Telling and hearing: learning from Macassan-Yoln̦u stories of connecting

This thesis is about stories that connect Macassan people from the IndonesianIsland of Sulawesi, and YoIqu, Indigenous Australians from the north coast ofAustralia. These stories are important because they unsettle how Australiansunderstand their nation's histories and geographies, challenging manycommonly held assumptions. Yet many Australians, if they hear these stonesat all, often hear them filtered through a very limited number of academicdiscourses that rely on tangible objects and data, based on particularapproaches to research and seeing the world. This thesis starts by exploring the ways in which these discourses addressthese stories of connecting in museums and popular geographical journals. Itthen offers an alternative approach to telling, hearing and responding toMacassan-Yolrju stories by listening to Yolt]u elders in north-east ArnhemLand. The thesis offers not simply a framework for engaging with these Yolt]ustories of contact with and connection to Macassan people, nor simply acritique of a dominant discourse that reduces the complex histories andgeographies of connection to a rather singular 'Macassan contact', butcontributes to a more reflexive and pluralist perspective on the ways in whichknowledge is both created and shared. Finally, the thesis considers how thesediffering ways of telling and hearing Macassan-Yolqu stories might open up aspace for engaging with a multiplicity of knowledges, challenging learners andeducators to change the ways in which they tell, hear, teach and learn from allstories.