If I mark yes on that identity box, then that is who I am definitively, there is no ambiguity. However, as Grant points out, it also, in cases where heritage is mixed (like Grant’s, like many indigenous people’s), forces them to deny other aspects of themselves, to exclude other members of their families.Īnd so it forces Grant, for example, to deny his Irish grandmother Ivy. As a person with a keen interest in the pros and cons of “labelling”, I’m aware of the obvious implication of this, that is, that it marks or separates people out. In On identity, he explores this “exclusivity”, and its ramifications, starting with those boxes we see on all sorts of forms – including the census – that asks whether you are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. In my post on that event, I wrote that his main point about identity was its tendency to exclusivity. He did this orally at the conversation event I attended a couple of months ago, and he does it in this long-form essay called On identity. I say this because of the way he synthesises his wide range of reading – including philosophy, history, psychology, history, anthropology, and literature – into coherent ideas that support his arguments. Grant could also be described as a (modern) Renaissance man. He is also a Walkley Award-winning journalist (see my Monday Musings on this award), and the author of Talking to my country, which I reviewed a couple of years ago. Grant is described in the bio at the front of his book, On identity, as “a self-described Indigenous Australian who counts himself among the Wiradjuri, Kamilaroi, Dharrawal and Irish.” The bio goes on to say that “ his identities embrace all and exclude none“. For everyone else, though, a brief introduction.
He therefore needs no introduction for Aussies. He pops up regularly on shows, sometimes as presenter, other times as interviewee.
I don’t say this disrespectfully, which I fear is how it may come across given Grant’s views “on identity”, but it feels true – particularly if you watch or listen to the ABC. Stan Grant seems to be the indigenous-person-du-jour here in Australia.
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