Belongingness and Civil Society

My Identity and/or Belongingness is founded on my connections with a personal skin totem and spiritual totems (all are symbolic of land, water, sky) in being a Gubbi-Gubbi, Wakka-Wakka, Koa, and Gugu Yalanji Australian woman. These totemic representations of skin (family) and spirit merge in documenting our existence in our oral histories and connectedness to Country. These are representations of our living entities, expression in our ceremonies, religious and spiritual practices. Therefore, my Dreaming examines and promotes this perspective within a philosophical framework of an Epistemology of Belongingness in Aboriginality, that is, being a member of the First Nations of Australia, in the context of a Genre in art and a Pedagogy in education. For in living our Dreaming, we maintain the continuity of our eternal existence, which is the essence of our continual Dreaming. The concept of a First Nations’ ‘civil society’ pre-dates colonisation, of a civilisation which validates evidence of the existence of such a society, even after the impact that invasion, occupation, and possession had on this form of governance. Therefore, the vexed question of citizenship makes sense in querying: Why would First Nation people want to ‘belong’ in a civil society that created a new Australian civil society in which First Nations were considered non-entities and/or invisible? The reality is rather that we did, and indeed have always wanted to be, regardless of our lot in life…Australian Citizens!