Challenging the Dream of One United Nation : Representations of Space in Australian Indigenous Literature

Abstract

In this thesis I aim to show that literature can provide counter-representations to the settler-colonial representation of space in Australia. My primary sources are Tara June Winch’s Swallow the Air, Melissa Lucashenko’s Mullumbimby and Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book. These three novels depict Australian space as constricting and oppressing for Indigenous peoples. My theoretical framework is based on postcolonial theory of space regarding the fact that Australia is a settler-colonial nation since the invaders never left and Indigenous people are still colonised.

I will show how these three novels challenge the dominant conceptions of the Australian nation as one happy nation where everyone is equal by re-conceptualising, obscuring and problematising Australian space. The main subjects of critique are colonial and settler-colonial conceptions of nation and nationalism, landscape in relation to mapping and journeys, and bodies. My study shows that Australian space continues to be strongly settler-colonial and evident colonial power structures still construct a specific united space. The three novels then invert this by depicting the harmful implications of these structures.