Victoria GRIEVE WILLIAMS
Professor Victoria Grieves (now also Williams) is an Aboriginal person, Warraimaay from the mid north coast of NSW, and and historian. Victoria's research interests include: colonial history particularly the history of the Aboriginal family; race, gender and intersectionality, particularly as played out within Australian society in the colonial period and during WW2; Indigenous wellbeing and mental health as it relates to contemporary psychology; food and water sustainability in Aboriginal communities - and all of this in the context of the Anthropocene.
Victoria has published in Australian Aboriginal history, particularly on the history of the Aboriginal family, in Indigenous knowledges production in Australia, particularly about Aboriginal philosophy and wellbeing and in environmental humanities. She is passionate about Aboriginal activism and the need for a just and proper settlement and to this end has published in Aboriginal politics and the impact of media on Aboriginal activism.
Victoria has published widely in newspapers and online in the Conversation as well as being an invited blogger for the Sydney Environment institute (SEI) the Australian Womens' History Network (AWHN) and the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association (ACRAWSA). She edits the Maroon Magazine for the Maroon people of Charles Town Jamaica.
Victoria has worked as a consultant to governments, advising and reviewing projects, policy and programs, to do with Aboriginal people and the policies and programs that impact on their lives.
Phone: +1 443 554 2522
Victoria has published in Australian Aboriginal history, particularly on the history of the Aboriginal family, in Indigenous knowledges production in Australia, particularly about Aboriginal philosophy and wellbeing and in environmental humanities. She is passionate about Aboriginal activism and the need for a just and proper settlement and to this end has published in Aboriginal politics and the impact of media on Aboriginal activism.
Victoria has published widely in newspapers and online in the Conversation as well as being an invited blogger for the Sydney Environment institute (SEI) the Australian Womens' History Network (AWHN) and the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association (ACRAWSA). She edits the Maroon Magazine for the Maroon people of Charles Town Jamaica.
Victoria has worked as a consultant to governments, advising and reviewing projects, policy and programs, to do with Aboriginal people and the policies and programs that impact on their lives.
Phone: +1 443 554 2522
less
Related Authors
InterestsView All (62)
Uploads
Books by Victoria GRIEVE WILLIAMS
As it closely examines the role that social and digital media play in enabling protests, this volume probes the interplay between historical and contemporary protests, emancipation and empowerment, and online and offline protest activities. Drawn from academic and activist communities, the contributors look beyond often-studied mass action events in the USA, UK, and Australia to also incorporate perspectives from overlooked regions such as Iran, Malaysia, Bahrain, Zimbabwe, India, and Romania. From illustrating the allure of political action to a closer look at how digital activists use new technologies to push for toward reform, From Sit-Ins to #revolutions promises to shed new light on key questions within activism, from campaign organization and leadership to messaging and direct action.
Although often mentioned in the literature on Aboriginal health and social and emotional wellbeing, Spirituality has been in danger of becoming one of the undefined terms—like wellbeing, community, identity—that are used in various contexts and with various meanings attached, and in ways that obscure the reality of Indigenous Australian knowledges, philosophies and practices. In common with terms such as the Dreaming, it has lost significant meaning when translated into English.
This book importantly defines Aboriginal Spirituality by privileging the voices of Aboriginal people themselves and those of well-respected observers of Aboriginal culture. It demonstrates how those who are well exemplify Spirituality in everyday life and cultural expression. Having commonalities with international Indigenous groups, it is also deeply appreciated by non-Aboriginal people who understand and value the different ontologies (understandings of what it means to be), epistemologies (as ways of knowing) and axiologies (the bases of values and ethics) that Aboriginal philosophy embodies, as potential value to all peoples.
Spirituality includes Indigenous Australian knowledges that have informed ways of being, and thus wellbeing, since before the time of colonisation, ways that have been subsequently demeaned and devalued. Colonial processes have wrought changes to this knowledge base and now Indigenous Australian knowledges stand in a very particular relationship of critical dialogue with those introduced knowledges that have oppressed them.
Spirituality is the philosophical basis of a culturally derived and wholistic concept of personhood, what it means to be a person, the nature of relationships to others and to the natural and material world, and thus represents strengths and difficulties facing those who seek to assist Aboriginal Australians to become well.
This book questions the advisability of approaches that incorporate an Aboriginal perspective or cultural awareness as an overlay to the Western practices of dealing with mental health issues. Western practices have developed out of an entirely different concept of personhood, development of the individual and relationships to the wider world, and further research in this area, particularly incorporating the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, is critical to ways forward.
Blogs by Victoria GRIEVE WILLIAMS
Papers by Victoria GRIEVE WILLIAMS
Published as part of the Griffith Review 60: First things First
After more than two hundred years of largely unresolved disputes, Australia needs to hear the voices of Australia's First Nations – and act on them.
First Things First delivers strong contemporary insights from leading First Nations people, complemented by robust non-Indigenous writers. It provides a unique opportunity to share transformative information, structural challenges and personal stories, and aims to be an urgent, nuanced chorus for genuine consideration of Makarrata beyond the symbolic.
With this special edition, co-edited by Julianne Schultz and Sandra Phillips, Griffith Review excavates history and re-imagine the future, while not forgetting the urgencies of the present.
RRP: 27.99 / Publication Date: Apr 2018 / ISBN: 9781925 603 316 / Extent: 264pp / Formats: Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook
see https://griffithreview.com/editions/first-things-first/
This was for good reason, in an attempt to avoid the bureaucratic interventions with which Aboriginal lives and movements were regulated by the Australian government.
With this family the White Australia Policy impacted upon their lives and their efforts to retain and reclaim an Australian identity under the shadow of the Boer War. The
many trials that Kim’s great grandfather, as an Aboriginal soldier in South Africa, had to undergo to repatriate to Australia show another aspect of the impact of racial
segregation. It is shocking to realise that the passing of the White Australia policy in 1901 impacted on Australian Aboriginal men and their families who were in South
Africa for the purposes of serving the Empire. This also determined the hardships of my family over time, the later removal of my grandfather’s siblings and secrecy about their
descent. The family was torn apart by government policies for the removal of Aboriginal children. Not only were members of this family actively working around policies that existed to socially ostracise them but others in the Australian community in particular were assisting them to achieve social justice in extremely difficult circumstances. Lastly, through Kim’s grandfather’s reticence about his identity, his lifelong
quest to reunite his family and the disquiet and sorrow in his life, we learn of the long-term consequences of the Australian policy of removing Aboriginal children from their family.
Keywords: Aboriginal family history; Boer War; White Australia policy
This chapter critically analyses the relationship of Aboriginal Australia to the Australian settler colonial state in the light of Georgio Agamben's theory of the state of exception.
This chapter has been prepared for inclusion in the Nick Holm and Sy Tassel edited anthology -
Ecological Entanglements in the Anthropocene: Working with Nature
- as part of the Ecocritical Theory and Practice Series of Lexington Books.
This collection has been developed following the WORKING WITH NATURE, conference at Massey University in April 2015.
As it closely examines the role that social and digital media play in enabling protests, this volume probes the interplay between historical and contemporary protests, emancipation and empowerment, and online and offline protest activities. Drawn from academic and activist communities, the contributors look beyond often-studied mass action events in the USA, UK, and Australia to also incorporate perspectives from overlooked regions such as Iran, Malaysia, Bahrain, Zimbabwe, India, and Romania. From illustrating the allure of political action to a closer look at how digital activists use new technologies to push for toward reform, From Sit-Ins to #revolutions promises to shed new light on key questions within activism, from campaign organization and leadership to messaging and direct action.
Although often mentioned in the literature on Aboriginal health and social and emotional wellbeing, Spirituality has been in danger of becoming one of the undefined terms—like wellbeing, community, identity—that are used in various contexts and with various meanings attached, and in ways that obscure the reality of Indigenous Australian knowledges, philosophies and practices. In common with terms such as the Dreaming, it has lost significant meaning when translated into English.
This book importantly defines Aboriginal Spirituality by privileging the voices of Aboriginal people themselves and those of well-respected observers of Aboriginal culture. It demonstrates how those who are well exemplify Spirituality in everyday life and cultural expression. Having commonalities with international Indigenous groups, it is also deeply appreciated by non-Aboriginal people who understand and value the different ontologies (understandings of what it means to be), epistemologies (as ways of knowing) and axiologies (the bases of values and ethics) that Aboriginal philosophy embodies, as potential value to all peoples.
Spirituality includes Indigenous Australian knowledges that have informed ways of being, and thus wellbeing, since before the time of colonisation, ways that have been subsequently demeaned and devalued. Colonial processes have wrought changes to this knowledge base and now Indigenous Australian knowledges stand in a very particular relationship of critical dialogue with those introduced knowledges that have oppressed them.
Spirituality is the philosophical basis of a culturally derived and wholistic concept of personhood, what it means to be a person, the nature of relationships to others and to the natural and material world, and thus represents strengths and difficulties facing those who seek to assist Aboriginal Australians to become well.
This book questions the advisability of approaches that incorporate an Aboriginal perspective or cultural awareness as an overlay to the Western practices of dealing with mental health issues. Western practices have developed out of an entirely different concept of personhood, development of the individual and relationships to the wider world, and further research in this area, particularly incorporating the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, is critical to ways forward.
Published as part of the Griffith Review 60: First things First
After more than two hundred years of largely unresolved disputes, Australia needs to hear the voices of Australia's First Nations – and act on them.
First Things First delivers strong contemporary insights from leading First Nations people, complemented by robust non-Indigenous writers. It provides a unique opportunity to share transformative information, structural challenges and personal stories, and aims to be an urgent, nuanced chorus for genuine consideration of Makarrata beyond the symbolic.
With this special edition, co-edited by Julianne Schultz and Sandra Phillips, Griffith Review excavates history and re-imagine the future, while not forgetting the urgencies of the present.
RRP: 27.99 / Publication Date: Apr 2018 / ISBN: 9781925 603 316 / Extent: 264pp / Formats: Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook
see https://griffithreview.com/editions/first-things-first/
This was for good reason, in an attempt to avoid the bureaucratic interventions with which Aboriginal lives and movements were regulated by the Australian government.
With this family the White Australia Policy impacted upon their lives and their efforts to retain and reclaim an Australian identity under the shadow of the Boer War. The
many trials that Kim’s great grandfather, as an Aboriginal soldier in South Africa, had to undergo to repatriate to Australia show another aspect of the impact of racial
segregation. It is shocking to realise that the passing of the White Australia policy in 1901 impacted on Australian Aboriginal men and their families who were in South
Africa for the purposes of serving the Empire. This also determined the hardships of my family over time, the later removal of my grandfather’s siblings and secrecy about their
descent. The family was torn apart by government policies for the removal of Aboriginal children. Not only were members of this family actively working around policies that existed to socially ostracise them but others in the Australian community in particular were assisting them to achieve social justice in extremely difficult circumstances. Lastly, through Kim’s grandfather’s reticence about his identity, his lifelong
quest to reunite his family and the disquiet and sorrow in his life, we learn of the long-term consequences of the Australian policy of removing Aboriginal children from their family.
Keywords: Aboriginal family history; Boer War; White Australia policy
This chapter critically analyses the relationship of Aboriginal Australia to the Australian settler colonial state in the light of Georgio Agamben's theory of the state of exception.
This chapter has been prepared for inclusion in the Nick Holm and Sy Tassel edited anthology -
Ecological Entanglements in the Anthropocene: Working with Nature
- as part of the Ecocritical Theory and Practice Series of Lexington Books.
This collection has been developed following the WORKING WITH NATURE, conference at Massey University in April 2015.
Conversation with Professor Victoria Grieve-Williams ahead of the Blak and Bright First Nations Writer’s Festival. The second part of our conversation begins with us discussing reactions to colonial settler practices that shocked Indigenous people around the world; practices like felling big trees regardless of their significance to the people.Professor Grieve-Williams also explains the origin of the concept of the Dreamtime.
Interviewed by Bertrand Tungandame
Conversation with Professor Victoria Grieve- Williams ahead of the Blak and Bright First Nations Writers’ Festival - May 2020
Victoria Grieve-Williams is an Adjunct Professor at RMIT University, Australia who utilizes interdisciplinary approaches to progress transnational Indigenous knowledges. She is engaged with new theoretical approaches to dealing with global inequalities.
In the upcoming Blak and Bright First Nations Writers Festival Professor Grieve-Williams will join by video link from New York two other extraordinary Blak thinkers (Uncle Jim Everett and Dr Gregory Phillips) to reflect on the concept of Makarrata, a peacemaking concept, which begins with truth-telling.
In an exclusive interview with NITV radio, Professor Grieve Williams highlighted that Aboriginal people’s philosophies are not well documented.
“Other Indigenous people around the world have had their philosophies documented for quite some time. In Africa, New Zealand, Canada, the United States… But Aboriginal people’s philosophies have not been documented till recently,” Victoria Grieve-Williams said.
What constitutes a "philosophical" conversation? You might reasonably expect such a conversation to be conceptual, exploring abstract notions of self, time, being, ethics and so on. For indigenous Australian philosophers, the conversation gets real very fast. Aboriginal knowledge is inseparable from questions of who gets to be educated, how the custodians of knowledge are treated in modern Australia, why such knowing is marginalised, and how it might be vital at a time when civilisation teeters on the edge of a precipice.
"An exploration of the interwoven relationship between culture and nature experienced by indigenous cultures around the world and how this relationship can be used to challenge the large scale degradation of the environment".
ABSTRACT:
This paper utilises Indigenous knowledges to explore the relationship between the city and the natural world. While Indigenous peoples of the earth are widely recognised as sentinels for the Anthropocene, that is, that the initial impact of the future has reached those marginalised peoples who define their main task as protecting the Earth and the species from extinction, city-dwelling peoples are experiencing extreme Anthropogenic impacts. It happens that Indigenous peoples are uniquely fitted to become defenders of the natural world because of a close cultural and intimate personal connection that has their very identity tied to " country ". In this connection, I draw on the work of Wanta Janpijimpa Patrick and Dr Joseph Gumbula amongst other Aboriginal cultural theorists who understand that " country " shapes us, grows us and ensures wellbeing. Moreover, Indigenous precepts such as that of the Wiradjuri people of NSW - yindyamarra – the capacity to live well in a world worth living in – that embody the responsibility of peoples to shape their environment to make it habitable, productive of wellbeing and sustainable – have potential for wide application. Several stays in Harlem, New York City over the past year reveal the stark impact of the future on the urban poor of New York, most of whom are the product of generations of city living and are immigrant populations of African American, (originally from the South) and Hispanic peoples (from Central America and Mexico). On the surface, these people seem to retain very little contact with or concern about the natural world. This has led me to think about the possible future for such peoples – how will they survive the ending of worlds without the wisdom and direction provided by a culture whose basis is intrinsically within the natural world? Moreover, this raises questions about how Indigenous peoples who live in cities (Australia's Indigenous populations are highly urbanised for example) navigate the city terrain in a quest for wellbeing that arguably derives from connectedness to a " natural " environment. The concept of " nature " and how this fits within world views and lifestyles of Indigenous and immigrant peoples promises to allow the teasing out of Anthropogenic impacts and drivers that are inherent in the lives of the urban poor in the west. Cities now house half the world's population and are the key sites for the production and consumption of commodities and transformative technologies that are associated with the Anthropocene. This paper includes a discussion about the nature of cities – can cities be seen as " natural " developments out of the activity of man, who is after all of the natural world, thus demonstrating that cities are not anathema to nature but in reality another product of it, and also importantly, creating a human niche for the Anthropocene?
About the Speaker: Professor Sabine Lee is Professor of Modern History at the University of Birmingham. She has published widely on 20th century history, history of science and on war and conflict with focus on gender-based violence and children born of war. She led on the UK Arts and Humanities Council-funded network on children born of war (2011-2014) and currently co-ordinates a European-wide EU-funded doctoral training network Children Born of War.
Respondent Dr Victoria Grieves is the lead investigator on the Australia Research Council Discovery Indigenous grant Children Born of War: Australia and the War in the Pacific 1941 – 1945. She is Warraimay from the mid north coast of NSW and has published in Australian Aboriginal history, particularly on the history of the Aboriginal family, in Indigenous Knowledges production in Australia and forthcoming in environmental humanities.
This paper seeks to critically analyse the disadvantage of Aboriginal Australians by utilising concepts developed by international theorists, particuarly Georgio Agamben and Achille Mbembe. It argues that the Australian situation should no longer be treated as an “exception” but be cast into the light of global events and global critical analysis in order to more fully understand the complexity of the context in which Aboriginal people seek to have justice and rights.
In fact, the evidence exists for the Aboriginal people to be seen as existing in a “state of exception” to the modern Australian settler colonial democracy. This paper sets out the case for this by presenting the evidence from the conception fo the NTER and the ways in which it has played out over time.
will bring together over thirty spiritual leaders, visionaries, and activists from every continental region of the globe with thousands of concerned individuals to:
CONFRONT THE EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZING MODERNITY,
CELEBRATE THE RICHNESS, WISDOM, AND BEAUTY OF HUMANITY’S DIVERSE CULTURES,
DIALOGUE ABOUT NEW SOLUTIONS AND CREATIVE WAYS TO REALIZE A LIVING GLOBAL WHOLE.
This short article was published in the Charles Town International Maroon Conference Magazine - see a separate entry on this page for the link to this online magazine - for citation - or to read other very engaging articles
This edition contains articles by Taino, Caribbean, Jamaican and Australian Aboriginal writers.
The project also involved visits to a range of settings where Aboriginal children were transitioning into school that were recommended as best practice by the state and territory based education departments. These are written up as case studies within the report.
The symposium and planned workshop will bring together Indigenous educators and intellectuals from Latin America to Sydney to meet with interested Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators, scholars and activists, as well as non-Indigenous practitioners and allies, to discuss different models and approaches of Indigenous KnowledgeS and Education in the tertiary sector and beyond.
This project aims at helping educators and researchers in the Higher Education sector of Australia and Latin America to identify opportunities for integrating in their research and teaching and learning relevant aspects of Indigenous Knowledges in the areas of culture, education and sustainability.
Apart from the symposium itself, academic publications, public lectures by distinguished visitors and the creation of a website, the project will stimulate debate on Indigenous Knowledge and film production in Latin America and Australia by hosting a documentary screening on the topic. The selection of documentaries will be done in collaboration with the Sydney Latin American Film Festival, and this event will be targeted to the student population and the wider community.
Accompanying these developments is a significant paradigm shift in teaching and research. The affirmative action approaches originating in the 1980s that saw the development of segregated ‘enclaves’ and the teaching of Aboriginal perspectives to the existing curriculums are now under challenge. Success in the participation and graduation of Indigenous students occurs in contexts where the responsibility is taken on by the whole university. This occurs in part by the embedding of Indigenous Knowledges across the curriculum, recently underlined in the recommendations of the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education, as follows:
Indigenous knowledge
Higher Education providers should ensure that the institutional culture, the cultural competence of staff and the nature of the curriculum recognises and supports the participation of Indigenous students. (Chapter 3.2)
Indigenous knowledge should be embedded into the curriculum to ensure that all students have an understanding of Indigenous culture. (Chapter 3.2)
Further to this, there are expanding opportunities for Indigenous academics in research. The Australian Research Commission (ARC) for example, has allocated significant financial support for the development of an Indigenous research base through Discovery Indigenous Research Development Grants (IRDS) and has also increased their commitment by the development of the Australian Research Fellowship Indigenous (ARF Indigenous) for funding in 2010. (For further information click here).
Taken together this momentum indicates significant change that can possibly be taken on by all academics in established disciplines in Australia. They, and their disciplinary base, will be challenged by the priority of social justice for dispossessed Indigenous people and the ways of working, teaching and research methodologies, ethics and protocols that arise from this consideration. Academics are increasingly being asked to consider Indigenous knowledges approaches as an integral, daily part of their working lives. While many individual scholars are now understanding the philosophical basis for the complexity of Aboriginal epistemologies, uncertainty about ways of moving forward and the comfort of established ways of dealing with Aboriginal issues remains. This symposium is designed to identify the major issues these new developments will raise for academics and the disciplines and to move toward ways of addressing them.
This project aims at helping educators and researchers in the Higher Education sector of Australia and Latin America to identify opportunities for integrating in their research and teaching and learning relevant aspects of Indigenous Knowledges in the areas of culture, education and sustainability.
Apart from the symposium itself, academic publications, public lectures by distinguished visitors and the creation of a website, the project will stimulate debate on Indigenous Knowledge and film production in Latin America and Australia by hosting a documentary screening on the topic. The selection of documentaries will be done in collaboration with the Sydney Latin American Film Festival, and this event will be targeted to the student population and the wider community.
This is the welcome to the conference Activism @theMargins in Melbourne in February 2020. Olivia Guntarik and Victoria Grieve Williams set the parameters of the conference discussion to follow.