Principal speaker
Tonia Chalk
This seminar explores the stories of eleven Aboriginal women and girls who died in suspicious circumstances in Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through the investigation into their deaths, the entangled narratives of property owners, Justices of the Peace, police constables, doctors, and Aboriginal family members, reveal how the stories of these women and girls are buried deep within the coronial structures and colonial discourses of the inquest file.
These eleven inquest files contain marginal notes, words crossed out, and phrases blacked out, highlighting some of the inconsistencies, fears, flaws, and mistakes of the settler colonial in the practice of investigating a suspicious death. This is reflected in terms of what was printed, what could not be seen, who was allowed to speak, and who was spoken for. By brushing the archival record against the grain this presentation aims to examine Aboriginal female agency in this colonial context beyond the "gin', "half caste', or domestic service labels, as evidenced in the language of the inquest file.
Through exploring the words and phrases spoken by the Aboriginal woman or girl before death, the archival record provides a discursive space for the deceased where Aboriginal resistance is present - rupturing and dismantling from within - to unsettle the settler state.