agencies & resistance

Question 1

Pitfalls of studying Indig lit

Answer 1

idealization & miserabilization. Both of these deprive Indig
(chs/writers/communities) of agency and constitute one more manifestation of coloniality of power.

C is a novel which perhaps more than anything foregrounds multiple agencies for Indigenous chs, w/out glossing over evident forms of systemic oppression they experience on daily basis. As we have said many times already, C is a novel of celebration & resistance. Agency understood here as “capacity to act or exert power”/“means of exerting power or influence” (Dict).

Question 2

Carpentaria celebrates multiple agencies for Indigenous chs, w/out glossing over evident forms of systemic oppression they experience on daily basis. Agency understood here

Answer 2

as “capacity to act or exert power”/“means of exerting power or influence” (Dict).

Question 3

Resistance here understood as

Answer 3

“act or power of resisting, opposing, or withstanding” & also as
“opposition offered by one thing, force, to another”.

Question 4

Resistance & agency often go together (in order to effect resistance, then a certain agency is required in 1st place), & & coloniality of power works to

Answer 4

to limit agency, nip it in bud before it can be
galvanized into resistance (which can be physical, intellectual, linguistic, creative etc.). But since C is such a complex novel (not just in terms of diegesis but even more so in terms of complex entanglements it represents), nothing simple about Q of agency/resistance: many grey areas in novel, not least among which in area of sexuality and intimate relations.

Question 5

how to tease out ways in which AW simultaneously foregrounds/celebrates forms of agency & resistance while emphasizing their limits. Will also consider ways in which novel itself resists any easy categorisation.

Answer 5

1 Asserting agency & resistance
2 Limits of resistance lack of agency
3 Resisting a monolithic frame: towards “storylistening”?

Question 6

Asserting agency & resistance

Answer 6

Novel which systematically simultaneously mocks settler agencies & asserts Indigenous forms of resistance, foregrounding constant friction between two.

Question 7

Settler agencies destabilized

Answer 7

If agency is to be understood as “capacity to act or exert power” then obvious that whole conception & continuation of settler colonialism premised on precisely this.

Question 8

Power to speak (& be heard), act (& have impact), to ignore (& invisibilize) all enshrined in settler setup. Hence numerous moments in novel where

Answer 8

Uptown residents come together (excluding Eastside/Westside) to speak, decide & act. (See ES’s arrival & discussion after Gordie’s murder.)

Question 9

Yet poverty of discussions among Uptown residents undercuts this agency – stuck in a routine, full of clichés, from which impossible to escape, therefore undermining their ostensible agency.

See p326 as ex of this (men in bar):

Answer 9

segregation and boredom of same old conversations leads men to look into “snake pit” (ie. Indigenous part of bar) for entertainment.

What is on one level form of voyeurism (clichés abound here too) actually reveals stark contrast between settler & Indigenous agencies:

for Uptown men p325-6 subject of conversations pre-determined & no deviation possible (subjects listed by rote at beg of para, then even exact order of subjects set in stone, with only deviation possible seen in rhet Q about “spooky” phenomena.

Just how limited conversations are = reinforced top p326 – “money and wives” (repose upon sexist stereotypes) & provoke sort of “depression”.

Question 10

hypermasculinity reinforced thru

Answer 10

“the biggest croc ever caught” (use of superlative, logic of competition, exposure on wall of pub), exposed beside “nude pictures”. This lockdown (intellectual, cultural etc.) becomes even more pronounced when these depressed men look next door (what they observe couched in patronizing discourse but nevertheless huge contrast between vitality of Indig & foreclosed conversations of men (even music is “droning” & conversation circles back to same topics at end of para = stasis

Question 11

In fact, agency of Uptown, constructed upon supremacist discourse & philosophy, undermined regularly by narrator.

Answer 11

1. Settler agencies (as in government departments) consistently rejected by Desperance (see re-naming of town & “send them back to Canberra” analyzed last time).
2. Agency undermined by wind – see p54 where pervasiveness of wind (here ironically personified, even when associated w/music) mockingly reveals its own power which cannot in effect be resisted & create a discordant music – note vocab “music” x4, “orchestra”, “composed”, “pop”, “whined, whistled, banged and clapped”, “jammed jazz” etc. Mixture here of formal music-making & more vernacular forms signal relationality in music (multiple influences), but all of this “music” functions as destructive force constantly undermining Uptown constructions – “crumbling, white ant-ridden, honeycombed timber frames, until one day, only paint held up those buildings”: clearly also a metaphor for ultimate fragility of settler colonial society. Winds of change?
3. Departure as cyclone approaches (against which last ditch resistance of Desperance, cutting trees, appears as absurd, “incongruous”, from Will’s pt/view – see top p448 & syntax, all those propositions the cumulative effect of which is to make Uptown appear even more stupid) marks end of settler agencies: p448 “the noise of the town faded away in the clouds” (crumbling of Uptown announced in passage studied above about to take place now). Also, Bruiser “ashen-faced” & “carrying a shiny blue-glass rosary” (bottom p339) humbled & brought low, & his faith in rosary = totemic & ultimately meaningless.

Question 12

Indigenous agencies & resistance

Answer 12

it is among Indig chs that greatest assertions of agency & resistance are to be found

Question 13

Norm – caring for Country & Will embodying

Answer 13

more recent forms of Aboriginal activism. A definite generation gap & even fractious misunderstandings b/tween father & son, but nevertheless 2 effective forms of resistance & both chs have strong sense of their own agency.

Question 14

Norm concerned with upholding Law (customs, history) of Country & with keeping stories alive in present. As Matteo Dutto has shown (quoting Gerald Vizenor), this = act of “survivance”, “that is assertions of Indigenous sovereignty that are not just reactions against colonialism, but a

Answer 14

continuation of indigenous knowledges that foreground the survival and presence of indigenous cultures, languages and customs as one of the most important forms of resistance” (p164, Ellipses book). Temptation perhaps to see Norm as passive (not showing much agency) but his status as powerful figure & W’s belief that he has conjured up the storm as “payback to the town” (p469), (maybe also suggestion he has killed Gordie,) suggest that agency is to measured on very diff terms here.

Question 15

Will’s agency already encoded into his name (to be willful = to assert agency – maybe back to Ahmed again here briefly?) & his activism certainly more obviously militant than his father’s:

Answer 15

sabotage, destruction, even ultimately murder, but he too is given to moments of silent reflection as on p152 (see opening sentence).

Question 16

What makes Will such an effective saboteur are his Indigenous knowledges which he constantly reconnects with (have already looked at his, but see

Answer 16

again p154 “our Will, he moves lightly…. A million ancestors”), but also his knowledge that settlers are incapable of attributing agency to Aboriginal Aus. See p353 (bottom para), “invisible man” & chief detective’s racist & dismissive comments about all Ab Oz looking the same.

Question 17

As M Dutto also points out, final destruction of mine reliant upon group effort & even ability of

Answer 17

group led by MF to influence elements – see p394-5 and “whirly wind” which rekindles the fire. Metaphor of constant Ab resistance which is rekindled thru knowledge-transmission.

Question 18

Non-human agencies

Answer 18

1. Rainbow serpent/rivers etc.
2. Sacred cave (“screaming” walls etc.).
3. Wind personified & constant mvt p8 (appreciation of this mvt of wind prompts anonymous Uptowner to rename river after Normal, thus establishing link b/tween him & Country. Also, notwithstanding absurdity of renaming river – incompatible w/Indig culture – anonymity of person who suggests it does imply from early on insignificance of settler culture, also fact that he is compared to a “corpse” (!).
4. As announced by “Armageddon” on p1 and also by awe-inspiring origin story of geological formation of Gulf, the elements are consistently attributed most agency in novel. See not only cyclone, but also both Norm’s & Will’s experiences at sea (even ES’s for that matter & storm Leda)

Question 19

Norm & stormy journey to lay Elias to rest

Answer 19

N heading with Elias for the “spirit world”: p226

“Norm knew if he mapped the route well he would reach this spirit world, where the congregation of the great gropers journeying from the sky to the sea were gathered” – see here again how Indigenous mapping operates and defies physical & empirical boundaries of Western knowledge. See too how at outset of his journey, man’s reliance on non-human agencies is central: bottom p228 – vocab of spirits & haunting, personification of wind, again, which continues on for several pages, following Norm like a trickster, toying w/him. When ES is at last laid to rest, Norm (or Ntr) observes he “sank deeper & deeper gently thru the giant arms of water waiting at every depth to receive him”: gentle personif of sea and spiritual osmosis.

Question 20

because Norm resists signs that he ends up in such difficulty at sea

Answer 20

– see p243-4 where he ignores the several manifestations of non-human agency (“he refused to acknowledge”).

This continues thu’out chapter – p249 “he remained adamant”, “not noticing the fast moving current” etc. Norm/Odysseus plagued by siren figure, “coaxing compliance to her desires” (p250) – note alliteration which reinforces the seduction), and also by haunting visions of widows visible in
clouds “the eternity of the disappointed dead travelling in the seasonal storms of the summer monsoon” (p253). Here, yoking together of climate & deceased, physical & spiritual/immaterial. Mvts of widows described bottom p253 mirror mvt of waves & “spectacular” (literally a spectacle
– Norm “applauded” & responds to “each dramatic gesture”) “performance” (bottom of page) of non-human nature on “celestial stage” (top p254).

Question 21

During storm, predominance of passive forms signal N’s absence of agency and absolute resignation to power of sea & wind.

Answer 21

See references to “the invisible hands of the sea”/“the will of the sea” (p257). And yet paradoxical acquisition of immense knowledge (“he knew his task was to visualise and commit to memory the multitude of landmarks” (p256), but necessity of humbling process: “NP had no idea where he was, except that he was as inconsequential as the millions of dead fish … . No more, no less” (p258). Horizontal understanding of life forms which is completely at odds with settler values (see attitude to animals, trees and indeed Indigenous
townsfolk). Sea endowed with such immense agency that NP, but only from safe ground, ends
up addressing it (p259) and wind once again personified p251 “it was surprised to find him still
talking”.

Question 22

Whole episode stresses multiple forms of non-human agency and personifications strengthen this (is this anthropomorphizing?

Answer 22

No, I think it is to be seen as evidence of power of non-human nature, but up for discussion!).

Question 23

Similar traces of this agency in final cyclone as Will attempts to survive. Like Norm, he attributes it to

Answer 23

the gods = “great creators” (p473), and indeed, corroborated by an old woman telling story p462 “the cyclone found the man it was looking for” (previous cyclone who sought out the one “Law breaker” & capital L suggests Aborginal Law referred to in C1). See too p452 (bottom)
where Will becomes aware of “ancestral sea water creatures”.

Question 24

And also narrator endorses rejoicing of land

Answer 24

after mine explosion p395 (bottom).

Question 25

Limits of resistance is not a lack of agency

Answer 25

given so much emphasis on Indigenous and non-human agencies, would be easy to overidealize & ignore multiple limits placed on Indig resistance in novel.

Important not to gloss over this as it would be to lose sight of complexity of novel which is not at all in business of oversimplifying. But even when limitations of resistance foregrounded, does not necessarily mean
that there is an absence of agency

Question 26

Renouncing resistance as condition of Indigeneity

Answer 26

Bcos Indigenous ontol & epistemol are holistic & far from human-centred Western conceptions of existence, striking to note in novel number of moments where human characters must renounce resistance in order to be in harmony with “Aborginal Law” (p3):

Question 27

Human connection to ecosystem reliant upon submission to power of non-human natural elements.

Answer 27

See p3 “It takes a particular kind of knowledge to go with the river, whatever its mood. It is about there being no difference between you and the water …” Form of osmosis here & idea of semi-permeable membranes.

Question 28

Will is liquid, almost amphibious

Answer 28

Will’s survival much later reliant on his ability to forego resistance against cyclone, see p474 “a never-ending maze through which he was effortlessly poured”. Passive + verb “pour”

Question 29

Conditions of access to this knowledge passed on from 1 gen to next involve subordination of self to greater whole.

Answer 29

Indig chs surrendering to greater knowledges. See eg. p. 417 where MF “Unquestioningly, instinctively, he was following a map etched on his mind…”.

Question 30

Apparent tautology in fact reveals total confidence in provisions of Aboriginal Law, its all-encompassing & protective nature

Answer 30

Once he has brought his sons to rest, MF must then also surrender to Will’s guidance – it is Will who gently lets him know it is time to let go (p423), uses “a protective arm”, “steadying the old man”, “leading the Fishman away”, (p424) “kept the old man moving” & responds to MF’s questions. Reciprocity here requires renouncement of ego. So too must humans surrender to “Law” – see p429 when MF & Will part ways: “The Law is the Law and the Law will be looking after all of us”.

Question 31

Surrender & resistance as conditions of survival

Answer 31

Some truths so hard to accept that easier for chs to resist full comprehension of political, cultural consequences of certain actions

Question 32

While surrender sometimes necessary, resistance too can take
on diff forms, so AW careful to show that Indig Aus must often navigate b/tween two:

Answer 32

See p364 when JM has a moment of reckoning where he is forced to note the nefarious modus operandi of the mine operators (divide & conquer): “He did not want to understand if it all meant that in the end the hope for a better world had perished in the sea”. Condition of continued hope involves resisting truth and surrendering to chimeras.

Question 33

other members of Phantom family, just like AD and clock/Virgin statue, co-opted by siren call of the mine.

Answer 33

Donnie & Inso, who work in mine, “did nothing for anybody except for
money” (p104). No resistance possible to lure of mine when living in such economic depravity

Question 33

other members of Phantom family, just like AD and clock/Virgin statue, co-opted by siren call of the mine.

Answer 33

Donnie & Inso, who work in mine, “did nothing for anybody except for
money” (p104). No resistance possible to lure of mine when living in such economic depravity

Question 34

See too AD, of whom it would be difficult to say she lacks agency (see how it is asserted in C2, p38 when she threatens Uptown “delegation” and uses the language of legalese to do so, meeting them rhetorically on their own terms) given her inventiveness & resourcefulness (already commented on in chapter on “waste”), but who ultimately wonders “What else was life for except just for coping, nothing else?” p20.

At same time as we see her as (albeit ambivalent) figure of

Answer 34

resistance, she also displays good deal of resignation to limits placed on her as Aboriginal woman. Marked disconnect here from holistic Indigenous ontologies we have looked at up to now. Evidence of how AW complexifies representation of Indigenous Aus’ lives & how settler col has devastatingly impacted Indig belief systems

Question 35

Angel Day is a complex character, often oscillates b/tween impressive acts of verbal & physical resistance and coercion, thus destabilizing Uptown

Answer 35

See p356 where she first spits on shoes of detective & then “winked at him, giving him the eye”, in this case mocking him overtly with her sexual advances (come back to this with Girlie in a moment).

In both cases, her agency is intact.

See this later when stranded in car and characteristically unsure of what to do – p435: attention paid to appearance reinforces her awareness of impact of sensuality & use it can be put to so that even as she appears unsure (see all the rhet Qs), her agency is asserted.

Final elements of AD’s story (reliant upon non-Western forms of knowledge – “a letter in his mind” p437, & MF’s imaginings & sensations) speak to her continued if not resistance, at least resilience. AD still active: “he watches her smile” p438.

Question 36

Have seen that AD uses her sensuality as means of distraction, of mockery & also as a façade behind which she can “cope” with the world. But it is perhaps

Answer 36

Girlie who best embodies that grey area between consent and coercion & through whom AW alerts us to all the complexities of Q of agency in settler colonial territories

Question 37

Girlie 1st introduced in relation to AD:

Answer 37

“always minding how she looked, just like her mother” (p110), already anticipating her potential ambivalence towards settlers & settler culture. Then, her 1st words in novel are colourfully aggressive as she defends her brother Kevin from merciless bullying (p111) – excoriates them, belittles them, rhetorically emasculates them, renders them grotesque.

Question 38

Transpires that main bone of contention for her former partner (& father of her 4 children) =

Answer 38

her efforts to better herself thu educ. In fact, highly developed agency of Girlie conveyed: “she had handed over her children when he had demanded it but she was not prepared to give up her opportunities” –

Question 39

Wright makes sure to avoid cliched gendered representation of mothers as selfless individuals (neither Angel Day nor Girlie correspond to this), while also exposing ways in which extreme poverty, lack of education & options, deliberate attempts to destabilize Aboriginal culture over two centuries have severely damaged relationships b/tween

Answer 39

generations.

Which is not to say that AW ignores gender imbalances stemming from capitalist coloniality –

Question 40

Noelie concludes from G’s attitude that she “didn’t look like she was in the mood for a quick one, which was what she was worth now he had the Hilux” (p112). Transactional dimension of sexual politics established here thru’ narrator’s

Answer 40

sudden focalization on Noelie, italicization signalling currency of exchange & car brand justifying her sexual relegation, just as use of term “doll” deprives her (in N’s eyes) of any agency

Question 41

While Patsy & Janice appear as a duo and barely indistinguishable from each other, Girlie’s individuality, agency & resistance are all emphasized by narrator. Not only is she the only one who can actually understand Kevin (p210 “it would be better to choose G bcos she listened to whatever he had to say, understood his lingo”), she is also “this stubborn one” as far as Norm is concerned, and the one to whom the other members of family are

Answer 41

“looking … for an answer” (p214) when Elias found dead in their house. Because of this, it is also she who must navigate between sexual coercion & agency w/local policeman Truthful

Question 42

Way in which Truthful enters Phantom house already testifies to settler attitudes to Ab communities (& mirror in fact very act of colonisation in 1st place):

Answer 42

“the Constable welcomed himself into the kitchen” (p214) notwithstanding fact that Norm “had never welcomed into his house” a policeman (but see paradox, tinted w/irony of N’s response: “Make yourself at home”).

Question 43

Already showing that for Indig communities, when dealing w/settlers, especially those in position of authority, agency is limited and must be asserted in indirect ways.

Answer 43

Situation made worse by Truthful’s “sweet smile” (alliteration adding to excess & insidious nature of his approach, masking violence behind his intentions).

Contrast in this scene between agitation of sister P&J & immobility of G & N. Sisters renounce all resistance & pander to T (“Patsy cooed at T’s hurt face” & considers that G should “consider her lucky stars” bcos of T’s interest in her p215), while G & N “did not even look up” (p241) or “unresponsive” (p215). Grotesque response of sisters summed up in G’s desire to “wiggle her own tits at Patsy” – humour here which also works to reinforce G’s agency, her mockery a form of resistance. So too are words she thinks but cannot address orally to T (bottom p215), or her humorous belittling of him by comparing his smile to “a crease in a turnip” (p216), but T’s thoughts (which narr makes us privy to) nevertheless betray undercurrent of violence: “if it waspain she wanted” etc. “asking for it” etc

Question 44

n fact, G placed in a position where, in absence of her brothers (see p217) and effective resignation of Norm & his dereliction of duty =

Answer 44

no other choice but to offer her family, & particularly her father, protection thru sexual services rendered. See p216-7 where she imagines scenario if she does not invite T to her room & total non-verbal complicity of her sisters (“Janice had given the signal”). Her disgust for T is palpable (“his snake eyes”, “he had managed to worm his way” – like a parasite p217), and her (coerced) acceptance minimal, barely a hand mvt on the table as she struggles to maintain what little agency she can (“the only indication she wanted to give him” p217). (See too her later post-coital disgust p308.) Final para of chapter switches to T for focalization & reveals his exploitative thoughts – “handcuffs” which arouse him also emphasize the limited consent which G in position to give and reinforce power imbalance at play
here; total abuse of authority; extractive logics of coloniality reminiscent of Bruiser’s words earlier in novel – “All he had to do was fuck the sister” (p218) where G no longer even named & reduced to bait in T’s plan to apprehend Will. See too effect on Norm (p221) who is immobilized by
awareness of situation. Only possibility (and only agency accorded him at his point) = imagining, in some detail, how he could kill T and make it look like an accident, p223.

Question 45

Later, after K’s attack & transfer to hospital, T’s selfishness rendered all the more grotesque (and pathetic): p333, after several para describing helplessness of Phantom siblings in face of tragedy & T’s evident reluctance to investigate matter, “he kept coming down to the Phantom place

Answer 45

expecting sympathy for the huge load on his plate”. No empathy possible for this ch (white man’s tears), especially once rumours of his paedophilia emerge (relayed by sisters p334)

Question 46

h G’s room for resistance is limited, her agency is consistently asserted. T is a sexual predator, and G his prey, yet she uses this in order to protect her family

Answer 46

actual sexual transaction literally takes place behind closed doors – no voyeurism here. AW highlighting here the complex nature of power imbalances in settler colonial societies.

Question 47

Resisting a monolithic frame: towards “storylistening”?

Answer 47

oralized text in a written form; it defies linear reading, consistently starting over and over; it borrows from & appropriates Western genres and codes while celebrating Indig storying + Dreamtime; against Western idea of “the story” it posits “stories”, where no one story takes precedence over others

Question 48

a novel of resistance to rigid epistemologies of West which justified colonisation (& continue to make case for coloniality) & wrote Indigenous cultures & memory out of existence. See p10:

Answer 48

“After the mining stopped, neither NP and his family, nor his family’s
relations, past or present, rated a mention in the official version of the region’s history”. The 490 pages which follow this statement must therefore be read as powerful & detailed counternarrative to this “official version” (in lieu of Mickey’s museum which no one visits).

Question 49

Last words in novel, after all the violence, both human-triggered & natural, reserved for image of cycle beginning again – see p499.

Answer 49

Norm & Bala surrender to “so much song wafting off the watery
land, singing the country afresh” and final image is one of total osmosis (N&B hand in hand, water & country, home), where “home” is to be understood as fundamental reconnection
w/Country.

Question 50

Towards “storylistening”?

Answer 50

Concept developed by Sarah Dillon & Claire Craig (Storylistening. Narrative Evidence and Public Reasoning, NY & London: Routledge, 2021) as they investigate power of story to have positive impact on public policy-making & provoking shifts in public opinion

Question 51

df= storylistening

Answer 51

“Storytelling in relation to collective identities must also acknowledge the imbrication of stories and power. Storylistening to the stories that constitute individual & collective identity, and influence political and other action, involves attention to Qs such as the following: what stories are being told? Who is telling them? Who is listening to them? Why? How are stories shared or circulated? Where and by whom are they accepted, and where and by whom are they contested? In what ways do they conflict with other stories in circulation? Stories, those created and those circulated, are sites of power, whether that be hegemonic or resistive, reactionary or
progressive” (p61).

Question 52

“Stories play central role in creation/maintenance of collective identities”

Answer 52

bcos of their effectiveness in storing & transmitting social knowledge” (p62).

Question 53

Not neutral, and always assertion of authorial & community agency. They can also model collective identity systems, revealing all the heterogeneity within them, thereby contributing to a shift in attitudes. Without wanting to
only see C as a pedagogical tool for Westerners to appropriate, can maybe nevertheless suggest that by putting these Indigenous ontol & epistemol out there (while preserving sacredness of some aspects of Indig culture) AW foregrounds new forms of agency which we can learn from – ways of conceiving of collective identity within philosophy of care.

As Dillon & Craig put it (& they also spend some time discussing AW’s Swan Book!),

Answer 53

“Storylistening sensitive to, and informed by, such thought requires an attention to location, and respect for and understanding of Indigenous Place-Thought, in order that Indig thought might carefully inform practical tools for reconceiving stories, for instance of climate change, beyond the Western impasse of atomised collective identities” (p72)

Question 54

Not neutral, and always assertion of authorial & community agency. They can also model collective identity systems, revealing all the heterogeneity within them, thereby contributing to a shift in attitudes. Without wanting to
only see C as a pedagogical tool for Westerners to appropriate, can maybe nevertheless suggest that by putting these Indigenous ontol & epistemol out there (while preserving sacredness of some aspects of Indig culture) AW foregrounds new forms of agency which we can learn from – ways of conceiving of collective identity within philosophy of care.

As Dillon & Craig put it (& they also spend some time discussing AW’s Swan Book!),

Answer 54

“Storylistening sensitive to, and informed by, such thought requires an attention to location, and respect for and understanding of Indigenous Place-Thought, in order that Indig thought might carefully inform practical tools for reconceiving stories, for instance of climate change, beyond the Western impasse of atomised collective identities” (p72)