Trauma Trails, Recreating Song Lines: The Transgenerational Effects of Trauma in Indigenous Australia
by Judy Atkinson
2002 · Spinifex Press · 324 pages
Providing a startling answer to the questions of how to solve the problems of generational trauma, Trauma Trails moves beyond the rhetoric of victimhood, and provides inspiration for anyone concerned about Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities today. Beginning with issues of colonial dispossession, Judy Atkinson also sensitively deals with trauma caused by abuse, alcoholism and drug dependency.
Then, through the use of a culturally appropriate research approach called Dadirri: listening to one another, Judy Atkinson presents and analyses the stories of a number of Indigenous people. From her analysis of these “stories of pain, stories of healing”, she is able to point both Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers in the direction of change and healing.
“I was running a workshop in the Kimberleys, and in the circle a woman began to speak from a place of deep pain and despair. She described herself as bad, dirty, ugly, words she had taken into herself from childhood experiences of abuse. I lent forward and sang her a song. ‘How could anyone ever tell you, you are anything less than beautiful…’ While sitting with her, as the words settled into her soul, another woman said to the circle: ‘You are recreating song lines—from trauma trails.’ I was honoured by this description of my work.” [Text Source: Spinifex Press]
“As the Elders asked for help to make sense of this senselessness, I felt in them the essence of their own felt powerlessness: ‘Nobody listens to us.’”
Emeritus Professor Judy Atkinson retired from formal academic work at the end of 2010. She researched and co-authored the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence Report for the Queensland government. In 2006 she won the Carrick Neville Bonner Award for her curriculum development and innovative teaching practice. In 2011 she received the Fritz Redlich Award for Human Rights and Mental Health, from the Harvard University Global Mental Health Trauma and Recovery program, of which she is a graduate.
A long-term Patron of the We Al-li Trust, she works across Australia and in Papua New Guinea. She worked with the University of Wollongong in the development of specialised postgraduate programs such as the Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Trauma Care and Recovery Practice designed specifically to build an Indigenous trauma-skilled workforce. [Text Source: TEDx Sydney]
