Holding Yawulyu

Mapping inter-cultural relationships as they are played out in a remote Aboriginal settlement in Western Australia's Great Sandy Desert, this book challenges White Australians to reconsider their relationship with indigenous peoples. Unpacking white cultural practices, it explores the extraordinary difficulties which indigenous women face when they attempt to maintain and pass their cultural knowledge, customs, and skills on to their children and youth. From 1999 to 2001, Zohl de Ishtar lived and worked intimately with a group of thirteen women elders to establish a vibrant intergenerational cultural knowledge transmission program. Through this profound experience Zohl identifies 'Living Culture', the cultural energy which is created when individuals live their culture at its fullest expression enabling them to transform their worlds even when to do so seems impossible. Her profound radical feminist analysis of the socio-cultural context surrounding their indigenous women's initial challenges White attitudes and behaviours and offers a deeper comprehension to those who aspire to be involved in collaborative projects with indigenous peoples. This is a lyrical and passionate book.