The Right to Dream

The Right to Dream By Romaine Moreton The Right to Dream explores the impact of the English language upon the Indigenous body affected through colonization, offering an analysis of Aboriginality as a social and political construct resulting in the imposition of an inauthentic subjective experience on sovereign Indigenous peoples, investigating its temporal and biological consequence. ii University of Western Sydney 2006 iii THIS WORK IS DEDICATED TO The Ancestors before: after In the everywhen iv Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge all of those folk who have thwarted the isolation of thesis writing and turned it into a community affair. I would like to first thank my family and elders, who accepted with grace my absence for the duration of this work. I would like to acknowledge the constant support of my sister Lahrohn. I have incredible gratitude for my friends who at various times have shown me the most incredible generosity and love. My thanks go to Lou Glover, Sue Maslin, Charlotte Seymour, Erica Glynn, Suzanne Stott, Jen Skatterbol, Amanda James, Caterina Di Girolamo, Fiona Nicholls, Sandi Peel, Sharon Chalmers, Tanja Dreher, Tess and Ruben Allas, Jason De Sontalo, Mary Shalala, Zac, Tjilka, Bella and Mardi Gras. I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Martin Mulligan, this has been an incredible project, is your being that facilitated this project. To all of you, I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. Writing may be a lonely outpost, but you turned it into a wonderful village. Cover Page Caterina Di Girolamo: photo Jason Polycarpou: Graphic Design v Statement of Authentication The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original expect as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. …………………………………………… (Signature) vi Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................ix Chapter 1...................................................................................................................................4 Dream a new dream .................................................................................................................4 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................4 Aboriginal Phenomenology.....................................................................................................7 The Power of Language ..............................................................................................................................12 Language and the post modern agenda..................................................................................................22 The conundrum of phenomenology.......................................................................................................32 Phenomenology on the way to spirituality................................................................................38 Indigenous spirituality............................................................................................................................42 Language as a place of struggle .............................................................................................................44 The empire writes back: recovering the body.......................................................................................47 Autoethnographic writing ......................................................................................................................53 Changing vocabulary ..................................................................................................................59 Moving beyond.............................................................................................................................64 Inhabiting a body.........................................................................................................................66 Chapter Breakdown..................................................................................................................................71 Chapter 2.................................................................................................................................75 Writing as deferred happiness...............................................................................................75 The curious question of writing .............................................................................................................75 Introducing history .................................................................................................................................89 The projected deferral of happiness.......................................................................................................93 Shifting temporalities ...........................................................................................................................102 Chapter 3...............................................................................................................................109 Immortality in the stars........................................................................................................109 The author and the authored.................................................................................................................109 Imperialism and the taking into Possession of Language ...................................................................127 Writing space..............................................................................................................................136 Divisions by two...................................................................................................................................146 Composition and decomposition..............................................................................................151 Chapter 4...............................................................................................................................164 A sense of timelessness.........................................................................................................164 Language before time...........................................................................................................................164 A world of opposites ............................................................................................................................179 The land has agency .............................................................................................................................188 Dance of the temporal and the real ......................................................................................................198 Chapter 5...............................................................................................................................214 Life is a story.........................................................................................................................214 If this is your land where are your stories?..........................................................................................214 The Under-Story...................................................................................................................................219 Earth writing: the original Negation ....................................................................................................221 Mapping an inhabitable world .............................................................................................................229 Representing intention..........................................................................................................................238 Chapter 6...............................................................................................................................244 The death of multiplicity ......................................................................................................244 Imposing one language.........................................................................................................................244 vii The absence of language ......................................................................................................................248 Imposing the author function ...............................................................................................................252 Authorship and death ...........................................................................................................................260 Chapter 7...............................................................................................................................268 The world is a song...............................................................................................................268 Songs of the infinite .............................................................................................................................268 Phenomenology – the science of sitting and listening............................................................272 Superstring theory – the universe is a song .........................................................................................278 The song: a kind of time travel.................................................................................................280

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