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NLA News - home November 2002 Volume XIII Number 2
The Bringing Them Home Oral History Project: 'Building a Community of Voices'
Iron cots in the kindergarten at Moore River Native Settlement, W.A., c.1930s

 

 

 

 

Iron cots in the kindergarten at Moore River Native Settlement, W.A., c.1930s
Reprodu ced courtesy of Mogumber Heritage Committee

Barry York reports on the culmination of a major Library project, and its fruition as a book, Many Voices: Reflections on Experiences of Indigenous Child Separation

If it is true, as some historians say, that the point of studying history is to learn from the past with a view to building a better future, then the National Library’s ‘Bringing Them Home’ Oral History Project (‘BTH’) stands as a case in point.

The project arose from the Commonwealth Government’s National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, which tabled its report in April 1997. BTH ran from July 1998 to June 2002, and was funded by the Commonwealth Government to the value of $1.6 million. It was one of the largest oral history projects ever conducted in Australia. The project recorded the reminiscences of a range of individuals involved in the process of separation: the children themselves (widely known as the ‘Stolen Generations’), their parents and relatives, foster parents, and missionaries, teachers, institutional carers, policy officers and senior administrators.

Trevor Deshong with his mother, 1965. An annotation on the back of the photo reads:'Your mum & you taken at your grandad Rollie's house near the Grey Hound Hotel Mackay she really loved you, Aunty Stella.'

Trevor Deshong with his mother, 1965. An annotation on the back of the photo reads:'Your mum & you taken at your grandad Rollie's house near the Grey Hound Hotel Mackay she really loved you, Aunty Stella.'
Photograph reproduced courtesy of Trevor Deshong

 

This wide-ranging and significant project has operated under the direction of Doreen Mellor, an Indigenous Australian, and follows on a successful pilot project managed by Dr Gwenda Davey. Mellor is a former Director of Flinders University Art Museum, and formerly managed the visual arts program Tandanya, at the National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, as well as serving as Chair of the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia and on the board of the Art Gallery of South Australia.

The full three-year project, concluding in June 2002, was supported by a steering committee chaired by National Library Council member Winnie Pelz. The committee, which included Baiba Berzins, Jackie Huggins, Jeremy Long, Ann-Marie Schwirtlich, Russell Taylor, Judith Winternitz, and Library staff Pamela Gatenby and Doreen Mellor, brought together extensive experience in the areas of senior public administration, librarianship and archives, history and Aboriginal advocacy and research.

The project featured in the Library’s recent centenary exhibition, Treasures from the World’s Great Libraries, alongside materials of international significance on loan from overseas libraries. In this way, the point was made that BTH is not just another major project, but one of special, historic importance. In such a context it was implicitly suggested that the past lingers on well into the present. BTH was not just about ‘remembering the past’; the project took place at a time when the issue was topical and figured highly in current debate.

The taped interviews from the project have been preserved by the Library’s Digital and Audio Preservation Resources unit, ensuring that the ‘spoken word’—people’s stories, told in their own words—will be available to future generations. Transcripts have also been made, but nothing can beat the actual sound-recording for insights into the stories.

Margaret Somerville in her garden, March 2002. Margaret has been making finger puppets for 27 years. Helped by a group of knitters, she invests the sale proceeds and donates it all (about $9 000 per year) to Mission agencies. This photograph was published in the Autumn 2002 edition of Mustard Seed, newsletter of the Uniting Church (NSW) Investment Services.

Margaret Somerville in her garden, March 2002
Margaret has been making finger puppets for 27 years. Helped by a group of knitters, she invests the sale proceeds and donates it all (about $9 000 per year) to Mission agencies. This photograph was published in the Autumn 2002 edition of Mustard Seed, newsletter of the Uniting Church (NSW) Investment Services.
Photograph by Catherine DeMayo
Reproduced courtesy of Somerville community Services, Darwin

 

Conditions of access to the recordings and transcripts vary, and were set by the individual interviewees in consultation with the Library, with the understanding that this was to be a public record collection, where researchers and the wider community could access first-hand testimony about Indigenous child separation. The interviews span memories of removal from 1918 to the 1970s. Men and women recalled experiences in homes specifically established for Aboriginal children, as well as in orphanages, dormitories and foster and adoptive families. A small number of interviewees proved to be positive about the experience, but the great majority bitterly regretted their loss of identity and family connections.

Effort was made to record the memories of people in distant parts of Australia, and the team of 37 interviewers achieved representation from each of the six States and two Territories.

Building a sense of community between all participants was the basis for the approach to the project, and incorporated sensitive and ethical communication with interviewees. It was important to ensure opportunities for personal communication and familiarisation about these sensitive issues, rather than just hand the interviewers a manual. Meetings were convened at the National Library to reaffirm the project’s aims and interviewing approaches, to discuss issues, and to ‘debrief’.

Before interviewers set up their microphones, they attended training sessions either at the Library or in one of the capital cities. The training included instruction on use of the state-of-the-art technical equipment, as well as in oral history techniques as they applied to this particular project and its work with Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Many interviewers remained in contact with each other to provide mutual support, some as part of smaller collegiate groups which shared schedules for equipment, as well as participating in debriefing and discussions of their own.

Project Director Doreen Mellor elaborates on this:

We hoped that the interviewees, too, would feel part of the loop. Part of the interviewer’s responsibility was to assist in this process, making sure that interviewees had access to counselling if required, that they were shown courtesies such as receiving copies of photographs taken by interviewers, and so on. We sent letters from the Library after interviews had been held, and tried to ensure that they felt free to use the 1800 (Free Call) line which had been set up. Many interviewees did stay in touch in various ways, and kept us informed of major milestones in their lives.

Ballarat orphanage

Ballarat orphanage
Reproduced courtesy of Child and Family Services Ballarat Inc.

 

Indigenous interviewees who had been separated from their families were asked about their early memories, and recollections of family and home—always with sensitivity to the issues they faced. While question lists were used as a guide, the key approach was a quite elaborate structure of human interaction and familiarisation preceding the actual interview. In cases where children had been taken to an institution, topics included the daily routine, the time spent in the institution, and the extent of contact with their family while institutionalised.

One of the most important elements of the project was the expectation that each and every interviewee would be treated with respect. Every perspective and narrative would be honoured, even if views were expressed which the interviewer might not personally agree with. The project allowed many people, who had not previously had the opportunity, to speak out personally for the record. It was to be their own perspective, not something given under pressure. This is simply the technique of any good oral history interviewing of course—developing a trusting relationship, and space in which an informant feels free to speak his or her own mind.

The project sought to draw the broadest range of people and perspectives, to provide a many-faceted view on this complex issue. A separate set of questions was designed for interviews with former officials, such as administrators and policy-makers—these questions taking the same respectful approach, and similarly striving for insights that go beyond the print-based documentary record.

Interior of girls' dormitory at Moore River Native Settlement, W.A., c.1930s.

Interior of girls' dormitory at Moore River Native Settlement, W.A., c.1930s.
Reproduced courtesy of Mogumber Heritage Communittee

 

In addition to the creation of 340 archived interviews, a major book—Many Voices: Reflections on Experiences of Indigenous Child Separation—has just been published by the Library, being launched this month. It is edited by project director Doreen Mellor, along with historian Anna Haebich, who won awards for her celebrated book Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800–2000 (2000).

While based on the project’s interviews, Many Voices also provides context for the history of the separation policy. Themes include the children’s life journeys (both after leaving their families, and continuing up to the present), and the systems of planning and care. The book discusses cases where people have returned to their families, and also offers the interviewees’ thoughts on the interviewing experience. The final chapter considers the notion of ‘unfinished business’: what are the intergenerational effects, and the ongoing issues for families today of the previous policies?

According to Doreen Mellor:

The book has enormous significance—the project itself is unique in that it provides a forum for the full range of voices from this period of Australia’s history, in living memory, to speak without constraint, and the book is a medium for providing access to those voices. The experience of removal from the family’s point of view is central. This fundamental aspect of Indigenous child removal, and many others, have been addressed during the interviews, by those who witnessed or experienced it at first-hand, and the book reflects this diversity of perspective. It leaves the reader free to experience these events with all who took part, from all viewpoints. It is a distillation of the interviews—and therefore makes them available in a way which would usually take many, many hours of effort and research.

The assembling of Many Voices by so many writers—20 in all, who listened to, and comment on, the voices and perspectives recorded—expands the community of people seeking to understand and communicate the removal process, and contribute to the BTH project.

When asked for her views on the project’s outcomes, Doreen Mellor said she felt its greatest achievement was as an outlet for the many voices wanting an opportunity to speak out. In so doing, she says, the project

has fostered the building of a community of voices with many seen and unseen links and connections with each other and with the wider community. It has created the possibility for further work in this area, and for this community to extend in many directions; for the dialogue which has been so powerful and so alive and vigorous, to continue in as many ways as there are imaginative and creative people to take it forward.

BARRY YORK is a researcher and writer. His email address is garocon@pcug.org.au

The information in this article was provided by Doreen Mellor and the Bringing Them Home Oral History Project team

MANY VOICES: REFLECTIONS ON EXPERIENCES ON
INDIGENOUS CHILD SEPARATION

'Many Voices: Reflections on Experiences on Indigenous Child Separation' cover


Edited by Doreen Mellor & Anna Haebich

Since 1998, the National Library of Australia, with funding from the Federal Governement, has been recording narratives about the removal of children from their families. Indigenous community members, those who fostered or adopted children, policy-makers, administrators, and others have shared their individual experiences. This just-released publication, accompanied by a CD of oral history excerpts, brings these stories to a wide audience, assisting readers to understand the complex layers of this aspect of Australian history.

ISBN 0 642 10754 8
pb, 235 x 250 mm, b&w illus.
Australia RRP $29.95
Overseas RRP $27.25

Tel: 1800 800 100 * Fax: (02) 6273 1084
Email: nlasales@nla.gov.au * ABN 28 346 858 075
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