AustLit

'This essay looks at historical, ethical and epistemological counter-discourses in Doris Pilkington's Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence and seeks to establish its ideological implications and political ramifications. This essay's premise is that Aboriginal life-narratives function on two levels, an informative and an affective one. To read these texts as alternative (hi)stories that counter or complement the dominant view on Australian history requires a reading position that is sensitive to their cultural particularities. At the same time, the issue of narrativity in Monika Fludernik's sense, i.e. the representation of experientiality, which distinguishes them from historiographic accounts of the past, needs to be addressed to explain the emotional responses they evoke. This essay therefore argues that a ‘bottom-up’ approach is best suited to capture this dual nature because it allows for an analysis of the ways in which readers are encouraged to identify with the Aboriginal perspective offered by these texts. Through close reading, this essay furthermore seeks to demonstrate how the narrative attempts to expose the ideological underpinnings of white Australian historiography and in particular the hypocrisy of governmental assimilationist policies of the twentieth century. These ideological implications are inextricably linked to the political ramifications Aboriginal life-narratives can have as important interventions, not only in writings about the past, but indirectly also in contemporary politics.' (Publication abstract)