The relational language of first nations cultural sensibilities, principles and storytelling ethics as an intercultural approach to script development

Abstract

In this chapter, script development practices converge with the principles, ethics and improvisational qualities of First Nations storytelling in Australia, to both amplify and communicate the cultural materialising and sensibilities of relational identity, truth and integrity. No longer a Wandering Spirit-Imaginaries of Bessy Flowers (2016) situates within its social palpability, a politics of agency fundamental to the movement of story between generations, and through time, by First Nations storytellers. Also mobilised are assemblages of attitudes, reconciliations and shared experiences produced by relational collaborations and approaches to script development that respect diverse expressions of identity and place-based learning. The composition of relational recognition, and understandings of ethics and protocols, such as those achieved through shared time on country, energetic dialogue and knowledge exchange, is an emergent discourse within this chapter about how intercultural script development can allow First Nations storytellers to lead the scripting of personal and family stories, in ways that they choose to do so. Show more