Telling our stories in ways that make us stronger by Aunty Barbara Wingard, read by Jean McMahon

With Indigenous communities facing so many losses due to past and present injustice, we have been seeking ways of speaking about our grief that are consistent with our cultural ways of doing things. We are remembering those who have died, we are honouring Indigenous spiritual ways, and we are finding ways of grieving that bring us together. We are telling our stories in ways that make us stronger. This is an audio recording of a paper that was originally delivered as the opening keynote address at the first International Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference, which was held in Adelaide from 17 to 19 February 1999. A later version of this paper was published as “Grief: Remember, reflect, reveal” in the 2001 book Telling Our Stories in Ways that Make Us Stronger (edited by Barbara Wingard and Jane Lester).