As we enter this year’s NAIDOC Week, Trinity student Serena Barton of Yadighana, Wuthathi and Gurindji peoples reflects on this year’s theme of ‘heal country’, and its implications for the Trinity community.
NAIDOC stands for the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee. The formation of this committee can be traced back to multiple Aboriginal groups in the 1920s who sought to increase awareness of the status and treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week follows from these effects and, as such, is celebrated yearly in July with a theme that draws attention to and educates around an issue or topic.
NAIDOC Week’s 2021 theme is ‘heal country’. The theme acts as a call to action for stronger measures to recognise, protect and maintain our lands, waters and sacred sites, as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and heritage.
Heal country points to the intrinsic link between Country and Indigenous identities, emphasising the importance of Indigenous knowledge in mitigating climate issues. It also allows for greater understanding of place and the importance of the country we stand, live and work upon and the impermanence of life on changing lands.
Therefore, the theme of healing country promotes a shift towards understanding place and respecting our locations.
For the broader Trinity community, we are situated on the lands of the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nations, and therefore have a responsibility to their lands. Therefore, we must start to understand how we contributed to the degradation and destruction of land, how we have benefited through the devastation of the natural world, and how we can start to actively take part in healing country.
As peoples who have had to watch parts of our world collapse early on through the process of colonisation, Indigenous epistemologies must be prioritised and consolidated in order to meaningfully interact with and respect the country.
Indigenous communities locally and nationally face different challenges in their pursuits to heal country, but colonial damage to identity, spirituality in customs and law, and its ecological impact means that non-Indigenous peoples cannot take the back seat in the quest to fight for enacting climate policies or gaining land rights.
By Serena Barton
