Healing from Colonial Harms: Exploring the Individual and Collective Responsibility of Settler Australians

Healing from colonial harms: exploring the individual and collective responsibility of settler Australians

This seminar will feature the memoir, The Chosen Son, published in 2024 by UC Adjunct Professor Leanne Weber. The book recounts Leanne’s experiences of growing up in Adelaide in the 1960s and 70s with an Aboriginal foster brother. It approaches the Stolen Generations story from a novel perspective, as the author grapples with questions of personal and collective responsibility for the incalculable harms inflicted by these policies. Ahead of Sorry Day on 26 May 2025, the event will reflect on the anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report and commemorates Stolen Generations survivors. It will also highlight the unfinished business of the Bringing them Home report, captured in The Healing Foundation’s latest report, Are you waiting for us to die?.

The discussion will focus on the imperative for healing at both an individual and national level, acknowledging that settler Australians who are aware of their family’s role in colonial policies may need to undertake their own process of healing in order to play an effective role in collective accountability and truth telling.

Reviewing The Chosen Son and interviewing Leanne will be Mary Spiers Williams from the University of Technology Sydney Law School and former Associate Dean Indigenous Studies at the Australian National University.