Ice dreaming : reading whiteness in Kim Scott's 'Benang: from the heart'

Abstract

Through a close reading of Kim Scott's Benang: from the heart, this thesis interrogates what whiteness in an Australian colonial context looks like from an Aboriginal perspective. Its central proposition is that Scott's narrator, Harley, discovers whiteness as a consequence of discovering his Aboriginality. It suggests whiteness is imbued with a power that arises through its invisibility and its ability to racialise and circumscribe non-white others. When this process is reversed, and whiteness is made visible, its power is diminished. Harley (re)places whiteness into an Aboriginal paradigm from within which he imagines a syncretic future for Australia.