First Nations Peace Poetics

Despite the unsettling advancement of weapons technology in the 21^st century, storytelling remains one of the most powerful technologies for promoting conflict resolution and peace. This lecture explores the power and potential of First Nations poetry in Australia to contribute to conflict resolution by healing unreconciled relationships in the present and unreconciled narratives of the past as well as imagining futures of peace. It reconceptualises First Nations poets as peacemakers and their poetry as practices of peacemaking. In the aftermath of the failed 2023 referendum for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the silence about alternative roadmaps to peace, this lecture highlights First Nations poetry as an increasingly significant site for peacemaking which amplifies First Nations calls for peace.

Dr Elfie Shiosaki is a Noongar and Yawuru academic and award-winning storyteller. Her research and teaching explore Indigenous people’s desires for rights and self-determination. She is currently the Director of the Centre for Indigenous Policy Research at the Australian National University. She is the author of Refugia (Magabala Books, 2024) and Homecoming (Magabala Books, 2021) and co-editor of maar bidi: next generation black writing (Magabala Books, 2020). She was the inaugural Editor of First Nations Writing at Westerly from 2017 to 2021.