Indigenous Identity as Country: The “Ing” within Connecting, Caring, and Belonging
Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, NSW 2109, Australia
Genealogy 2021, 5(2), 48; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy5020048
Received: 10 March 2021
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Revised: 21 April 2021
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Accepted: 28 April 2021
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Published: 10 May 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indigenous Identity and Community)
Within the Australian Indigenous community, it is often said that Aboriginality is a verb. It is a “doing” word, not a noun. As such, identifying actively is at the heart of being Australian Aboriginal. Doing identification, rather than owning a label of identification, is critical to understanding the relationality that underpins Indigenous identity. It is the ‘Ing’ of relationality which acts as an interconnected web of presences (including people), places, and practices. When this web is ancestral, it marks our belonging. For Dharug, this is our “Country”, our Dharug Ngurra. It is physical and metaphysical. It is also known as most of the Sydney basin, Australia. The agency that connects us, strengthens our caring, and generates our belonging helps us co-become as a Country. This paper engages the author’s “Ing” as Ngurra through her connections to three sites, their presences, places and practices, that activate her belonging to/with the Dharug community: Brown’s Waterhole, Blacktown Native Institution, and Yallomundee. Using undergraduate teaching experiences and a current post-doctoral research project for specific context, questions around the ‘Ing’ of being Indigenous as Country-in-the-city are raised, while the significance of changing relationships for custodial caring in a climate challenging reality are discussed.
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Keywords:
Dharug; Australian Aboriginal; Indigenous; Country; identity
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MDPI and ACS Style
Rey, J.A. Indigenous Identity as Country: The “Ing” within Connecting, Caring, and Belonging. Genealogy 2021, 5, 48. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy5020048
AMA Style
Rey JA. Indigenous Identity as Country: The “Ing” within Connecting, Caring, and Belonging. Genealogy. 2021; 5(2):48. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy5020048
Chicago/Turabian StyleRey, Jo A. 2021. "Indigenous Identity as Country: The “Ing” within Connecting, Caring, and Belonging" Genealogy 5, no. 2: 48. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy5020048
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