Greater Western Sydney is unceded Aboriginal land, Country reciprocally caring and cared for by Darug, Dharawal and Gundungurra Peoples over tens of thousands of years.1 British colonisation of the Australian continent sought to disrupt the intra-acting and reciprocal care human and more-than-human worlds provided each other and to replace it with human-centred extractive attitudes and practices. The driver of this imperial worldview is a still-enduring terra nullius attitude, which presumes that worlds or cultures or stories don’t exist in Greater Western Sydney (cf. Ford and Clemens).2 Greater Western Sydney is, of course, full of worlds and cultures and stories: the enduring and preceding sovereignty of Aboriginal Nations, a beautiful and diverse Country, described by Western sciences as Cumberland Plain woodland, a natural world home for myriad non-human beings (French et al. 120–29) Greater Western Sydney is currently home for more than 2.5 million people, with significant further population increase anticipated.…
Resisting Productionist Timescapes by Making Better Futures in the Present: Care for Country in Western Sydney Literatures
Abstract
Greater Western Sydney is unceded Aboriginal land, Country reciprocally caring and cared for by Darug, Dharawal and Gundungurra Peoples over tens of thousands of years. The region is currently home for more than 2.5 million people, with significant further population increase anticipated, facilitated by administrative documents such as the Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan. This pervasive desire for ongoing sprawling development is supported by ‘antiecological’ thinking creating ‘productionist timescapes’. This desire conflicts with the fact that Greater Western Sydney is a diverse place that is cared for by and cares for many: a beautiful and diverse Country, described by Western sciences as Cumberland Plain woodland, a natural world home for myriad non-human beings. This article reads a variety of contemporary literary texts, considering their differing attitudes to and representation of Care for Country. It identifies a continuum of placemaking practices on unceded Land, from the proprietorial, through varying visions for intercultural futures, to those committed to #landback. A commitment to intercultural practices of Care for Country is discernible, creating more just and equitable futures in the present. This article traces Western Sydney literature’s thinking on the entanglement and intra-action of human and more-than-human worlds. It concludes by observing this intra-action in practice.
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Published 25 May 2024 in Volume 39 No. 1. Subjects: Built environment - Literary portrayal, Environmental conservation, Place & identity, Evelyn Araluen, Indigenous Knowledges, Care for Country.
Cite as: Gourley, James. ‘Resisting Productionist Timescapes by Making Better Futures in the Present: Care for Country in Western Sydney Literatures.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 39, no. 1, 2024, doi: 10.20314/als.584f29ecce.
- James Gourley — James Gourley is a Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts and the Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney University.Full details →