Bruce Pascoe and the Power of Truth-telling

Bruce Pascoe, author of Dark Emu, is popularly recognised as Australia’s most influential indigenous historian and responsible for challenging and revising established accounts of pre-colonial history that depicted Aboriginal people as ‘nothing more than spear-throwing nomads.’ Bruce joins the podcast at the Byron Writers Festival to talk about the ignored and suppressed history of Aborigines cultivating crops, building large villages and creating sophisticated dams and aquaculture systems. He explores with Dom and Sue the power and racism that has controlled the national story and how the Church can move from being part of the problem to part of the solution. This conversation covers some of the history of Aboriginal society as well as exploring the spirituality of truth-telling and the hard and vital work that needs to be done in decolonisation. Bruce Pascoe is an award-winning writer and a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man. He is a board member of First Languages Australia and Professor of Indigenous Knowledge at the University of Technology Sydney. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.