| Summary: | © 2024 Emily Jane Munro-Harrison Constructs of Indigeneity have been the locus of settler colonial interest and control since colonisation in Australia. Through historical policies of displacement, and contemporary normative processes that question the authenticity and belonging of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, urban places continue to be sites of erasure and non-belonging. However, cities will always be Aboriginal land, and places of cultural resurgence, renewal and regeneration. Internationally, a growing body of literature investigates experiences of First Nations young people in urban places, but in Australia this is lacking. This thesis explores how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young urban people in Narrm (Melbourne) practise and connect to their Indigeneity, as they come into relation with place, community, and their engagement with institutional regimes. This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by articulating how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in Narrm engage in processes of re-storying place, cultural resurgence and presencing as assertions of belonging, and enacting responsibilities of relationality in generating desire-based futures. Indigenous women’s standpoint theory, and a desire-based framework guide the methodological approach. Yarning methodology was used to develop partnerships with collaborating organisations, to guide the direction and methods of engagement with participants. Theories of relationality, youth refusal, resistance, counterstory, and cultural resurgence are used to understand the key formulations of Indigeneity for young people. To investigate the research question, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people (aged 16-30) living in Narrm were engaged across four sites. These sites included – an Aboriginal youth drop-in program; an arts mentoring program; a cultural support program for incarcerated First Nations men staffed by First Nations and non-Indigenous volunteers; and an Indigenous student centre at a ...
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