visible the privileging of white hegemonic knowledges, we argue the importance of centring Aboriginal women’s diverse narratives and experiences of mothering.
