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South Korean writer Han Kang has won the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature, “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. The 53-year-old is the first South Korean writer to win the prize, and only the 18th woman (of 121 winners to date). She is also a musician, and interested in visual art.

Her best known novel, The Vegetarian (published in Korea in 2007), was her first to be translated into English, in 2015. It won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, with the prize split between Han Kang and her translator, Deborah Smith.

At the time, Smith’s translation sparked fervid debates about its accuracy. But this is the beauty of literary translation as an act of creation: it’s an imaginative exercise, not a literal one, and Han Kang has stood by her translator.

Han Kang has published six works in English so far. The Vegetarian was her international breakout. Then there was Human Acts, The White Book, Europa and Greek Lessons. The short work Convalescence was published in a bilingual edition in 2013.

Her latest novel We Do Not Part, about a writer researching the 1948-49 Jeju uprising (against the Cold War division of the Korean peninsula) and its impact on the family of her friend will be published in 2025.

Han Kang and translator Deborah Smith were joint winners of the Man Booker International Prize in 2016.
Hannah McKay/AAP

Taking up space in the world

A macabre tale of daily brutality, The Vegetarian is a novel in three acts, and follows the choice of a “completely unremarkable” woman to give up meat, triggering a spiral of unprecedented abuse from family members. While they claim to be thinking of her health, actually they oppose her non-conformism. Eventually, considering herself to be a plant, she refuses any nourishment apart from water and the sun’s rays.

The Nobel committee praised Han’s “physical empathy for the vulnerable, often female lives” of her characters.

Greek Lessons is narrated by a woman who has lost her mother, her son (to the custody of his father) and is losing her ability to speak, and a man who is losing his connection to place and family, and his eyesight. The man teaches ancient Greek; the woman becomes his student.

Like much of Han Kang’s other work, Greek Lessons explores, through evocative and laconic prose, the fragile and unstable space between what can be expressed and shared, and what remains incommunicable, beyond the possibility of words. It shows the power of the human search for connection: even among, or perhaps because of, grief and loss.

Reviewing Greek Lessons, The Guardian concluded: “thank goodness Han Kang’s literary voice takes up space in the world in the way her female characters struggle to”.

Four of Han Kang’s novels have been translated into English so far, with another coming in 2025.
Kin Cheung/AAP

The autobiographical The White Book – dazzling, touching, and at times mystical – was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2018. It is an art book, an extended poem and a graphically white book about all things white.

The book begins laconically: “In the spring, when I decided to write about white things, the first thing I did was to make a list”.

Swaddling bandsNewborn gownSaltSnowIceMoonRiceWavesYulanWhite bird“Laughing whitely”Blank paperWhite dogWhite hairShroud

From this list of objects unfolds the autobiographical story of the loss of a newborn sister (who died after just two hours in the world), years before the author’s birth. There is a chorus of voices, but at times the writer herself implores and questions the sister she has never met.

Han Kang composes this meditative, transcendental book while on a writers’ residency in Warsaw. The white of the snow mixes with the white of memory.

Writing becomes a purifying act: reconstructing her sister’s death means starting to live. The resulting reflections follow the rhythm of prayer, perhaps a secular, yet deeply human prayer. The only way to mourn, and at the same time continue to live ethically, is the flash of memory, in its endless fragments.

A nation’s mourning

In Human Acts, this autobiographical mourning becomes the mourning of an entire nation.

Human Acts narrates the massacre in Gwangju, Kang’s birthplace of May 1980, when hundreds, perhaps thousands, of citizens and university students, protesting against the authoritarian regime of South Korea’s “most vilified” military dictator, Chun Doo-Hwan, were murdered by the army.

Paradoxically, precisely in the midst of these brutal acts what is most valuable emerges: solidarity, dignity, the strength to continue – and above all, the great responsibility of surviving and remembering.

“My novels explore human suffering,” Han Kang once said. When she wrote about the Gwangju massacre, she was “aware that readers should, in turn, be prepared […] to experience such suffering firsthand themselves”.

The ethical scope of the novel counteracts the collective amnesia imposed by censorship. It makes room for a chorale – a sacred song – in which the living are confused with the dead, the present with the past, memory with censorship, the word with the ineffability of a violence that is supposedly inhuman. Could surviving perhaps be a form of silent consent?

But as in The White Book, the silence crumbles in the writing, becoming too loud to bear. The role of the writer is to continue to create, remember, communicate even the incommunicable, despite it all. Even in shreds. Even silence. Even when humanity seems to fail us.

For this – and much more – Han Kang richly deserves this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. Läs mer…

The Supreme Court of Canada will soon hear a case, R v. Kloubakov, in which two men charged with financially benefiting from sex work are claiming the charges violate their Charter rights.

The accused worked as drivers for sex workers in Calgary. A court in Alberta found them guilty of benefiting financially from prostitution and being parties to procuring women into the sex trade. They argue that Canada’s sex work laws criminalize people who work with sex workers in non-exploitative situations, and are therefore unconstitutional.

While the appellants in this case are not sex workers themselves, the outcome greatly impacts sex workers and their rights because it could, among other things, undermine their security and ability to put in place safety measures. Migrants arrested under these laws also face the prospect of loss of status, detention and deportation.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has chosen to exclude a national coalition of 23 sex worker organizations, the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform (CASWLR), and two organizations that work with migrant sex workers (the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.

The court has concluded their views are irrelevant to the case at hand. This exclusion rehearses Canada’s longer history of excluding those connected with sex work based on race, gender and immigration status.

Canada’s sex work law

This case centres on the procurement and material benefits provisions in Canada’s criminal code. They are part of the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), which was passed in 2014 after the Supreme Court struck down previous provisions targeting sex work.

PCEPA criminalizes “everyone who procures a person to offer or provide sexual services” and anyone “who receives a financial or other material benefit” from sex work, with certain exceptions.

The law assumes that sex workers are victims and ignores their agency and labour. While being a sex worker is not directly made an offence, the law criminalizes the purchase of sexual services and thus renders illegal all commercial transactions for sex. Activists have argued that doing so has driven sex work further underground. Sex workers, and those wishing to purchase sexual services, must avoid police for fear of detection, apprehension and in the case of migrant women, deportation.

The Supreme Court of Canada building in Ottawa. In November 2024, the Court will hear the case of R v. Kloubakov.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Going underground means sex workers are at amplified risk of exploitation and physical harm because they have reduced bargaining power and cannot use safety measures, such as hiring third parties or implementing certain vetting and safety protocols in the spaces they would like to use, for fear of attracting the attention of police.

CASWLR argues that the law’s criminalization of sex workers and third parties replicates and even exacerbates the harms of the former laws that the Court found violated sex workers’ Charter rights to security of the person.

As a sex worker-led umbrella organization, CASWLR members have lived expertise and intimate knowledge of how these laws still harm sex workers in ways that can crucially inform the question of whether the laws are constitutional.

Migrant sex workers

Aside from direct criminalization, migrant sex workers may face additional and distinct consequences under immigration laws if they are charged, convicted or merely under criminal investigation. Migrant sex workers could lose their status in Canada, be detained and deported and be barred from re-entering the country. Further, it is not just sex workers themselves who are affected. Migrant third parties and their family members’ immigration status and future could be imperilled as well.

These potential consequences may drive migrant sex workers to do their work in unsafe conditions to avoid detection by police and immigration enforcement. Sex workers are effectively forced into these precarious conditions because of the existing laws.

In our view, loss of immigration status and deportation for engaging in non-exploitative, consensual activity are consequences of the current law that are not justified under the Charter because of the risks of violence and other harms that arise from avoiding detection.

The Court, however, has decided it will not be considering this aspect at all and has excluded the only two organizations that work with migrant sex workers. The Court did grant intervener status to some organizations who will do a reasonable job in detailing some of the harms of the laws. However, none are sex worker-led and none represent migrant sex workers who may experience additional harms.

The Supreme Court denied intervener status to these organizations because they perceived their interventions as providing new information that would unduly expand the case. Denying standing to these organizations, however, has the ultimate effect of not hearing from those directly impacted by the laws being examined.

Courts are meant to consider the wider implications of how laws are interpreted, implemented and the potential ways they affect others. This is particularly important in constitutional challenges where it is both foreseeable and expected that legal decisions will have widely ranging effects on multiple groups.

Sex workers and their supporters gather outside the Ontario Superior Court during the launch of their constitutional challenge to Canada’s sex work laws on Oct. 3, 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin

History of migrant exclusion

Unfortunately, this exclusion is tied to the history of discrimination and stigmatization of Asian migrant sex workers, ostensibly for their own protection. Though many Canadians may have heard of Canada’s law that restricted Chinese immigration, including the infamous Head Tax, many may not know that it explicitly barred “any Chinese woman who is known to be a prostitute.”

This law took influence from the very first immigration ban in the United States, the 1875 Page Act. This law barred the immigration of women from “any Oriental country” if they were “imported for the purposes of prostitution.” The exclusion and policing of Asian sex workers was justified by ideas of carceral humanitarianism, which proposes that exclusion and policing are a necessary way of protecting people from being trafficked.

These so-called safety measures did not achieve either goal — in the past or present. Migrant sex workers who are directly targeted and harmed by the law were never directly asked what they desired or whether they needed saving.

We see these long-standing patterns at work again today with the Supreme Court’s exclusion of migrant sex workers (and other sex workers) in R v. Kloubakov. The court is demonstrating that it has clearly not learned from history.

When courts deny those most impacted by the law a hearing, they do not take into account all of the considerations they should. Cases can take years to reach the Supreme Court. When courts do take up the task to review law, it should welcome those directly affected by it, particularly when there are groups that have been traditionally marginalized from political and legal power.

For courts to be effective, they must hear from those who can best explain how their rights are violated and excluded from the discussion. Trust in our justice system and our laws are diminished when those directly harmed by it have no say and no recourse. Läs mer…

This article is from our race-related newsletter, a weekly curation of stories examining how systemic racism permeates our society. Sign up for the newsletter here.

It’s not often that events far away impact us so profoundly at home. But events in Palestine and Israel, which have been reverberating in the Global North for decades, crescendoed over the past year, directly impacting millions of people in the region and also those of us who feel deeply committed to the transnational issues the conflict raises.

Away, in Israel, 80,000 people remain displaced from their homes and lives continue to be gutted after the horrific attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which led to over 1,200 people killed and 250 taken captive. Across the border, more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed, primarily by Israeli forces, and another two million have been displaced, many of whom are facing catastrophic famine conditions.

Here in Ontario, before the start of this war, the Ford government had connected criticism of Israel to antisemitism and turned that concept into law through an executive decree. That same definition was picked up by institutions across Canada.

That decree has ramifications for news media as well as university scholars across the country. This spring, students on Canadian campuses turned Canadian universities into massive hubs of debate as they protested the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

In late September, those debates continued at the grade-school-level when teachers in Toronto were prevented from taking students on any field trips for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a federally mandated day of memorialization. That school board decision was based on concerns that students may be exposed to rhetoric supporting Palestine. At an earlier demonstration about Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows) First Nation, some demonstrators chanted a slogan connecting Indigenous Peoples dispossessed of their land here to those in Palestine, also dispossessed of their land.

Recently, two Canadian scholars discussed some of those connections: how famine historically was used to control Indigenous communities in Canada, and continues to be a weapon of war against Palestinians today.

When I was in grade school, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were classified as terrorists. Although I remember somehow being able to attend a school-sponsored talk by a former ANC member who spoke about the 1976 Soweto uprising. I trace part of my politicization back to that day.

Teachers who introduce their students to issues like Grassy Narrows are aware of the lasting impression first-person narratives can make.

This week, we put together eight episodes from Don’t Call Me Resilient from the last year in which you will hear directly from scholars with deep knowledge of the regions and the issues at play. The playlist starts with: “Why the Israel-Gaza conflict is so hard to talk about,” with other episodes digging into themes of starvation, news media, student protests and asylum seekers.

Because it’s the long weekend, I’ll also point you to a music playlist we made, with suggestions from our podcast guests over the years. I’m inviting all of you to write in with song suggestions to add to it. We will try to get at least some of them up there this long weekend.

Just drop us an email with your suggestion at: dcmr@theconversation.com Läs mer…

How hot is it going to get?

This is one of the most important and difficult remaining questions about our changing climate. The answer depends not only on how sensitive our climate is to greenhouse gases, but also on how much carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases we as a civilization choose to emit over coming decades.

In order to help think more clearly about this question, we asked authors who have contributed to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to share their best guesses about where the world is headed.

The results of our recently published study show that most of the responding climate experts believe our planet will likely exceed the 1.5 C and “well-below 2 C” warming targets agreed upon by the international community.

In fact, the median estimate was 2.7 C by 2100, which is roughly what is expected if the world’s nations fail to implement new policies consistent with their targets and pledges, and instead only maintained existing levels of action.

Read more:
How mainstream climate science endorsed the fantasy of a global warming time machine

To put it plainly, this could be a catastrophic outcome for humanity. We’ve already seen devastating consequences like more flooding, hotter heatwaves and larger wildfires, and we’re only at 1.3 C above preindustrial levels — less than halfway to 2.7 C.

But not all authors think alike and to help shed further light on the IPCC report process, and any differences of opinion between authors, we conducted a survey over email with 211 authors of past reports providing responses. Our participants represented all IPCC working groups, and every inhabited continent.

The data they shared provides a fascinating glimpse into the dynamics of modern climate science.

Wide ranging beliefs

Our survey shows that authors shared a wide range of estimates as to likely climate outcomes.

A small number of surveyed experts believe that staying below 2 C is still likely, while others believed that we are on track for even more horrendous levels of climate warming at above 3 C. Approximately 86 per cent of participants estimated warming of more than 2 C by or before the year 2100.

Independent estimates of the temperature range that is expected to occur as a result of national policies that are currently in place (‘current policies’), or the successful achievement of national pledges and emissions targets (‘pledges and targets’).
(Seth Wynes), Author provided (no reuse)

When we planned the study, we wondered whether IPCC authors who worked on climate solutions would be more optimistic than those who worked on climate vulnerability and adaptation. One reason for this is that experts who work on solutions might be more aware of recent research indicating that worst-case climate outcomes are becoming less likely. But we only found weak evidence for this hypothesis.

In some ways this is a good sign, as it suggests that researchers are not working in isolated silos, each holding their own beliefs.

Mixed perceptions

A unique feature of the study is that we also asked IPCC authors what they thought others in the survey would answer in response to the same questions. We were interested to know the extent to which experts in this field believed that other experts shared similar beliefs to their own. Perceptions of peer beliefs are important because they can strongly influence a person’s own beliefs and behaviour.

IPCC authors may be overconfident in how well their own beliefs reflect those of the broader science community.
(Seth Wynes), Author provided (no reuse)

Participants in our study believed very strongly that their peers’ views on expected future warming were in line with their own beliefs. Even those who expected very high or very low amounts of future warming incorrectly believed that their peers would have similar estimates.

This is not particularly surprising. In many domains, people tend to estimate the beliefs of their peers by examining their own beliefs, and then adjusting up or down, but often insufficiently. Researchers call this a false-consensus effect and we found that this effect was very prominent in our results.

Because IPCC authors are trusted public figures who are often asked to share their thoughts with decision-makers and the media, this finding could be problematic if an author confidently believes that their expectations are also widely shared by their peers.

Interdisciplinary benefits

We see our study as an opportunity for experts to better understand the range of beliefs held by their own community, so they can communicate with more nuance and awareness as to whether their personal beliefs are part of a larger consensus or not.

Read more:
Eco-anxiety Q&A: how the IPCC’s vice-chair keeps her head cool on a warming planet

Climate experts are not oracles. And even though a “wisdom of the crowd” average is often more accurate than a single expert, forecasting decades into the future is extremely difficult.

The balance of evidence from this study reaffirms a message that climate scientists have been repeating for a long time: current efforts to tackle climate change are insufficient and more progress is needed quickly. Läs mer…

The world is facing multiple — potentially catastrophic — crises, including inequality, poverty, food insecurity, climate change and biodiversity loss. These issues are interconnected and require systemic solutions, as changes in one system affects others.

However, human systems have largely failed to acknowledge their connection to ecological systems. Most modern societies have dominating and exploitative relationships with nature, which are underpinned by imperialist and dualistic thinking that divides living beings into racial, gender, class or species hierarchies.

Our current mindset, with its focus on competition, growth and profit, has been a key contributor to social and ecological crises. Even more alarming is that this mindset has depleted nature to the point that it may soon fail to sustain human and non-human lives entirely.

Sustainable and equitable well-being

Policies for future survival and prosperity must address the interconnected crises affecting the world today. These challenges are pushing social and economic systems beyond their sustainable limits.

While current sustainability efforts, such as those outlined in Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity — a collaboration between scientists and economists from around the world — and the United Nations’ Pact for the Future offer pathways for action, they often fall short. These initiatives, though well-intentioned, remain rooted in a business-as-usual approach.

Read more:
Have we reached the end of nature? Our relationship with the environment is in crisis

This isn’t enough. What’s needed is a transformative shift in how we interact with the natural world. A reciprocal relationship between humans and nature, where humans give back to the environment as much as we take, is essential. Sustainable and equitable well-being must be placed at the centre of human societies.

Central to this transformation is the need to ensure good lives for all while staying within the Earth’s planetary boundaries. These boundaries are the limits within which humanity can safely operate without causing irreversible environmental harm. This will require a new economic mindset that enables people to live with nature, instead of destroying it.

Change is daunting, but possible

Though the scale of change needed may seem daunting, it’s achievable and already in motion in some places. In many communities around the world, like Puget Sound on the northwestern coast of Washington state, people are already living in ways that allow humans and ecosystems to flourish.

In other regions, like Ecuador and Sumas First Nation, new possibilities are emerging for building human societies that operate within the planetary boundaries. Humans are exceptionally adaptable and have the advantage of foresight and the ability to transform entire systems through ethical collaboration.

The Biosphere, a museum dedicated to the environment, in Montréal in October 2022.
(Shutterstock)

Individual action is one necessary element to accelerate this shift. Change often starts small, with individuals and small groups adjusting their lives. But while personal choices do matter, individuals must also push for systemic changes in their communities, organizations, and broader society.

To make nature-connected living more widely accessible, collaborative, equitable and intentional efforts are needed. This involves intercultural communication, collaboration and open dialogue to ensure diverse perspectives are considered in decision-making processes.

Thoughtfully considering the direct and indirect impacts of our action, including the immediate and long-term consequences of any decisions, will create more equitable and sustainable systems.

People looking to create meaningful change should seek to support a range of groups and organizations dedicated to environmental and social justice. This includes Indigenous leaders and treaty protocols, local authorities, environmental advocacy groups, community organizations or labour unions. A good example of this is the work being done by the UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserves.

Alternative ways of knowing

The problems facing the world today are vast and multifaceted, and need to be addressed in multiple ways. Both formal knowledge, like scientific research, and informal knowledge, through the Two-Eyed Seeing principle have roles to play in fostering more equitable nature-human relationships.

Although western scientific knowledge is often centred in evidence based discussion, many valuable solutions stem from alternative ways of knowing, such as Indigenous ecological knowledge. By welcoming and supporting diverse knowledge holders in creating solutions, we can expand the range of approaches, successes and failures from which humanity can learn.

Creativity — the essence of adaptability — flourishes when different knowledge systems are woven together. However, this must be done ethically and involve consensual and collaborative exchanges to ensure no knowledge system is exploited or undervalued. We must be careful to avoid repeating the mistakes of imperialism and domination that have created our current planetary crises.

People enjoy an evening at Edwards Gardens Park in Toronto on Sept. 3, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paige Taylor White

In addition to rethinking how we approach knowledge, rebuilding strong, interconnected relationships between humans and nature also means rethinking our technological systems.

Technological innovation has been used to exploit the Earth for short-term gains, but it also holds great potential for positive change. It can either maintain or disrupt the status quo, depending on how we use it.

To build healthier relationships between people and nature, human societies need to adopt a systems thinking approach. This approach looks at the bigger picture, considering the ecological, cultural, political and social aspects of technology in an integrated manner. It ensures that innovation is guided by principles of sustainability and equity.

What the future holds

The future will bring massive changes to Earth’s natural environments, accompanied by shocks to political economic and social systems. The survival of human and non-human beings depends on our ability to plan for these challenges.

Climate change, biodiversity loss and resource depletion are not isolated problems — they are part of an interconnected web of crises that demand urgent and comprehensive action.

Incremental approaches are not enough to address the scale of these looming threats. Purposefully co-ordinated actions are needed to shift the current trajectory away from exploitation to one of mutual benefit for humans and the natural world.

What is needed is radical transformation aimed at creating just and flourishing relationships between nature and humanity for the benefit of all current and future life on Earth.

Christie Manning, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Macalester College; Jacqueline Corbett, Professor of Information Systems, Université Laval; and Simone Bignall, Senior Researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, co-authored this article. Läs mer…

As Hurricane Milton roared ashore near Sarasota, Florida, tens of thousands of people were in evacuation shelters. Hundreds of thousands more had fled coastal regions ahead of the storm, crowding highways headed north and south as their counties issued evacuation orders.

But not everyone left, despite dire warnings about a hurricane that had been one of the strongest on record two days earlier.

As Milton’s rain and storm surge flooded neighborhoods late on Oct. 9, 2024, 911 calls poured in. In Tampa’s Hillsborough County, more than 500 people had to be rescued, including a dozen people trapped in a flooding home after a tree crashed though the roof at the height of the storm.

In Plant City, 20 miles inland from Tampa, at least 35 people had been rescued by dawn, City Manager Bill McDaniel said. While the storm wasn’t as extreme as feared, McDaniel said his city had flooded in places and to levels he had never seen. Traffic signals were out. Power lines and trees were down. The sewage plant had been inundated, affecting the public water supply.

Rescuers help people get out of a flooded apartment complex in Clearwater, Fla., on Oct. 10, 2024, in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.
AP Photo/Mike Stewart

Evacuating might seem like the obvious move when a major hurricane is bearing down on your region, but that choice is not always as easy as it may seem.

Evacuating from a hurricane requires money, planning, the ability to leave and, importantly, a belief that evacuating is better than staying put.

I recently examined years of research on what motivates people to leave or seek shelter during hurricanes as part of a project with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Natural Hazards Center. I found three main reasons that people didn’t leave.

Evacuating can be expensive

Evacuating requires transportation, money, a place to stay, the ability to take off work days ahead of a storm and other resources that many people do not have.

With 1 in 9 Americans facing poverty today, many have limited evacuation options. During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example, many residents did not own vehicles and couldn’t reach evacuation buses. That left them stranded in the face of a deadly hurricane. Nearly 1,400 people died in the storm, many of them in flooded homes.

When millions of people are under evacuation orders, logistical issues also arise.

Two days ahead of landfall, Milton was a Category 5 hurricane. About 5 million people were under evacuation orders, and highways were crowded.

Gas shortages and traffic jams can leave people stranded on highways and unable to find shelter before the storm hits. This happened during Hurricane Floyd in 1999 as 2 million Floridians tried to evacuate.

People who experienced past evacuations or saw news video of congested highways ahead of Hurricane Milton might not leave for fear of getting stuck.

Health, pets and being physically able to leave

The logistics of evacuating are even more challenging for people who are disabled or in nursing homes. Additionally, people who are incarcerated may have no choice in the matter – and the justice system may have few options for moving them.

Evacuating nursing homes, people with disabilities or prison populations is complex. Many shelters are not set up to accommodate their needs. In one example during Hurricane Floyd, a disabled person arrived at a shelter, but the hallways were too narrow for their wheelchair, so they were restricted to a cot for the duration of their stay. Moving people whose health is fragile, and doing so under stressful conditions, can also worsen health problems, leaving nursing home staff to make difficult decisions.

At least 700 people stayed in chairs or on air mattresses at River Ridge Middle/High School in New Port Richey, Fla., during Hurricane Milton.
AP Photo/Mike Carlson

But failing to evacuate can also be deadly. During Hurricane Irma in 2017, seven nursing home residents died in the rising heat after their facility lost power near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In some cases, public water systems are shut down or become contaminated. And flooding can create several health hazards, including the risk of infectious diseases.

In a study of 291 long-term care facilities in Florida, 81% sheltered residents in place during the 2004 hurricane season because they had limited transportation options and faced issues finding places for residents to go.

Some shelters allow small pets, but many don’t. This high school-turned-shelter in New Port Richey, Fla., had 283 registered pets.
AP Photo/Mike Carlson

People with pets face another difficult choice – some choose to stay at home for fear of leaving their pet behind. Studies have found that pet owners are significantly less likely to evacuate than others because of difficulties transporting pets and finding shelters that will take them. In destructive storms, it can be days to weeks before people can return home.

Risk perception can also get in the way

People’s perceptions of risk can also prevent them from leaving.

A series of studies show that women and minorities take hurricane risks more seriously than other groups and are more likely to evacuate or go to shelters. One study found that women are almost twice as likely than men to evacuate when given a mandatory evacuation order.

If people have experienced a hurricane before that didn’t do significant damage, they may perceive the risks of a coming storm to be lower and not leave.

Video from across Florida after Hurricane Milton shows flooding around homes, trees down and other damage. At least five people died in the storm, and more than 3 million homes lost power.

In my review of research, I found that many people who didn’t evacuate had reservations about going to shelters and preferred to stay home or with family or friends. Shelter conditions were sometimes poor, overcrowded or lacked privacy.

People had fears about safety and whether shelter environments could meet their needs. For example, religious minorities were not sure whether shelters would be clean, safe, have private places for religious practice, and food options consistent with faith practices. Diabetics and people with young children also had concerns about finding appropriate food in shelters.

How to improve evacuations for the future

There are ways leaders can reduce the barriers to evacuation and shelter use. For example:

Building more shelters able to withstand hurricane force winds can create safe havens for people without transportation or who are unable to leave their jobs in time to evacuate.
Arranging more shelters and transportation able to accommodate people with disabilities and those with special needs, such as nursing home residents, can help protect vulnerable populations.
Opening shelters to accommodate pets with their owners can also increase the likelihood that pet owners will evacuate.
Public education can be improved so people know their options. Clearer risk communication on how these storms are different than past ones and what people are likely to experience can also help people make informed decisions.
Being prepared saves lives. Many areas would benefit from better advance planning that takes into account the needs of large, diverse populations and can ensure populations have ways to evacuate to safety. Läs mer…

Vitamin D is essential for bone health, immune function and overall wellbeing. And it becomes even more crucial as we age.

New guidelines from the international Endocrine Society recommend people aged 75 and over should consider taking vitamin D supplements.

But why is vitamin D so important for older adults? And how much should they take?

Young people get most vitamin D from the sun

In Australia, it is possible for most people under 75 to get enough vitamin D from the sun throughout the year. For those who live in the top half of Australia – and for all of us during summer – we only need to have skin exposed to the sun for a few minutes on most days.

The body can only produce a certain amount of vitamin D at a time. So staying in the sun any longer than needed is not going to help increase your vitamin D levels, while it will increase your risk of skin cancer.

But it’s difficult for people aged over 75 to get enough vitamin D from a few minutes of sunshine, so the Endocrine Society recommends people get 800 IU (international units) of vitamin D a day from food or supplements.

Why you need more as you age

This is higher than the recommendation for younger adults, reflecting the increased needs and reduced ability of older bodies to produce and absorb vitamin D.

Overall, older adults also tend to have less exposure to sunlight, which is the primary source of natural vitamin D production. Older adults may spend more time indoors and wear more clothing when outdoors.

As we age, our skin also becomes less efficient at synthesising vitamin D from sunlight.

The kidneys and the liver, which help convert vitamin D into its active form, also lose some of their efficiency with age. This makes it harder for the body to maintain adequate levels of the vitamin.

All of this combined means older adults need more vitamin D.

Deficiency is common in older adults

Despite their higher needs for vitamin D, people over 75 may not get enough of it.

Studies have shown one in five older adults in Australia have vitamin D deficiency.

In higher-latitude parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom, almost half don’t reach sufficient levels.

This increased risk of deficiency is partly due to lifestyle factors, such as spending less time outdoors and insufficient dietary intakes of vitamin D.

It’s difficult to get enough vitamin D from food alone. Oily fish, eggs and some mushrooms are good sources of vitamin D, but few other foods contain much of the vitamin. While foods can be fortified with the vitamin D (margarine, some milk and cereals), these may not be readily available or be consumed in sufficient amounts to make a difference.

In some countries such as the United States, most of the dietary vitamin D comes from fortified products. However, in Australia, dietary intakes of vitamin D are typically very low because only a few foods are fortified with it.

Why vitamin D is so important as we age

Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, which is essential for maintaining bone density and strength. As we age, our bones become more fragile, increasing the risk of fractures and conditions like osteoporosis.

Keeping bones healthy is crucial. Studies have shown older people hospitalised with hip fractures are 3.5 times more likely to die in the next 12 months compared to people who aren’t injured.

People over 75 often have less exposure to sunlight.
Aila Images/Shutterstock

Vitamin D may also help lower the risk of respiratory infections, which can be more serious in this age group.

There is also emerging evidence for other potential benefits, including better brain health. However, this requires more research.

According to the society’s systematic review, which summarises evidence from randomised controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation in humans, there is moderate evidence to suggest vitamin D supplementation can lower the risk of premature death.

The society estimates supplements can prevent six deaths per 1,000 people. When considering the uncertainty in the available evidence, the actual number could range from as many as 11 fewer deaths to no benefit at all.

Should we get our vitamin D levels tested?

The Endocrine Society’s guidelines suggest routine blood tests to measure vitamin D levels are not necessary for most healthy people over 75.

There is no clear evidence that regular testing provides significant benefits, unless the person has a specific medical condition that affects vitamin D metabolism, such as kidney disease or certain bone disorders.

Routine testing can also be expensive and inconvenient.

In most cases, the recommended approach to over-75s is to consider a daily supplement, without the need for testing.

You can also try to boost your vitamin D by adding fortified foods to your diet, which might lower the dose you need from supplementation.

Even if you’re getting a few minutes of sunlight a day, a daily vitamin D is still recommended. Läs mer…

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a product of a unique time in American filmmaking, when independent exploitation films were nastier than ever, and equally capable of piercing the mainstream consciousness.

Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film arrived in a recently transformed exhibition landscape. The 1967 outcry over onscreen violence in Bonnie and Clyde marked the end of Hollywood’s Motion Picture Production Code and the introduction of film ratings.

Films like Easy Rider (1969) elevated the standing of formerly disreputable exploitation fare within Hollywood. By 1973, The Exorcist was packing out cinemas and producing lines around city blocks with the promise of the most unremitting horror film yet made.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was shot quickly on a shoestring budget, financed in part by the newly-formed Texas Film Commission. The film assembled its cast and crew from Austin’s circles of recent college graduates and dropouts.

Its plot is straightforward enough: a group of young people are stranded when they run out of gas in rural Texas. They are terrorised and subsequently murdered by an eccentric local family, including the chainsaw wielding Leatherface – a nonverbal, childlike giant who wears masks made from the skin of his flayed victims.

We learn this family have lost their jobs at the local slaughterhouse with the introduction of bolt gun technologies, leaving them sell roadside meat made from human victims.

This detail has inspired a range of thematic interpretations for the film, encompassing commentary on class and family, gender and animal rights.

The film lays bare the horrors of meat production, inflicted on human victims. The family home is the site where these themes come into conflict.

Porn and violence on screen

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was picked up by the Bryanston Distributing Company. In 1972, Bryanston was the distributor for the theatrical release of the hardcore pornographic film Deep Throat. The film’s success shifted popular discourse around pornography, and helped Bryanston widen the theatrical release for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

In subsequent years, media reported on alleged abusive on-set conditions on Deep Throat, along with claims Bryanston was connected with organised crime. Director Hooper, and many of the Chain Saw Massacre cast, alleged they never received their share of box office from the distributor.

A 1974 poster.
Ralf Liebhold/Shutterstock

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s proximity to Deep Throat stoked controversy, conflating concern about increasingly extreme depictions of sex and violence onscreen.

Two years earlier, young filmmaker Wes Craven had transitioned from making pornography to horror film. His low budget rape-revenge exploitation film The Last House on the Left (1972) was originally developed as a hardcore pornographic film. This approach was abandoned when it entered production.

Unlike Craven’s notorious film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is not overtly sexualised. While there may be a sexual undertone to Leatherface’s pursuit of Sally and her companions, it does not escalate to onscreen acts of sexual violence.

Regardless, the film drew condemnation, particularly in the United Kingdom, where it was banned, and later figured in public debates about the censorship of “video nasties” in the 1980s.

For my part, I remember encountering The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at the video rental store as a child: its title, cover and R-rating promised horrors beyond comprehension, many years before I actually saw the film itself.

Horrors implied, rather than shown

Beyond its controversies, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre played an important role in the developing field of horror film studies. It figures prominently in Robin Wood’s taxonomy of “reactionary” horror movies (which uphold traditional values) and “progressive” horror movies, which take a more ambivalent stance on the figure of the monster, challenging conservative social values. Wood counts The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in the latter category.

It is also central to Carol J. Clover’s influential codification of the “final girl” narrative trope, in which a sole young woman is able to withstand the monster’s onslaught.

Alongside Halloween (1978), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre helped steer the trajectory of American horror films in the 1980s.

Halloween is situated within the manicured surroundings of suburbia, and conveys its menace through the slick technical qualities of its gliding camera, and John Carpenter’s staccato synth score.

By contrast, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre locates its horror in the backroads and decrepit farmhouses of central Texas. The idea of Texas looms large, connoting a place of lawlessness, violence and danger.

Hooper punctuates his long shots with extreme close ups via rapid editing. The film’s most grotesque horrors are implied, rather than shown. Its most visceral impact comes from its extended chase sequences, and via its soundtrack: Sally’s piercing screams, and Leatherface’s ever-present chainsaw.

While the Texas Chain Saw Massacre spawned several sequels and influenced even more imitators over the years, from the Ramones to Wolf Creek (2005) and X (2022), it has rarely been matched in its intensity, and its harrowing, visceral impact. Läs mer…

This week the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls presented a report detailing the violence experienced by women and girls in sport globally.

The report provides a global snapshot of the abuse women athletes experience, who is most likely to perpetrate the violence, and makes recommendations on what should been done to promote safety of women and girls.

Off the back of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic games, where Australia cheered on the record-breaking success of women athletes, the report should be a wake-up call for Australian sports and clubs.

Abuse of women and girls in sport

Drawing on more than 100 submissions and consultations with 50 people, the report finds:

Women and girls in sport face widespread, overlapping and grave forms and manifestations of violence at all levels.

These abusive behaviours include coercive control, physical violence, corporal punishment, verbal abuse, social exclusion, bullying and identity abuse.

The impacts of this violence are wide-ranging: physical injuries, insomnia, fear and anxiety, reduced self-confidence, substance misuse, eating disorders, self harm, and decline in athletic performance and participation.

These impacts can extend well beyond the athlete’s involvement in their sport.

Women and girls also experience economic violence in sport. For example, when women athletes do not have control over their earnings, or when they are coerced into signing exploitative contracts.

The report notes women athletes also experience heightened rates of abusive and harassing behaviours in online settings. This includes sexual harassment and threats, racism, ridicule, body shaming, sexualised comments, stalking, doxing and revenge porn.

Perpetrators are wide-ranging. They include coaches, managers, spectators, teachers, peers, sports lawyers, referees and medical staff.

The report describes sexual harassment and abuse as “rampant” and acknowledges the high rate of sexual violence, in particular with relationships between coaches and athletes.

This includes grooming of younger athletes, where power and control dynamics, combined with an abuse of trust between an adult and child athlete, provide the conditions for sexual abuse to proliferate.

It follows a 2023 report from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and UN Women, which estimates 21% of girls worldwide have experienced at least one form of sexual abuse as a child in sport.

Is this a problem in Australia?

Australians often pride themselves on how sports bring the nation, communities and families together but we too have a wide-reaching problem in this area.

In 2021, a review of Swimming Australia found women athletes and coaches had experienced physical and mental abuse while the “Change the Routine” review of Gymnastics Australia revealed child abuse and neglect, misconduct, bullying, abuse, sexual harassment and assault towards gymnasts.

More recently, a review by Sports Integrity Australia into Australian volleyball, which revealed systemic verbal and physical abuse of athletes, prompted a formal apology to past athletes.

And a 2024 Deakin University study showed 87% of Australian sportswomen had experienced online harm within the past year.

A lack of accountability and consequence

In the traditionally male-dominated culture of sport, abusers have often gone unsanctioned, while those who experience abuse often leave their sport early and with significant consequences to their careers, financial stability, and mental and physical wellbeing.

There are examples where abuse has been minimised or ignored by those in leadership to protect the reputation of the team or the sporting code, and where coaches have been able to move between teams without consequence.

Take, for example, the sexual abuse of young female gymnasts by United States coach Larry Nassar.

The first complaint against Nassar was made in 1997. Despite this, and the numerous other complaints which followed, Nassar remained in his coaching position with USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University until 2015. In December 2017 he was convicted of numerous counts of sexual abuse of minors.

Outcomes of investigations by sporting bodies often remain confidential. For example, in 2017 the Fremantle Dockers and the AFL were criticised for their use of a “confidentiality agreement” in settling a sexual harassment matter.

This impunity demonstrates a significant lack of accountability.

The barriers to reporting abuse in sport

There are significant barriers to reporting.

Women elite athletes may fear losing their funding and sponsorship deals if they report abuse.

In Australia, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard child athletes are most at risk of experiencing abuse by a person of authority (such as a coach) when they are about to achieve their best performance.

As the UN Report states, it is at this time that “there is very little to gain by revealing the abuse and too much to lose”.

This must change.

When sporting codes put a desire to win above safeguarding and accountability, the clear message sent to victims is that violence is excusable, and that sporting heroes are immune to the consequences of their abusive actions.

Raising awareness around early identification of abusive behaviours is key.

The UN report reveals athletes often feel uncertain and uncomfortable in identifying early forms of abusive behaviours and lack information on what supports are available to them when they do.

Ensuring a suite of reporting pathways is also critical. There is no one-size-fits-all model.

Why Australia should take the lead

Participating in sport has significant benefits. But sport settings must be safe for all.

Many sporting organisations and clubs have recognised the problem of abuse of women and girls in sport, rolling out respect and responsibility programs, sexual harassment policies, as well as clearer reporting and investigation policies.

This is a good start but must be built on.

Indeed, the safety of women and girls must be a key focus of the Australian High Performance “Win Well” strategy for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Recent initiatives and policy changes should be monitored to examine how they work and whether they deliver safer outcomes for women and girls in sport at all levels.

Responses to proven allegations of abuse must hold perpetrators to account. And critically, investigations must be independent, transparent and timely.

The UN report reminds us “sports is a microcosm of society”.

Violence against women and children in Australia has been declared a national emergency – ensuring the safety of women and girls in all sport settings is one critical component of addressing that crisis. Läs mer…

This is my data. And this is my sovereign right.No more whitewashing. Let Truth be told.

— Data Sovereignty Words

I am a Wajarri, Badimaya and Wilunyu woman from the Yamaji Nation who has grown up on country with family in the small rural inland community of Mullewa, in Western Australia. In this story, I weave together some of my journey through the space of colonial archive violence, silences, and the creation of family stories where there was once a void, filling it with family love.

Love is often defined as an intense feeling of deep affection and a great interest in something and/or someone. We love our Old People, our Ancestors, and we want to know more about them so they can be part of our story and life journeys – this is wrapped in an intense Aboriginal love that is not often
recognised. It is an Aboriginal love that takes love even further and is shown when we speak about our love for country, culture, family and Old People.

The Aboriginal love I speak of is when we march, write, sing, weave a basket, create art, return to country often and slowly work through colonial archives, even when it breaks our hearts to do so.

Here, I step into parts of my country that other cultural members might avoid, consider taboo and/or may find somewhat difficult to navigate. This is not easy storytelling, and it rarely is when we speak about trauma, family, violence
and colonial archives. But one of the ways we can find family love is by sifting through the colonial archive of violence and trauma.

Charmaine Papertalk Green sitting on her birth country, Eradu Greenough River, WA.
Tamati Smith

There are many Yamaji families like mine who grew up on country with their families. But this does not mean that we don’t have stories to tell around the violence and trauma that colonial archives bring to our family kitchen tables.

In every corner of this big land now called Australia, all Aboriginal people have been touched by colonisation in some way or another. There are many stories of colonial violence through the generations – we all have different stories to tell and share.

This is some of my story, my family story and a Yamaji story.

‘Native welfare’ files – Geraldton, WA

I am kin to the colonial archive’s violenceFamily stories of removal, genocide andSocial experiments of eugenics and inhumaneTreatments of a First peoples on own countryNganajungu yungatha needs our medicine

— Yamaji kin songline

Yamaji people cannot access colonial records in Geraldton or Mullewa, because those records are physically stored in Perth archives, 420 kilometres south.

In the past 15 years, I have driven, flown and taken the bus down to Perth in order to access “native welfare” files and any other colonial records. I have
searched for any family-related data that I could lay my hands and eyes on. These actions are part of that Aboriginal love of our Old People I spoke to earlier – making time for our Ancestors.

Although I started this journey with family names, dates, place names and family oral history, I still bumped into colonial archive violence and trauma.

On one Perth trip, I was told during a very casual conversation with an Aboriginal History Research Services staff member in East Perth: “perhaps the 1972 Geraldton fire destroyed some of your Old People’s government files?”

The comments were surprisingly offhand and matter of fact, just like crumpling up unwanted paper and throwing it in the waste basket. This response was said in a way that seemed like an excuse if, after searching, there wasn’t any information available.

I really thought how irresponsible and uncaring of the Western Australian government this was. How it devalued the historical data of Yamaji people, by these people who prided themselves on being a culture that wrote down everything with their “civilised” writing system. One could be led to believe that a fire ripped through the Geraldton “native welfare department”, destroying the archives.

In the past, I had heard whispers in the Geraldton community of “native welfare”
files being destroyed in a fire. I had heard that a few files survived, taken by Aboriginal staff working in the department at the time, but have never spoken to those Elders. The reality is much more violent, sinister and hurtful for Yamaji people searching for genealogy, truth-telling and family truths.

The truth is that some government “native welfare” bureaucrat ordered deliberate destruction of the archives by burning them in a 44-gallon drum. A junior Aboriginal public servant was instructed to carry out the action at the time, and I am more than grateful that he shared his story publicly so that we know the truth. This is the truth-telling needed.

Some Yamaji ‘native welfare’ files were deliberately burned in Geraldton, WA.
Engin Akyurt/Unsplash

During my autoethnographic research journey, a newspaper article emerged confirming the Geraldton fire and the deliberate destruction of Yamaji colonial records. All I could think of was the Yamaji children removed and stolen by this violent Western Australian government.

I wondered: did I have some relatives out there that I will never know? And what about those who were stolen and their descendants who may never find their way back home? These are the sad and heartbreaking realities carried by many Yamaji people in their daily lives. But the Aboriginal love deep inside of us, transported across generations, will not allow memories and stories to disappear and vanish.

The Geraldton archival “fire burning” was in the 1970s, an era of “self-determination” and the emergence of Aboriginal rights organisations, land rights and identity pride.

I liken the violent act of deliberately burning paper connections to people, culture and country to cutting an umbilical cord between a mother and child, and then swiftly removing that child. The other thing I want to mention is the way governments and the white man are always trying to cover up the trauma trails inflicted on Yamaji people.

Family colonial records, aka Native Welfare Files.
CP Green

The trauma many Yamaji families face when trying to piece together family history is heartbreaking. Many stories and lived realities have been bravely shared by those taken away and by families diving deep into colonial archives. These stories and journeys help us all learn and understand how Aboriginal culture
and its people were violently attacked during colonisation as a form of genocide.

A sliver of information or data can make the world of difference to Yamaji family connection, belonging and identity. And those Yamaji who bravely push through
colonial archive pages do so with love and are indeed part of their family line of healers.

Heart-pain sisters

Where? The space is not silent/ never silent/ You cansit out in the bush/ Insect’s drone, ears ringing/ In thequietest places and times/ I can hear my breathing/ I canhear my heartbeat/ People talk about control

— Just Like That

I want to touch on the trauma that comes with silence and being silent. I am referring to the silences we carry that may have been inherited intergenerationally, or the silence that arrives and lingers after tragedy strikes. Or when our Elders pass on. The silences that bring trauma to individuals, families, cultural groups, and a community.

I want to share an experience at a Geraldton event that evoked intense personal feelings connected to these types of silences and heart emotions.

A local Aboriginal poet was doing some public poetry reading and she mentioned her “heart pains” – a pain she described as being connected to not knowing her grandparents and the jealousy she felt when seeing grandmothers with their
grandchildren. At that very moment she became my “heart pain” sister, with her words stitching straight into my heart because this was a feeling I knew.

But of course, I never did tell her or share my feelings with her – I didn’t want to bond over trauma in that way. I guess we just continued to carry our invisible “heart pains” in our daily lives. I, too, didn’t know my grandparents, especially my grandmothers, and longed for a granddaughter–grandmother relationship with wisdom, love and caring. But, instead, I was handed some painful silences and both of my grandmothers’ graves to drive past each day at the Geraldton cemetery.

I don’t have a special grandmother recipe to hand on to family, or grandparent stories to share around a campfire with extended family. But what I do have is recipes handed down from my mother – such as kangaroo-tail brawn. Over the
years, I did wonder why there were these silences in my family.

Kangaroo tail brawn, made by Charmaine Papertalk Green from a recipe passed down from her mother.
CP Green

What I do understand is that Nanna Alice died 25 years before I was born, and Grandmother Green died when I was 11 years old. This means all their knowledge, stories and information was handed only to those in direct contact with them at the time – their family members, including my parents.

One of the old Yamaji cultural practices I don’t like is when those who have passed are not spoken of again using their names that were used in the living world. I absolutely respect this cultural practice, but I don’t like that family and cultural information could be lost when not talking family names and
when cultural knowledge is not forwarded to each generation.

I tried to ask Mum and her brother questions about their mother, Alice Papertalk, who had died young at 42 years of age in Geraldton. Mum whispered some very important stories over the years, but her brother reluctantly shared stories. They both looked so sad when I did ask, and I now understand this was their “heart pain” of losing their mother so young.

These were contributing reasons for the family silence wrapped inside the Yamaji cultural practice of not speaking of those who had passed and then the “heart pain” reasons felt by our parents and their siblings.

Alternative Archives Collage by Charmaine Papertalk Green and Mark Smith, Geraldton WA.
Held in GRAG Collection

The colonial records offer different types of silences and some of the reasons why our families remained silent or were deliberately silenced. I had to work through these silences to bring family stories alive for myself and other family-tree members. I did not get to learn the meanings of these family silences from old Ancestors who had passed before I was born.

But I did get the sad silences from my mum and her brother when they whispered of their Old People. I could read from their body language, their eyes and the lowering of their heads when they did not want to talk to me about something. I had to accept the family silences held something that I needed to find to complete our family stories.

I did find my answers after they had all passed away.

A family silence narrative

It is a real thing, isn’t it, the silences that are carried forward across generations? I often hear other Yamaji say, “I wasn’t told that story” or “No-one told me about them Old People” or “We don’t know our Old People before our grandparents”. We learn over the years that silence talks and can tell us many things if we are patient and learn silence-listening. There was not much talk, family-tree talk, about our maternal great-grandfather: he was mainly referred to as Old Darby; I call him Old Gami Darby.

Therefore, family history and stories about this great-grandfather were not really handed down to my generation beyond knowing his name. There again was an unexplained silence. There was a near erasure of this great-grandfather from our family tree, and I found this quite distressing.

I could not stop thinking over the years why there was a strong “quietness” around this Ancestor. I wanted to know about all my Yamaji Ancestors. This great-grandfather was part of my identity – he is part of my identity. He is my identity. His story and name deserve to be carried forward in the world that colonisation brought to this land. I want to honour him.

The death certificate for Charmaine Papertalk Green’s grandmother, Alice Papertalk Darby, who died young, aged 42.
CP Green

It was while delving into colonial archives at the State Records Office of Western Australia in Perth that I learnt of my great-grandfather’s tragic fate. He was murdered – shot dead by another Aboriginal man between Meeberrie Station and Mount Narryer Station in the Murchison. Perhaps, closer to Meeberrie Station.

It was his son, Gami Big Jack Darby (Nanna Alice’s brother) who on 30 December 1917 reported to the Yalgoo Police Station that “he had received information that his father had been murdered by native Sam” (Yalgoo Police Station, 1919). I was quite shocked to find out great-grandfather Old Gami Darby was murdered in the Murchison.

This new family knowledge lifted the veil on the “family silence” handed down generationally – my mother did not talk about this happening to her grandfather. I wondered if she even knew about this sad and tragic information confronting me on the pages of a colonial document. This discovery was quite heavy, smothering me, and I felt I just needed to get out of the State Records Office to breathe and process what I had just read.

Once outside the dark confines of that department, I phoned a cousin to share this additional family information because I didn’t want to hold this type of information by myself. I needed to share it and share it fast because the trauma it brought was not going to be handed down into the next generations in silence.
In many ways, this discovery gave answers and reasons as to why stories about Great-grandfather Old Gami Darby were probably not passed down the generations.

My grandmother Alice Darby was a very young mother having her first child
when her father was murdered, between Meeberrie Station and Mount Narryer Station. I am not sure if Grandmother Alice went back to Meeberrie Station to live after moving south to the Mullewa area with Pop Ned Papertalk.

Her sister Thumma was buried at Meeberrie, and her mother Angeline worked and lived there, although Grandmother Alice worked and stayed at Woolgorong Outcamp and other stations in the Midwest and Murchison. That Alice died in her early 40s in Geraldton is another significant contributing factor to the lack of family oral history handed down around her father, Old Gami Darby.

My mother told me her maternal grandfather was from the Murchison and lived in the Meeberrie and Mount Narryer station areas and Murchison. His name was Tommy Darby or Old Darby. That was the end of the conversation, but it didn’t satisfy my need to break family silences, or my need to know more.

Charmaine Papertalk Green’s maternal great-grandfather lived in the areas of Meeberrie and Mount Narryer station (pictured, circa 1919) and Murchison.
Flickr

I wanted to know more information, so I had to search through more records, audio recordings and personal stories of other family members. My mum and all her siblings had passed away by the time I found this information in Perth about his death.

The sad thing is that this silence meant we did not have great-grandfather stories passed down to share with the younger generation. It is because of this I have decided to create a great-grandfather story of this Yamaji male Ancestor in the Murchison. A story I can pass on to other family members, and they can pass to their family members. This story is based on the last day in the life of Old Gami Darby in the Murchison.

The colonial records at least gave me some information and ways to find family love for this Ancestor to enable family silences to be broken and for our family healing tree. I can’t even begin to explain my mixed emotions in doing this, but it’s mainly so that the love for an Old Gami Darby narrative can be built on into the future.

There are some of us who refuse to go into colonial archives, for many reasons. But then there are others, such as me, who delve right in and navigate through the colonial writing, colonial pages and colonial mindsets of another era and a not-so-friendly colonial culture, to try to make sense of the impact of colonisation and to make sense of our family stories in this unforgiving process of colonisation.

I cannot talk about other cultural members’ relationship with colonial archives because it is such a personal private space, and I shouldn’t be expected to do that. My relationship with the colonial archives has been one where I was searching with a purpose for missing pieces to complete family stories and create new family stories.

I wanted to firstly have a look, then claim back my Old People’s stories from those colonial pages. I wanted to pull those words off the pages and tuck them safely away in my notepad and bag to take home. I wanted to imagine and create an Old Gami Darby story based on the colonial court records, police records and the oral history from my mother and her family.

I was anxious reading the court records. There were many thoughts rushing through my head about the Yamaji people with Old Gami Darby in the same camp when he got shot.

Was it an accidental murder or was it something more sinister? What was their relationship to Old Gami Darby and were they afraid to carry the story forward?
What exactly did they tell their families and descendants? Far too many thoughts flooded me, but at the end of the day I wanted to honour Old Gami Darby by writing a short story about his last day on this earth and on his country.

I don’t have all the information and am basing the following story on what I do have. Well, it’s more of a reflection and my imagining from documents I have.

Alternative Archives Collage by Charmaine Papertalk Green and Mark Smith, Geraldton WA.
Held in GRAG Collection

The last day of my great-grandfather, Gami Darby

In December, the Murchison in Western Australia is an extremely hot place, with temperatures up in the thirties or more. On 17 December 1917, a group of Yamaji (six adults and one little girl) set up camp on what they called the Meeberrie–
Mount Narryer Station run. The Yamajis recorded present were called Mary Jane, Polly, Tommy (our great-grandfather Old Gami Darby), Jinnie, Girlie, Sam and Jinnie’s little girl Annie.

On this day Old Gami Darby was wearing a khaki shirt and blue flannel pants. He also had a piece of a magnifying glass on him, quite possibly to read or look at things close-up. It was a hot morning with no clouds in sight when Old Gami Darby, Jinnie (aka Jubyjub) and little girl Annie went to the creek looking for a tomahawk wood handle. Girlie, Mary Jane and Polly stayed at the camp while Sam went into the bush with his rifle – maybe hunting with his rifle.

At some stage during the day, Girlie, Mary Jane and Polly heard a gunshot thinking it was someone – perhaps Sam – kangaroo shooting. Then they heard and saw Jinnie running back towards the camp screaming, “Someone shot my mardong
[man]”. (Meaning Great-grandfather Tommy – Old Gami Darby.)

Jinnie rushed back to the camp looking for something to cover Old Gami Darby, who was shot on the ground. Girlie, Mary Jane and Polly went to have a look at where Old Gami Darby laid deceased on the ground. Sam, who was described as a very tall
Yamaji man about six foot, was standing there with his gun and threatening everyone with what would happen if they “told any other blackfellas”. Sam told the group that Great-grandfather Tommy (Old Gami Darby) was struck by lightning.

The Yamaji women told the police there were no clouds in the sky – it was a hot day. Sam made them all help with digging a shallow grave and then burying Great-grandfather Tommy, Old Gami Darby. Sam then took off with Jinnie and the little girl Annie heading towards the Kennedy Ranges in the Gascoyne.

Sam was not convicted for murdering our great-grandfather, Old Gami Darby, because there were no actual eyewitnesses – they only heard the sound of the gunshot. This was our Old Gami Darby’s last day alive in the Murchison. Months later, Pop Big Jack Darby (Nanna Alice’s brother) is recorded by the Yalgoo Police Station as having taken his father Old Gami Darby’s body to the Mount Narryer Station area for reburial at a site unknown.

Old Gami Darby we been waiting for youTo sing your song through the MidwestAnd Murchison bush and open skyMeebeerie and Mount Narryer is noStranger even if we live in townTo stare into the campfire in MullewaAnd in Geraldton and send you loveOld Gami Darby we been waiting for you

Old Gami Darby I been waiting for youTo share your name and story

— Old Gami Darby

Colonial archives trauma

One of our cultural practices or protocols throughout Australia is to introduce yourself and let people know your cultural groups and family names. It is a custom of positioning yourself in the First Nations world. Letting people know who your relatives are and where your ancestral country is located, your connections.

Colonisation severely disrupted this cultural practice by erasing and disconnecting Yamaji people from place, people and family. In my journey through the colonial archives, native title conversations with anthropologists and others, the presence of alias names caused confusion, frustration and trauma.

This concept of alias names is often found in colonial files with the symbol @ – for example, Alice@Helen. There were arguments over Yamaji with two or more names being in fact the same person, especially when some Yamaji didn’t understand the impact of alias names.

The actions of pastoral station owners, police officers, colonial records administrators and others changed Yamaji identities with the stroke of a pen, most times creating a tangled identity web that was complex to unravel.

These pastoralists, colonists and so forth gave some of my Ancestors different names depending on where they were located (which station they were living at) – they just went ahead and changed their names. The colonials erased and removed traditional names because they couldn’t pronounce or spell the Yamaji names. And all these assimilationist practices were acceptable because Yamaji culture was not valued or considered part of the colonisers’ world.

The community tensions created around identity and connection exist to this day, with other Yamaji confused and not aware of or understanding the impact of name changing on stations or in colonial records.

In the colonial archives, my mother’s maiden name Papertalk was spelt Papidok and Paperdog. My maternal grandmother’s names in the same colonial file were recorded as Alice Darby, Ella Merritt, Alice Papertalk, Alice Marlow, Alice Paperdog and Helen Marlow. Even my family’s younger generation became confused, not understanding the name alias concept.

My maternal grandmother’s sister’s traditional name was Thumma/Tama and yet in her colonial files, depending on which station she was at or partner she had, her names were recorded as Tama Wells, Thelma Wells, Bessie Wells and Bessie Pompey. This grandmother’s sister was buried at Meebeerie Station with the incorrect name Bessie Papertalk – it was her sister Alice (my grandmother) who had married a Papertalk.

The Native Affairs records of Charmaine Papertalk Green’s grandmother’s sister, Thumma/Tama, often record her name incorrectly.
CP Green

All of this data will be corrected out at the Meeberrie cemetery in the Murchison.

I am just a little paper dogReady to bite your anklesAnd chase you in the vaultsOf truth telling to open your eyes

— Little paper dog

The concept of name alias has caused many arguments and distrust in the local native title process because many Yamajis do not know or understand that Yamaji people’s names were changed and given nicknames and aliases by station owners, native affairs recording clerks and other government officials.

The process of erasure and colonisation meant discarding traditional Yamaji names and replacing them with English names and terms.

Data sovereignty: ‘It is Yamaji data’

The colonial archives were never created for Yamaji people. They were a racist colonial tool to control and manage Yamaji. We understand that the collection of our Old People’s data in this way came from a place outside of Aboriginal love.

Knowing about the how and why hurts in many different ways for different Yamaji families. A lot of times, it is a hurt so deep that our Old People’s stories waiting inside these files remain untouched, hidden and silenced. I only understand that real deep hurt and trauma exists because of stories I have been
told from other Yamaji people and some of my own family members.

I came into this journey 20 years ago as an adult, carrying my suitcase of knowledge and experience of what to expect inside the files and on the pages. I needed patience, courage and the ability to work through searching with Aboriginal love. This doesn’t mean I didn’t get angry, feel sad and cry, or just feel so grateful – a range of emotions existed, but I came prepared.

The colonial writing would be hard to read, so translating would take time. The words and terms used were racist, derogatory but expected. This fuelled me with the energy needed to push on through each page of each file. I came to this journey accepting that any data written about my family and Old People was our Yamaji data. This data belonged to us. It was Yamaji data, regardless of who wrote it and what it was written on, and I claimed our data as it is my right.

I had decided to claim any colonial records such as the so-called “native welfare files” as a way to gain insight into the lives and reality of my Old People in times I would not experience and live as a teenager or an adult. This is the
relationship I wanted with colonial records. I prepared myself to sift through with Aboriginal love for my Old People.

I was determined these colonial archives would not harm me or my family, but rather bring healing benefits to my Yamaji family tree.

We deserve stories and knowing from the colonial archive perspective to stitch with our Yamaji cultural knowledge. It is our deepest honour to our Yamaji Old People. And while the burning of the files hurt, it didn’t erase our right to our data sovereignty and love our people. I am still thinking about you, my family.

Ngatha Nganajungu yagu NganggurnmanhaI am still thinking about you my motherNgatha Nganajungu mama NganggurnmanhaMy father I am still thinking about youNgatha Nganajungu gantharri NganggurnmanhaI am still thinking about you my older brotheryounger brotherNgatha Nganajungu gami NganggurnmanhaI am still thinking about you my grandfatherNgatha Nganajungu Aba NganggurnmanhaI am still thinking about you my grandmotherNgatha Nganajungu (family) NganggurnmanhaI am still thinking about you my family

— Nganajungu Yagu

This essay is an edited extract from Shapeshifting: First Nations Lyric Nonfiction by Jeanine Leane & Ellen van Neerven (UQP). Läs mer…