AustLit

Balayi is a Nyungar word meaning Lookout or Beware! After more than 200 years of colonisation, the theft of land and the imposition of an alien dominant culture, the resistance of the Indigenous peoples can still be heard in the call to lookout, beware. We aim to hear the voices of Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers and their experiences of culture and law, and to be (a)ware of the harms imposed on Indigenous peoples through continuing practices of colonialism. Balayi challenges its readers and contributors to be alert to injustice in the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and offers an invitation to speak about this injustice. It is only recently that the voices of Indigenous peoples have been publicly heard at all by non-Indigenous peoples. Conversely, Indigenous peoples have been compelled to listen and pay heed to non-Indigenous peoples, and even to speak in non-Indigenous languages. Histories of Australia have excluded the rich and diverse cultural experiences of Indigenous peoples and played down the degree of injustice under which they have suffered since first European settlement. Indigenous peoples still labour under the myth of their physical extinction and the extinction of their traditional laws and customs. In issues of rights to land, sovereignty, reconciliation, and identity, Indigenous voices have too often been silenced, or when spoken, dismissed or trivialised. Balayi has a commitment to seeking out and valuing these voices. (From the journal's webpage at http://www.jumbunna.uts.edu.au/journals/balayi.html)