Introduction

By Deborah Rose

© all rights reserved. AHR is published in PDF and Print-on-Demand format by ANU E Press


The mind-matter binary, itself a variant on the culture-nature binary, is increasingly understood to be an obstacle to meeting the challenges of the coming catastrophes triggered by global warming and related anthropogenic events. To step outside the binary is to enter a convivial world where a multiplicity of sentient beings interact. Jessica K. Weir invites us into dialogue with the Aboriginal people whose home country is within the Murray River catchment, and to consider the ecocide that is taking place in their country as they witness the death of their life-giving companion, the River Murray. Jinki Trevillian invites us to consider that an engagement with place must forever remain incomplete if it rules out the presence of beings who live outside of rationalist modernity. She tells stories that take us into dialogue with some of the Aboriginal people, and the crocodiles, history, and ghosts of Cape York. Both articles impress upon us the importance of connectivity as a way of being in the world that focuses on place and time in the mode of relationships, flows, and potentials.

Along with these two articles, we are delighted to publish Mary Graham‘s classic essay ‘Some Thoughts about the Philosophical Underpinnings of Aboriginal World Views’. Ms Graham is herself an Indigenous philosopher; her essay speaks elegantly to the challenges of becoming human within multi-species communities. In explaining two fundamental and foundational laws of life on Earth, she invites readers into a worldview of conviviality and connectivity.

If you would like to contribute to this discussion, please email [email protected]