Silence and resistance: Aboriginal women working within and against the archive

Representation of Aboriginal women in colonial archives has long been linked to strategies of silencing and erasure. These representations still bear considerable weight over the ways in which Aboriginal womanhood is perceived and permitted in Australian society. This essay explores a history of Aboriginal women self-presentating both within and in direct response to colonial archives, and the modes of cultural translation which function to hold archival representations accountable to the realities of Aboriginal womanhood.