Cultural Identity

  • Future proof Wayilwan cultural heritage revival

  • Respect the cultural authority of the Wayilwan people

  • Redress cultural equity issues caused by systemic race-based policy and practice

  • Grow the self-determination and empowerment of Aboriginal youth and community, individually and collectively

  • Grow culturally safe spaces for Aboriginal youth and community

  • Create transformative change locally, regionally and nationally

  • Build the capacity for community to produce local global change makers’ from amongst our youth

Objectives:

  • Use artistic creativity to grow meaningful engagement with Wayilwan cultural heritage

  • Make provision for community memory-making

  • Position Wayilwan Elders and knowledge holders as the predominant decision makers at the management level of the organisation

  • Use performance and literary genres contextually to harness powerful narratives and experiences for effective audibility

  • Provide bespoke services to meet the cultural heritage needs of our youth for vocational advantage

  • Harness strategic connections to community, Country and culture to provide an authentic voice

  • Grow Aboriginal youth and community experiences and opportunities through music, dance, song, art, story-telling, truth-telling and Wayilwan language

  • Facilitate local Aboriginal community ownership and self-determination of intellectual property through meaningful dialogue, face to face interaction and effective communication

  • Engage in critical discourse analysis from a First Peoples world view

  • Provide opportunity for collaborative knowledge sharing on Country through yarn-ups

  • Develop and maintain strategic and collaborative partnerships

Cultural awareness note

Warraan Widji Arts defines  Cultural Heritage within the context of a shared memory and a shared journey.

 

The NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1983) outlines the responsibility and statutory role of the Warren Local Aboriginal Land Council (WLALC) to protect culture and heritage of Aboriginal persons in the Warren Shire Council area. As a local Aboriginal organisation, Warren Performing Arts and Language Place Inc. aligns with the strategic directions and vision of WLALC.

 

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) In the context of Warraan Widji Arts’ vision, CDA allows us to recognise how language and text is used to reinforce or deconstruct power imbalances in society as it has been referred to in Iyengar’s (2014) research.  

 

Systemic Race Based Policy and Practice. Inherent in societies impacted by colonialism is systemic racism. Systems, structures and institutions are inherently racist because of the origins in which they were established. This statement is supported by research papers and informed by Societal Provenance Theory (Nesmith, 2002, as cited in Gibbons, 2019). Examples are governing bodies, educational institutions, museums, galleries, libraries, and archival institutions. These institutions are primarily controlled and owned by non-Aboriginal people and, as such, do not deliver outcomes of self-determination and empowerment of Aboriginal communities (NB There are examples where non-Aboriginal institutions have facilitated Aboriginal self-determination depending on the supports provided and reasonable adjustments made within the organisation).  

Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism (as opposed to franchise colonialism) which aims to eliminate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, either by elimination or assimilation (Iyengar, 2014, as cited in Hall, 2018). Settler colonialism in Australia has created systemic and perpetual barriers to the empowerment of Aboriginal peoples.

References

Gibbons, L. (2019). Memory-making: a review of the Community Heritage Grant Program 1994-2018. Archives and Manuscripts, 47(2), 204-229. https://doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2019.1584860

Hall, L. (2018). ‘Not by looking at us level’: Systemic barriers faced by Aboriginal teachers in remote communities in Central Australia. Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, 5(1),74-101. https://eprints.batchelor.edu.au/id/eprint/585/

Iyengar, M. (2014). Not mere abstractions: Language policies and language ideologies in U.S settler colonialism. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society, 3(2), 33-59.  

Nesmith, T. (2006). The concept of societal provenance and records of nineteenth century Aboriginal-European relations in Western Canada: implications for archival theory and practice. American Archivist, 6(3-4), 351-360.