ABSTRACT
This chapter examines two life writing texts that detail the experience of uncovering and/or reconnecting to Aboriginal family history. Both written in collaboration with older relatives, Sally Morgan’s My Place (1988) and Kim Scott and Hazel Brown’s Kayang & Me (2005) offer unique insights into how knowledge is both withheld and transmitted between generations. In this chapter we will discuss the rich and sometimes conflicting sources from which family stories are drawn, particularly the tension between oral histories and public archives. The means by which the Stolen Generations and their descendants must piece together fractured histories from government records, which are often traumatic to read, reveals the extent to which the identity and experience of the family is entwined with the nation and its social policies over time. We examine how collaboratively written intergenerational family histories offer testimonies of both trauma and resilience.
