Kathryn Trees

This thesis demonstrates how theory and praxis may be integrated within a postcolonial, or more specifically, anticolonial frame. It argues for the necessity of telling, listening and responding to personal narratives as a catalyst for understanding the construction of identities and their relationship to place. This is achieved through a theorisation of narrative and a critique of postcolonialism. Three 'sites' of contestation are visited to provide this critique: the Patterns of Life: The Story of the Aboriginal People of Western Australia exhibition at the Perth Museum; a comparison of Western Australian legislation that governed the lives of Aboriginal people from 1848 to the present and, the life story of Alice Nannup; and, an analysis of the Australian Institute Judicial Association's Aboriginal Culture: Law and Change seminar for magistrates. Most importantly, this work foregrounds strategies for negotiating a just basis for coexistence between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.