'This work contextualises contemporary academic discourses on Aboriginal subjectivity in the writing of a television series; written as creative practice that identifies the way we continue to debate the nature of Aboriginal consciousness. The work posits autobiographical ethnicity as an analytical position from which the screenwriter writes, in that it separates itself from current Indigenous studies. This approach reveals a parallel tradition of intellectual and creative development beyond that which is connected to an act of colonisation. Thus there are possibilities for contributing to the development of new theoretical and conceptual frameworks that move away from historical essentialist constructs of cultural identity that position
‘race’ in a binary based upon exclusivity and colonisation. The script explores the tensions created through grappling with this oppressive playing out of ‘race’ as it is constructed through contemporary inter-family relationships. Only by decoupling
Aboriginality from historically constructed essentialist fantasies can we acknowledge the richness of diversity within Aboriginal families in a rapidly emerging Aboriginal First Nation screenwriting culture. ' (Author's abstract)
