Highly awarded Indigenous writer Professor Tony Birch will continue the legacy of Aboriginal rights campaigners Charles and Phyllis Duguid at the 13th biennial Duguid Memorial Lecture, sharing his perspective on the role of Indigenous people in climate change response.
A novelist and poet, Professor Birch is the author of Ghost River which won the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing, Blood, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, and several other novels and short story collections. In 2017, he became the first Indigenous writer to win the Patrick White Award for his ongoing contribution to Australian literature.
His lecture, titled ‘On What Terms Can We Speak? Ethics, Connectivity and Climate Justice’ explores the role of Indigenous people as communities significantly impacted by climate change, and custodians of knowledge skilled to help others working towards the protection of country.
Professor Birch will talk about the role of relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in addressing climate change, and introduce ‘the politics of refusal’, including the questions and issues it evokes.
His lecture will include a discussion on how the relationships of Indigenous communities with fossil fuel miners places them in an important role – with often difficult choices between their perspectives on protection of the planet, or material benefits for their communities.
Hosted every two years alternately by the University of South Australia and Flinders University, the Duguid lectures celebrate the efforts of Dr Charles Duguid OBE and Mrs Phyllis Duguid OAM, who tirelessly campaigned for Aboriginal rights from the 1930s to the 1980s.
The initiative commenced in 1994, when the Aborigines Advancement League made a substantial gift to the University of South Australia and Flinders to provide study grants for Aboriginal graduates and conduct a memorial lecture every two years.
The 2018 event marks a quarter of a century collaboration between the two institutions in this valuable initiative to further relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities and make inroads into Indigenous equality.
Event details
When: Monday, 12 November 2018, 6:00 – 8:00pm
Where: Flinders University Victoria Square
RSVP: Register for this free event via the Flinders University events page