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Researching with community: Fremantle's Walyalup Heart

27/5/2021

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Fremantle Council last night voted to change the name of Kings Square to Walyalup Koort, a Whadjuk Nyoongar name meaning ‘Heart of Fremantle’. The decision was made following an extensive community engagement process, says the City. The name will now be referred to Landgate for formal approval.

One night earlier, I was on a panel that discussed the proposed renaming of Kings Square at a Politics in the Pub event in Fremantle. The insightful and complex discussion was led by Director of the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council, Brendan Moore (centre in image below). Then Kings Square Project Director Russell Kingdom (left in image) discussed the history of its square and its heritage. 
Picture
My talk began with an extract from Shaphan Cox's PhD describing the whitewashing of Aboriginal texts in the square. I addressed Stan Grant's 2019 call for postcolonial Australia to be created in the space between ship and shore by presenting findings of my research with Dr Irfan Wahyudi on colonial heritage preservation by community volunteers in Broome and in Banyuwangi, East Java.

​My point was to alay fears of a sense of potential loss of colonial heritage in the renaming of Kings Square by describing how Indigenous media organizations, such as Magabala Books and Goollarri Media, are actively drawing on the colonial archive to revive and enrich the heritage of Australia.

The panel and lively QandA was chaired by former Member of the Legislative Council, Lynn MacLaren. The event at The Local Hotel was hosted by the Fremantle Network and organized by Dr Christian Mauri.
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    This page was created to share ideas on rebuilding universities for communities in Western Australia.

    The header image shows a  construction site at my campus before the glass ceiling collapsed killing a young worker and injuring two others. Social and union pressure around this incident led to Western Australia's Legislative Council passing the Work safety bill in the days that followed. While waiting for the bill to become law, the image reminds me of the ongoing lack of legal protection for workers in a culture dominated by managerialism and corporate ambition.

    A turn is needed towards transparency, empathy and democracy in building universities.
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