Listen To Ngarrindjeri Women Speaking

When the Ngarrindjeri women of South Australia asked Diane Bell if she would work with them in the running of some workshops to develop a booklet about culture and governance, none of them realised quite where it would take them. This book is the result. It has developed from a booklet to a book that outlines their visions for the future. A future in which their culture is respected, their stories heard, their laws carried out.

Reviews

The Ngarrindjeri women who have generously shared their ideas and wisdoms here, have done so with the dignity exalted from the past and with an affordance to the future. They have told their stories in a way that illustrates the power of dialogue, of our women's conversation and ultimately of coming together to weave our own livelihood for our children and our children's children.

—Tara June Winch, ABC Online Indigenous

You will be deeply moved by the voices of the aunties and the powerful struggles and beautiful words of their stories. None of these stories should be reproduced here in this review. It takes the voices of the miminar themselves to tell their stories with such grace and power. Too many times their words have been stolen by others, as their children were stolen. Instead, I urge all readers to buy this book for your families, use it as a model to discuss ways that all Australians can learn and grow and discover more about the culture that defines their land. You will be enthralled, captivated and empowered by these stories and this process. 

—Cathie Dunsford, Australian Women's Book Review Volume 20.2 (2008)

The book was fashioned through a painstaking series of workshops, facilitated by editor and anthropologist Diane Bell, and this process reveals an extraordinary spirit of cooperation. Conversations and negotiations took seven months, with young, old, female and male Ngarrindjeri contributing.

—John Bartlett, Eureka Street