Autobiographical Memory in an Aboriginal Australian Community

Culture, Place and Narrative.

Even though interdisciplinarity is virtually universally advocated in the various disciplines which comprise the growing field of memory studies, it remains in very short supply. Anne Marie Monchamp addresses that need by integrating philosophy, anthropology and psychology with participant-observation fieldwork.

This book shares and analyses the stories of Opal, a senior Alyawarra woman. The stories reveal glimpses of the harsh colonial realities that many Aboriginal Australians have faced and, in doing so, make clear that culture cannot be reduced to content - it is not only in the words of the story that we find culture but also in, for example, the narrative structure, the temporal flow and the word choices.

Thus, this work seeks to create a context for the interpretation of these stories, rather than only providing translation, simultaneously analysing them to reveal insights about culture and autobiographical memory.